Early Risers.

[Robert]

Morning all bitterly cold overnight and at the moment despite leaving the heating on overnight we have no water so the heating has to go off. Final revenge of the fat useless would be builder?

 

Oh dear Mick! Sorry to hear that - I hate waking up to no hot water.

 

Hope you get it sorted quickly.

[BoD]

My Twitter page has a comment from ER poster Mike (sixoh8sixoh) that he isn't moving much at present on the M74. Sounds very unpleasant.

 

Mike's absence has been noted. I hope all is well.

[Tony_S]

Mike's absence has been noted. I hope all is well.

 

 

He was able to reach a friend's house in Motherwell and even managed to hear the end of the test match safely. (from our Twitter Correspondent!)

 

 

[AndrewC]

Good morning from the boring boring borough. As usual not much happening here. Cold dull and just generally depressing. I voted for global warming, where is it???

 

My last week of Canary Wharf with 2 of the 4 days offsite which makes the week go by quickly and painlessly. There are rumblings of another 3 months work but nothing in concrete yet. The client is very reactive and I fear they'll faff about until I'm reassigned elsewhere then throw a hissy fit when I'm not available. I'd rather commute to there 3 or 4 times a week rather than a daily 5 hour round trip to the darkest depths of Hampshire for the next 18 months.

 

Just waiting today for the nice man from Virgin to deliver the new 50-100mbit cable modem/router. They upgraded all the fibre around here last year so we are supposed to be getting the 100mbit sometime in the next 60 days.

[DDolfelin]

The sky is almost yellow - what next?

 

Are all the TV adverts produced by juveniles with nothing better to do?

Last night there was a message from a cartoon character called Underdog.

An appropriate name since his appearance echoed that of a product of canine peristalsis.

[BoD]

The sky is almost yellow - what next?

 

Yellow snow?

Don't eat it.

[gordon s]

Morning all....Same weather as Tony S so far. Dry and crisp but no sign of snow or ice.

 

Sorry to hear about your boiler woes, Mick. If you still have the original manual, there is often a step by step fault finding guide which can help self diagnosis. Hopefully the hot water will be back on soon.

 

Thanks for locating Mike, BoD. Seems pretty dreadful up there right now..

 

Spent the last couple of days redoing jobs I hadn't done properly the first time on Eastwood. I'm slowly learning the more haste less speed lesson, where in my haste to get things running, I cut corners. Of course several months down the line I've now found a string of minor faults that need sorting before I go any further.

 

Can hardly move this morning from clambering over / ducking under and generally bending double trying to access underneath the spiral boards. One more day should do it, assuming it doesn't kill me first....

[eldavo]

Morning All, No snow but definitely sub-zero temperatures. Nothing in the work diary so heating is turned on in the shed ready for a bit of faffing around later.

 

Sorry to hear of your plumbing woes Mick. Yesterday I finally plucked up the courage to replace the heating 3-way valve on our system. Thankfully replacing with exactly the same valve type has resolved the problem easily. I decided not to tackle the problem on Friday evening (when I finally got the valve) or over the weekend on the basis that some heating was better than no heating while everyone was at home all day. If things had gone awry I fear the domestic staff would not have been best pleased to have no heating for the weekend!

 

Cheers

Dave

[Robert]

I voted for global warming, where is it???

 

Probably going the same way as Global Cooling did in the 70s!

[45156]

Morning All

 

Late on parade this morning, though I've been lurking a bit before posting here.

 

Weather not sure what it's doing, and the forecast is for the present white stuff not to last too long. Just as well, as I'm off to the doc this morning to see what the prognosis is for a return to work date - my rehab's been a bit slowed by the bad weather, as I daren't go out on the crutches in the snow/ice unless I have to.

 

Any more news of Mike?

 

Mick - when you say the water's gone, do you mean your whole water supply is frozen up, or just the hot supply off the boiler? As to your cowboy builder, if you're so aggreived, can you not get in touch with one of the TV shows that help to get redress from such rogues?

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[skipepsi]

No it is the supply into the house that is stopped it was extended by the wretch from Leicester and I suspect left unlagged at some vital point. The heating is supposedly on a closed loop but I think it has a header tank to top up the system.

 

Stewart so far we haven't found enough other customers/victims for cowboy builders to overcome their solicitors inhibitions. He has now declared himself bankrupt so we may find enough among his declared creditors to enable us to appear on the show.

[Tony_S]

The first winter we had in this house we had a few frozen pipes. The pipes to the showers were lagged but with the wrong size (too large) pipe lagging. This was simple to fix but the next problem was that the first few inches of the output from the large header tank didn't seem to insulated and was frozen. After lagging it I thought I could shift the few inches of ice in the pipe by poking it from inside the header tank. I now know that plunging two arms into water at 0C isn't sensible.

 

No more news from Mike, but he was safe and happy 10 hours ago.

[sixoh8sixoh]

Thanks all for concern. Moved 8 miles in 5 hours on the motorway last night. Thankfully an old friend from Uni put Jamie and I up for the night.

 

Now stop-start crawl from Motherwell to the north side of Glasgow. Both of us healthy and well.

[Guest Max Stafford]

Been on nocturnal-type operations for a couple of days now lads, that's why I've not been about much. We had another big deposit of snow last night and about 00:30, my oppo and I decided to give the paperwork the heave and get ourselves out for a good walk about round some of Carlisle's snow-covered back streets. I've always enjoyed walking in the snow, especially when no-one else has been through it before you. I always dress well for the cold - something I learned the hard way as a boy postie thirty years ago! Consequently, I was probably a bit too warm by the end of the walk, but then it was only about -1 or -2 deg last night.

Compare this to the previous night. I went out for a drive round the depots and about 4am, it was -12. I got out of the vehicle to have a look at the river and even with my base layer, mountain socks and three layers on top, after five minutes I could feel my blood freezing!

 

Doesn't half make the place look beautiful though and it was amazing to see the ice floes forming in the Eden.

 

Still, I appreciate you don't all enjoy this stuff the same way I do and I hope you get your water problem sorted Mick. Regarding fat useless builder, my mate from Castlemilk in Glasgow probably knows somebody who could dish out a bit of summary vengance for a bargain fee!

 

Tony, has your parcel arrived yet?

 

Dave.

[Tony_S]

Thanks all for concern. Moved 8 miles in 5 hours on the motorway last night. Thankfully an old friend from Uni put Jamie and I up for the night.

 

Now stop-start crawl from Motherwell to the north side of Glasgow. Both of us healthy and well.

 

I didn't realise you had Jamie with you as well. I wonder if she will remember the great adventure when she is older. Matthew has no recall at all of our long journeys when he was little!

 

Tony

 

 

 

[Tony_S]

 

Tony, has your parcel arrived yet?

 

Dave.

 

 

It came just a while ago this afternoon. The postman seemed very pleased when I told him how pleased I was with their excellent service. I wasn't expecting another delivery today and I was just going out to get my hair cut, as I realised that my wife telling me to wear a hat wasn't because she was worried about me being cold but not looking scruffy in public!

The yellow coaches are a lovely way to brighten up my desk!

 

Tony

 

 

 

[NGT6 1315]

Now I guess this is what is called luck:

 

 

 

Suburban EMU 420 425 with 420 261 behind at Langen on the S4 line - which is quite unusual as this line has been converted to 423s long ago. It would seem several 423s had failed overnight, however, requiring this kind of replacement.

 

More images are in my blog: Click. That sighting sure made my day...

[sixoh8sixoh]

Home now. Kettle on. I'll fill you in later!

[Wherry Lines]

Evening all.

 

Just burnt my hand on a soldering iron . Other than that, all is well.....

[Tony_S]

Home now. Kettle on. I'll fill you in later!

 

 

 

I'm sure you posted somewhere last week about how much you enjoyed the snow! Glad you are home at last.

 

 

[sixoh8sixoh]

I do like the snow. I'm not so keen on the ice...!

 

Well, after 16 hours on the road from Metro Centre to home, I'm very pleased to be home... I set off from Metro Centre about 3.30 yesterday afternoon, drove through a snow shower over Beattock, then hit traffic about 10 miles south of Hamilton/Motherwell on the M74 at about 6.30. I then moved 8 miles in 5 hours...

 

Fortunately an old uni friend (that I hadn't seen in several years) lives in Motherwell and offered me (and Jamie) a bed for the night. I reached his house about 12.30.

 

Heading up to SWMBO's this morning took me about 2 hours to do the 20 miles. Not bad, considering...!

 

Then tried to get back to Edinburgh, I got to Coatbridge on the M8 before getting stuck. Then the warning came over the traffic news that the M8 was a "no-go area" again. Eventually managed to get off the M8, and went cross country back towards Glasgow, then up the M80 towards Falkirk, and back down the M9 to Edinburgh. Amazingly on this attempt, I didn't stop apart from for traffic lights!

 

Couldn't possibly have tried to count the number of abandoned / broken down cars and lorries I've seen over the past 24 hours.

 

It strikes me that this country is constantly ill-prepared for snow. Which is strange, when we're an island in the middle of the North Sea/Atlantic, and Edinburgh is roughly on the same latitude as Malmo, Moscow and Copenhagen - and above ALL of Poland!

 

I think more removable central reservation barriers would help clear some of the jams, so when there's nothing on the opposite carriageway, the jams could be cleared off the jammed carriageway... Still, what do I know, I'm only a driver...

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

The temperature is just above freezing and the snow is now thawing.

 

Interesting picture that Dominik - haven't seen one of those around here for a while. If I cross to the other side of the building, I can see that line through the window as I work in Langen. I must say it is rather ironic that the significantly newer 423's seem to break down with much more regularity than the old 420s!

 

Have a good day everyone...

[gordon s]

That sounds like the journey from hell, Mike, so glad to hear you and Jamie finally made it home. I can't imagine what it must be like to be stuck for so long...

 

Let's hope the worst of it is now behind us.

[NGT6 1315]

Morning all!

 

Cool outside, but not freezing - however, my throat's slightly sore anyway . Think breakfast will be next!

 

Have a good day everyone...

[skipepsi]

Morning all, the hot water pipe burst last night the home emergency service will be here hopefully by one this afternoon,weather permitting. So another day of electric heating at vast expense, apart from that we had about an inch of snow last night sitting on top of the ice. On the bright side the neighbour has been very good at letting us have water by the bucketfull.