Early Risers.

[roundhouse]

Morning

I am sorry to say that Hornby will not be taken over by Mr A unless he managed to get to Los Angeles to buy a ticket and back to NYC as its reported that the new billionaire bought the ticket in LA.

Talking of orders going wrong, I ordered the Amtrak veterans loco in N scale off Amtrak back in October. It's dealt with by Staples who then email you stating how much they add for handling the order for international shipping. It ain't cheap but it's the only way to get this loco. I had to reply confirming the charge was OK but no loco yet.

So I emailed them yesterday and they didn't receive my email reply. Fingers crossed its now being dealt with but at least they did reply promptly to my query.

Our first outing this year to borough Market pubs last night as the Rake had an American beer night. left Hand Brewery Milk Spit is gorgeous even at over seven quid a pint.Quite a few pale and IPA beers. We then moved on to the Market Porter to finish off.

On more mundane things the individual platform departure boards have gone on haywire this morning although the summary info boards are working. Also looks like er s a problem on the platform heading south as the train there has been sitting a while with all red signals showing. Also a reported bridge bash delaying services around the Crystal Palace area. Ours is a few minutes down so no real change there.

This morning one of the buffer beams was removed from Royal Alex so that it could be straightened. Now refixed and setting on the chassis.

Edited January 14, 2016 by roundhouse

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all

 

To be greeted at the door by "I didn't want you to come" is not the most encouraging start to a visit.  This of course was Poorly Pal.  Fortunately he perked up when I showed him the two new books on London trolleybuses that I had brought to show him and despite his earlier misgivings he ate and appeared to enjoy the stir fried chicken with hoi sin sauce that I cooked for us both.  This has to be better than meals on wheels, of which there was much evidence in his kitchen without any evidence that he was thinking of making the short trip to the recycling bin to dispose of the empty take-away style trays.  PP is the owner of the shed where the layout loves and in between my health-visitor duties I was able to apply a 4mm scale representation of creosote to the gates of a cattle pen [Humbrol 29 if anyone was wondering].  Even the promise of a talk by Chris Green at the local branch of the Royal Corps of Train Spotters was insufficient to lure him from the house and at 5.30 pm he was very keen that I left.  So I did, still feeling helpless.  He seems to be cutting himself off from all that he does.  This is dangerous, not because boredom cannot be far away but because if you give up a task that people rely on you to perform a replacement will be found and then where will you be?

 

Two nice things happened yesterday.  I won a book in the RCTS raffle and when I got home there on the doormat was a cheque from Ernie.  Both of these are fine in themselves but no consolation for the visible decomposition of a friend.

 

On this unhappy note, best wishes to all, whether ailing or not.

 

Chris

[gordon s]

Gordon (gordon s), thanks for that link to the BR programme. Cost me time though, as I had to watch it on iPlayer, and there are other episodes in the series, one of which was about Bernard Lovell and Jodrell Bank. I simply had to watch that as well (see interest above!). You didn't mention how you got on at the John Radcliffe, parking apart?

 

Kind regards,

Jock.

G'night Pete! G'night All!

 

I really enjoyed it as well.  Some great footage of the APT, the early HST and the other one that looks like K9.....:-)

 

Got a mental block this morning....

 

Sorry Jock, I forgot to say my blood levels are OK, but they are concerned about problems with my feet.  I won't bore you with the details, but it appears to be nerve related not poor circulation.  Could be something related to my spinal surgery a few years back.  

 

Que sera sera at our age.

 

Disappointed 9 holes are open this morning.  Carry only.  I had hoped I could get on with ET, but meeting up with my Thursday mates is always enjoyable.

[skipepsi]

Morning all, back to work today sitting and trying to listen for the morning and sit in the office and write for the afternoon. If I had to do physical work I would be off ill a lot longer. There is no snow to be seen but the cat and fiddle was closed yesterday due to ice, nanny state or people who can't drive you decide. Toast and tea and up and at them. Hope the day goes well for everyone.

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

....we have a white coating in The Moorlands....a wet & slushy couple of inches and it is snowing now.

 

Enjoy what you do

 

Dave

[NGT6 1315]

Chris, I'd very much like to give you some advice that might immediately help you, but as an article I read a while ago aptly said – even if it does sound a bit fatalistic – , even people afflicted by depression themselves can hardly comprehend how fellow patients feel as depression is, by and large, a solitary kind of voyage through bleak places.

 

At the same time, it underlined that victim blaming is just as inappropriate as no one in this situation has arrived there by choice (not that I suggest you are doing anything like it!), but that due to the unique nature of depression for any afflicted person, there can be no "one size fits all" treatment. Even so, one key goal must be to – figuratively speaking – fundamentally keep patients going as most treatment regimes require a lot of time and patience.

 

If anything, I hope I could at least provide some moral support to you, and perhaps to your pal, even if only indirectly… 

Edited January 14, 2016 by NGT6 1315

[AndyID]

Diesel was $1.80 a gallon today. Never thought I 'd see that again.

 

(approx. 31p a liter)

[DDolfelin]

Snow.

Nothing else to report here.

 

No wise words to offer for the problems I've read.

Supportive of course.

 

I sometimes wonder if labelling something like depression gives it extra prominence in the sufferer's mind.

I've no doubt it is a very real condition.

SWMBO was widowed very young and she was given all sorts of pills which turned her into a zombie.

When I first met her it took me a year to get her off them.

I expect we've all experienced depths of gloom and darkness.

Folk caring and examples like Jock (I think Kipling had him in mind when he wrote 'If') can keep us going.

If there is a substantive physical cause let's hope there is a cure soon.

[brianthesnail96]

Morning all. Quieter day in the office today, yesterday was unusually busy. I now have a date for my move back "home" to the development dept.- Feb 1st- and am looking forward to getting to know my new test rig. We're going to be covering territory previously uncharted in the company (generally we go for evolution over revolution, it's easier to sell- unlike the passenger car market where gizmos rule the heavy duty side just wants proven reliability) so it should be pretty interesting and I suspect a little taxing; the last few years have been as much about people skills as technical but I that's all about to tip one way.

 

NHN, I just did a quick search for the IoM Wallis and found that one of Bill's other engines was the lovely SCC Burrell "Diamond Queen" which lives at a sawmill (rail served from the Nailsworth branch for a long time) just down the road from here. Still very much alive and well and a regular at shows hereabouts, often belted up to their sawbench- assuming Bill was responsible for the restoration she's definitely a credit to him.

 

28xx, very sorry to hear about your Mum. Sounds a horrible situation and you must feel completely powerless. My Gran went that way last year, but she was in hospital (having still been living at home with my Granddad & Auntie until she was admitted) and the nurses and doctors were brilliant and did everything they could to help her be comfortable, which helped for us as well as Gran if I'm honest. By the sounds of things it's too late to try and get your mum moved now even if it would ever have been possible, so I guess it's just a case of doing what you can and being there when you can. I'm sure all of our thoughts are with you.

 

I'm sure Chris feels equally powerless with "poorly pal". Rest assured that, even if he doesn't think it now, your trying to contact him and engage him in something will help him and hopefully he'll appreciate that someday. Unfortunately it's a vicious cycle of feeling demotivated, leading to boredom, which only makes you less motivated; then you start alienating people and adding loneliness into the mix, exacerbating the boredom and so on. As Dom has said there's no one fix- other than time and patience- but keep trying, as much as he'll let you. Little and often is probably the way forwards. It can turn people into things they don't want to be as well, don't take things personally on a bad day... Some ten years back I was close friends with a lass who suffered quite badly, I used to spend a lot of time with her and some days she'd want to talk, some days she'd just want to sit and not say a word, some days she'd just cry. She admitted later that having someone there to talk at/ ignore made all the difference, even if she didn't show it at the time. Took her a long time to get better, and made a bit of a mess of me in the process which eventually lead to us drifting apart, and although it always leaves a bit of a mark on you she's gone to uni doing the degree she always wanted to do, has a lovely and supportive boyfriend and is much happier with much more confidence in herself than she ever used to have. So there is hope- I've seen it- and if I was in the same position again I'd do it all over. Of course you aren't looking after a teenage girl- "your mileage may vary"- so I guess all I'm saying is don't give up on him even if it feels you aren't getting anywhere.

 

I'm rambling now... time to get on with the day. Chin up folks, it's nearly Friday and they are even threatening some sunshine over the weekend!       

Edited January 14, 2016 by brianthesnail96

[Donw]

Reading 28xx's post bring's back the problems we had with FiL whether he couldn't eat or wouldn't eat I cannot say but he became seriously underweight. Neither the hospital or the excellent nursing home could succeed any better than we could. A year or two before he had ignored doctors advice to drink plenty and became dehydrated. That required a trip to hospital. I could never work out how much it was due to obstinacy and how much was a real problem. 

Don   

[laurenceb]

One thing I was told was that if you are depressive is to avoid others in the same situation as can create a downward spiral.

Morning all

Edited January 14, 2016 by laurenceb

[runs as required]

Bonjo folks
Yes, snow just starting here too - on the famous "Dry Side"

 

Depression is real enough - I suffered it after taking those suspect malaria pills around the mid career mark.

Wife finding me a good psychotherapist helped me regain self confidence, though it took a couple of years. I now always recommend the 'talking cure' to others, you simply cannot 'snap out of it'. Curiously a modern manifestation is a reluctance to 'go into town' for fear of becoming a terrorist target - a strange mutation of agoraphobia.

 

Trying out a new b!&$$^ device typing this as wife keeps changing her mind about what she can cope with as a phone. She has very bad arthritis in her hands and regrets the passing of those simple Nokkias with the real keys.

 

Ah welk, see how this posts,,,
dh

 

Edit: this post needed a lot of sorting up on the mainframe my old laptop (though I liked the predictive text giving me 'Ah welk').

But I shall try to persevere with the s/h Samsung 3 that kids all assured us would be a larger screen for J than an iPhone 5 .

Edited January 14, 2016 by runs as required

[roundhouse]

I am depressed after talking to my boss.

 

Hes looking at going business class to LA in the Summer with his family. He earns more than I thought!

 

As he was asking me how he could look up the plane seating (Seat Guru) I decided to look up our planned itinerary in Economy. That depressed me even more as its over £1,000 each to fly to Chicago and back form Seattle / Portland OR. hopefully they will come down a bit in a month or two.

 

Must try and make friend with that winner in LA

Edited January 14, 2016 by roundhouse

[Donw]

DD I think I can say I have never experienced depths of gloom and darkness. Yes I have had downs but nothing serious. If I dwell on things I can get moody but usually I will be doing something like walking the dogs and a cheerful mood will creep in unsought. So I guess I am lucky. However I am little help with dealing with the problem in others. When whatever you say seems to offend and so does saying nothing

Don

[AndyB]

Careful with those malaria pills. A former colleague of mine was given a course of them.

Unfortunately the Dr who prescribed them mixed up the dosage or one malaria drug with the dosage of a different one, resulting in a massive overdose. 

Coupled with problems with the nature of his journey abroad, this led to a long period of deep depression, hospitalisation, release from hospital, and finally he took his own life. 

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a slightly overcast village in the southern uplands but still no snow. The house is still quiet and I've still not done anything wring but now for 72 hours. I'm waiting for the washer man to come and try and find the intermittent fault on our washer. Sod's law the fault is not showing at present.

 

Chris, I do feel for you n your situation with PP. Beth suffered from severe depression for many years after the birth of our daughter. Not only is it a lonely road for the sufferer but just as lonely for those that care for them. There is still a he amount of prejudice around and of course the worst thing anyone can d is to tell the person to pull themselves together. Beth only got through it after 5 years of counselling. The only thing that you can do in the circumstances is to keep trying to give support though that can be very hard. I used to try and picture the disease as a black monster that lived beside Beth and try and see Beth as the vivacious twenty something who I had fallen in love with. Sometimes the 'blob' as I called it got bigger and sometimes smaller. I did however try to avoid feeding the blob even if that was painful at times. Thankfully we came through the other side and the blob has been banished. Hang in there Chris.

 

On another note I wish Ian luck with his emails to the directors of Hornby. I have been involved in a battle with Amazon over the past 8 months and the charity that I am Secretary of has post several hundred pounds worth of book sales as a result of their actions. I was getting nowhere with their hydra like 'Seller Verification team' or @Seller support' so followed Jock's advice and emailed the CEO of Amazon UK Mr Chris North. Even though he has not had the courtesy to reply to either of my emails it has produced some results and our books are now on sale on Amazon again but we missed the Christmas period. I have had a few emails and a phone call from the delightful Stephanie who works at their London head office. She agrees that the IT system they use is useless and that Amazon has performed very badly however due the small print of some European service agreement they are not prepared to offer any compensation. I am also being instructed to scan and upload a pdf of a blank sheet of paper to keep their IT systems happy as they agree that something that I uploaded 3 month ago was in fact correct but because someone marked it as incorrect they need a new document in its place. I am now pondering how to reply. I could take the sarcastic route and suggest that they spend more time on customer service and less on IT systems designed to minimise their tax bill but don't think that that will do any good.

 

Anyway on a lighter note the cricket has started and a day of modelling beckons once I get the ironing done to keep the house tidy before the boss returns. Then this evening two of my children and one partner are taking their poor abandoned dad out for a meal. Life gets better. They obviously think I'm incapable of fending for myself even though I did all the cooking for long periods of time in their childhood when Beth was in hospital. I am looking forward to the evening.

 

All the best to everyone as there seems to be a lot of doom and gloom about. Sorry for the ramblings.

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Very sunny here, colder than yesterday and dry at the moment. Wintry showers forecast for later, probably about when I head off to Leigh on Sea to collect a curtain pole.

It was sunny but it had quite suddenly become dark, and has started raining.

My mother suffered from depression, anxiety and had a couple of phobias too. Some of the more modern medications may have helped but the only thing that made any difference then was ECT which sounds awful but she did have some quality of life then. However my Dad had started drinking partly to numb the effects of living with Mum and partly as pain relief for a back injury.

Tony

[NGT6 1315]

One thing I was told was that if you are depressive is to avoid others in the same situation as can create a downward spiral.

Morning all

 

I suppose that, too, will be much dependent on the person afflicted. I suppose I may have mentioned before that I myself had been in that kind of place several years ago, and for me at least, group sessions – which I did try – certainly were not at all helpful as at the time, I'd been far too preoccupied with the things that had been eating at me to be able to offer any genuine support to others. In fact, having the equally real and genuine suffering of others "forced", for lack of a more fitting expression, upon me had made me feel even worse. But as Matt said, your mileage may vary…

[sixoh8sixoh]

Morning all from a sunny and snow-free Scottish HQ (though out of my window I can see a snow-covered car in the car park that's clearly come in from somewhere with an inch or more.  There is snow on the Pentland Hills that I can (just) see from my window seat.

 

Last night was spent "on call" for FMQs (First Minister's Questions) - expecting our topic area to be one of the most likely to be discussed today.  Had to respond to a request which came in about 7.30, so that took up my evening until 9.30 ish.

 

Time for tea...

[AndyB]

Thee strange golden orb continues to hang, menacingly in the sky, blinding all who dare to gaze at it. 

 

Meanwhile I have been taking an inventory of all the birds who have failed to take an interest in my newly installed birds' nests. The list is quite extensive, thanks to the RSPB Encyclopaedia.

Albratros,..Manx Shearwater....Short-toed Eagle....  

Frustratingly the trees are alive with bird life just a few yards from the potential nests; our feathered friends are definitely taking the pi$$.

 

Jamie has kindly reminded me that I have a few household chores to do today, alongside office work. 

 

Had an interesting insight into the world of professional football last night. The little lad who was a pageboy at my wedding has grown up somewhat, is now 5' 11 3/4'', and become a professional goalkeeper. Talk about tough, his 6-pack has a 6-pack! Reading various match reports he has done rather well, being named as "Man of the Match" on one occasion. However, there appears to be a rule that all goalkeepers have to be a minimum of 6' to get into the Championship League (Division 2, as was). So his career is essentially constrained at the lower levels, inspite of his acknowledged talent. Meanwhile we apparently struggle to find home-grown talent to go into our national team, something older members of this lad's family achieved "back in the day".  Hey, ho. 

[Barry O]

good news.. Youngest Herbert has a job!  well an offer of one....

 

(this may mean he buys a house and moves out... but one can only dream.)

 

Professional soccer is a bit like cricket - height apparently matters - say that to one James Taylor of England. Absolute and utter tosh!  Its not your size its you skills which should be important.

 

Having watched Sunderland win last night all I would say is - I hope they aren't paying all of the players a lot of money as the inability to direct the ball to the right player seemed to be unavailable to both teams last night...

 

Now snowing - well its white and not sleet ... so get ready for the Traffic news .. Leeds at a standstill due to heavy snow....

 

pah! bummocks!

 

 

Baz

 

edited as we pay players - Sunderland don't play but do get paid!

Edited January 14, 2016 by Barry O

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Being a 'glass half full' kind of person I find depression difficult to comprehend, not that I do not sympathise with sufferers. In the course of my family research I discovered that I had a great uncle who had suffered from depression. As he was serving in the army at that time (shortly before WW1) it is recorded in his military record in some detail. It does give an insight though into how mental illness was treated just over 100 years ago. The biggest surprise to me perhaps is the amount of sympathy and understanding given not only by the medical staff but by the military authorities though this might be due to his exemplary service up until then (8 years and an arm full of good conduct stripes). He was discharged from the army on medical grounds in February 1914 and sent to a civilian mental hospital where he died in 1919 in the Spanish flu epidemic. I get the impression that it was regarded as untreatable back then, hence his being put in to the hospital and forgotten. Bright sunshine when I got up this morning but now clouded over and so dark that I have had to switch a light on to see the keyboard. Anyway the forecast for tomorrow is bright but very cold and for the weekend as well so those working make sure its POETS day tomorrow.

[runs as required]

Back again on the mainframe - looking at snow contiuing to snivel outside. I thought I'd report what a bellringing colleague told us at our bells practice last night.

We'd  complained about our recycling bins not being emptied as expected. He said the bin waggon drivers had been switched to road salting due to the weather forecast.

 

One way Gateshead is addressing the latest 30% Local Gov cuts is by having their crews agreeing to switch across when required to sprinkler truck/snow clearance duties. He reckoned the drivers would be out through the night; I heard our recycling bins being emptied at 8am this morning.

 

I do wonder whether that 'Westminster bubble lot' ever sample life down at the sharp end.

It used to said in places like Nigeria that the petty autocrats behind Post Office counters ought to have compulsory periods spent queuing in front of their counters.

 

dh

[shortliner]

The North wind doth blow, and we have got snow - and a garden full of birds gobbling whatever is thrown out for them!

[Killybegs]

That's small change to what is held in Banks here......      

 

It's just a shame they don't pay more interest!

 

Beautiful cold clear bright morning here first thing. However, 10cm of snow forecast for later, so I had better go and buy some more coal before the roads are impassable! Now I had better catch up the rest of the ER's.