Early Risers.

[The Stationmaster]

Still sort of snowing - fine powdery stuff and very good at settling on paths which have been cleared and salted (TWICE!!!).  It really got going about 16.00ish and went I went down to collect the Good Doctor at 186.50 the roads were pretty treacherous as none of the hills had been treated although the main road at the bottom wasn't too bad.  I took a rather vcircuitous route back homewards avoiding the steepest hill and just as well as laddo had problems getting his Mini up it a couple of hours later.  As was only to be expected there were idiots driving too fast and idiots driving without headlights - not a pleasant experience being out in that lot.  Laddo's 45 minute drive home took him almost 2 hours this evening so he's decided to go on the train tomorrow, unless he reviews his plans and works from home.

 

Not a nice night to be out and I hope Sherry,  Mrs Olddudders, is ok as she's reportedly stuck in the big traffic block on the A31 where the police have finally declared a major incident and called in military assistance.

[laurenceb]

Thoughts with those under the weather

Night awl

[AndyID]

If it's any consolation, it's only 5C here.

 

Oi! Kindly remove your hands from my kilt. I was just about to leave anyway.

[BSW01]

Evening everyone

 

We’ve had very little snowfall today and what snow there was has been blown away by the strong winds, which we’ve had all day and are still having strong gusts now!

 

However, when Sheila went to the bathroom first thing this morning, she heard the sound of dripping water, so she opened the door to the bedroom that is next to the bathroom (as that’s where she thought the sound was coming from) and found water dripping from the ceiling. Upon inspection I found what I thought was the boiler overflow pipe, seemed to be leaking. So I hastily turned the boiler off, placed a bowl under the leak and threw some towels on the floor and immediately called our heating service engineer, the time was just after 7:00! Now, for some strange reason I couldn’t get through to the service engineer, I wonder why? So I left a voice message and whilst I waited for a return call, I had my breakfast. Anyway he called me back just after 9:00 and we discussed the problem and he thought it sounded like the condensate pipe had frozen up. He talked me through what I could do in the meantime to get it going, until he could get an engineer out to look at it. So armed with his advice, I went to the plumbers merchant (luckily only a short walk from home) and purchased some flexible hose, I also got some pipe lagging too. Once back home I disconnected the condensate pipe, added a small piece of the hose to the boiler spigot and ran this into a bucket, I also put a short piece of pipe on the frozen condensate pipe and diverted that into the same bucket, switched the boiler back on and hey presto, a fully functioning boiler and no leak. It was now 11:00, so I then went downstairs to have a well earned muggertea. After which I went back upstairs and fitted the newly purchased pipe lagging along the complete length of the condensate pipe, so hopefully it won’t freeze up again. As we now had heating and hot water, we were now not on the top priority list so as yet we’ve not had an engineer round too look at it, but one will be coming out to check it, it will probably get serviced at the same time. But as they are based in Holmfirth, which is on the other side of the Pennines from us, I wouldn’t be surprised if one doesn’t get here until late tomorrow, if at all!

 

By the time we’d had dinner it wasn’t really worth starting any work in the attic, so the rest of the day has been spent checking and emptying the bucket as and when required, I seem to be getting more water from the disconnected pipe than from the boiler, so it looks as though it is defrosting nicely.

 

I’ve not been able to read any posts at all today, I’ll have to try and catch up tomorrow, off to bed now as I’m bucking follocksed.

 

Goodnight all.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[PhilJ W]

Try this link..

https://www.facebook.com/AgrilandIreland/videos/1666648793427662/?t=3

I've posted this on my Facebook page so Debs should be able to see it. And with that, goodnight all.

[petethemole]

We had a fairly heavy snowfall today, a brief burst about 7-8 am, then again from mid morning.

 

I had a cold walk home when the bus I was waiting for was cancelled. I stood in a bus shelter for over an hour before it was clear that it wasn't coming, nor were the two other services that use the stop. Fortunately it was only two miles but with two bags of shopping it wasn't the pleasant stroll in the snow it could have been. Traffic was down to a crawl on the A27 and a short, steep hill was causing problems with some cars being pushed up. 

 

I hope Sherry's ok on the A31.

 

Keep warm

 

Pete

[Barry O]

I hope all travellers and especially Sherry are safe and warm

 

"Herbert" is from my time in Barrow. A colleague of mine always referred to my two lads as Herbert. So now we have Dr Eldest Herbert aka Dr Bun or Timothy and youngest Herbert aka Calum. Simples!!

 

We had a fast ferry ride over to Russell this morning. Now I know why people like power boat racing. On our return it rained..now NZ doesn't do drizzle it just does total deluge.

 

Stay warm and safe and Happy Birthday Ian Abel.

 

Baz

Edited March 2, 2018 by Barry O

[Barry O]

Now chuckinitdarn..big style. Visibility 15 feet or thereabouts.

Hopefully the only road out of here undamaged from the last cyclone is ok.

 

Isn't weather fascinating? Err no just a pain in the wotsits!

Baz

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl,

Its been a howling wind all night, so I'm guessing a lot of the cleared roads are blocked again.

One oddity with this high wind direction is that the snow around the house and garden has mostly blown away. The road in front of the house remained clear, but with a 3 ft drift a few feet away.

 

I'm planning to work in the shed alley way the morning, shelf building, but that won't be for another couple of hours time to get a bit more sleep...

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all, with a warm welcome back to Pete Trisonic.  I see you brought the good weather with you.  Thoughts to Rick, who should have been saying goodbye to his mum today, and to Ashcombe who got stuck in the New Forest.  Thoughts also to the organisers of the Leamington show who have been forced to cancel it and to those who would have been exhibiting and attending.

 

Those who were amused by my tale of the German rail replacement bus will be pleased to learn that DB have coughed up under their equivalent of Delay Repay.  It was only £10 each but it shows that you don’t mess with Ffestiniog Travel.

 

The fodder run was accomplished yesterday, by bus.  Route 4 was behaving itself very well and was almost punctual but how those responsible can call the structure opposite Tesco where one waits for the bus a shelter is beyond me as it affords none of that commodity whatsoever. 

 

I had better find something useful to do with the unexpected free time.  Meanwhile, warm thoughts, in every sense, and best wishes to the ailing, recovering and missing.

 

Chris

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

It is slightly warmer this morning, and the wind seems to have abated a little.

 

There isn't a lot else to report, so have a good day everyone...

[Barry O]

Rain has now stopped. Bit of lamb cooked and eaten. Blue veined Brie eaten, NZ Shiraz..drunk...the world seems a better place!

 

Hope you are all ok.

 

Baz

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Nice and warm here, well it is inside the house. I am glad I am not outside, the wind is quite gusty. More snow is forecast for late tonight/early Saturday. Local schools continue to be closed.

Take care

Tony

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Cold outside and breezy here, no snow overnight but more expected today.

Inside it's nice and warm as unusually for us we left the heating on low overnight. 

Spoke to a couple of car dealers yesterday and hopefully will be visiting them next week to look at various possibilities and arrange test drives.

This morning we're off to Sainsbury's to do yesterday's postponed shopping trip. Supplies are needed for a birthday bash for Joe here tomorrow.

Have a good one,

Bob.

Edited March 2, 2018 by grandadbob

[New Haven Neil]

Morning.

 

Windy here, but no snow.  Miserable 1c, with wind chill taking that waaay down as winds are force 9- 10, ferry is still off - 'UK Cut Off'.  This weather certainly is making my foot uncomfortable, must be the strain of trying to predict the weather.  The coldest February daytime temperature for 7 years was recorded last month.

[TheQ]

I see the army and RAF have been called out in various places. With the ever reducing size of our forces there are not many of them to go around these days...

It's not just the loss of personnel, when i was in the section run ahouts were land rovers, now you have to book an onsite hire car for each journey. A Nissan Micra is no good in these conditions...

Edited March 2, 2018 by TheQ

[roundhouse]

Morning form a very cold Surrey. Not much if any fresh snow overnight in our road but very blustery. Decided to still take today off as leave as need to go to the doctors (8 miles away) to get a repeat prescription. Unfortunately they insist that I turn up and fill in a repeat prescription request despite advising that it may be difficult to get there. Then I have to wait 72 hours before collecting the prescription. They used to do this over the phone. I must find a more local practice soon.

 

 

I will wait till after rush hour to try to get to the doctors as by then hopefully and snow on the roads will have cleared.

 

Once back home I think that we will walk into town for afternoon beers.

 

Tomorrow hopefully the Freemo meet is still on but there will certainly be a few people missing due to the weather where they are travelling from

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a breezy, cold but bright village just north of the M62. Fortunately the blockage I about 20 miles west of us.

 

I hope that Sherry has been able to get going and is OK. Good to see Pete (Trisonic) back with us and Happy Birthday to Ian Abell.

 

We got all or jobs done yesterday and had an hour with Beth's step mum who needed a bit of company. I got the drive and both cars cleared last night and there shouldn't be too much to do this morning.

 

I'm off first to take the aforesaid step Mum to a hospital appointment and Beth's off into Leeds to help at Fat Club.

 

All being well we will be able to have our expedition to Kettering tomorrow but I will continue to watch the weather forecast.

 

I not that the Settle and Carlisle Line has been closed due to drifting snow in the cuttings and problems of staff access. Not the first time this has happened. At the moment the A65 to Settle is closed near Skipton so the only way in and out is via the first Settle station, now called Giggleswick but a mile and a half trek from the town.

CORRECTION. The Lancaster Leeds trains have just been cancelled due to frozen points. I suspect that they are having real problems getting staff out to trouble spots with the A65 being closed.

 

Stay safe out there.

 

Jamie

Edited March 2, 2018 by jamie92208

[45156]

Morning All

 

I posted yesterday before setting off for the creative writing class, which ends next week - but the tutor announced that there will be a new course in April, with a different leader, but that will be 20 weeks of free tuition, thanks to Lancs CC (I think the only positive thing that I can say about them), but it disappeared into cyber-space somehow.  Then I got back to catch up a couple of times, but other events kept getting in the way.

 

I was a real ER this morning, as we both have a bug which meant that we both fell asleep last night in our chairs watching TV, then were abed quite early, and even the 50mph winds didn't rouse us.  Of course, that meant that we were both awake and partaking of a mugatea and a mugacoffee by 5.30 having had about nine hours kip.

 

Not so cold here, but you'd never notice as there is a wind chill of about -10C.

 

Checked Sherry's FB page,And Ian's but she hadn't updated.  Hope all is well in that quarter.

Great to hear Debs is still on an upward path - let it continue.

Also good to have Pete back with us - long may it be so.

RIck, sorry to hear that the farewell for your mum has been postponed, but needs must.  My mum died in December, and her funeral was on 6th January, in Scotland, and the weather was a sort of weakened version of what we are getting now.  As in Scotland, it is traditional to have the funeral as soon after the passing as possible, my brother couldn't postpone, as there were many other guests.  At least in your case, everything came together for the new date.

Bob, I did suggest in my missing post that you check the condensate pipe, as our boiler engineer (who comes on a contract so the firm can provide a different guy if our one is on holiday, sick, or overloaded) told us of a number of callouts to similar faults.  Odd that we had two such with ERs on the same couple of days.  His advice to his condensing boiler cutomers in cold weather is that the blocked condensate pipe is a common problem, as the pipe is quite narrow, and the cure is quite simple.  One wonders why the boiler manufacturers can't find a solution and also don't they mention it in the user guide - if not, they should.

 

I see that we haven't heard from Mal for a few days - hope all is well there, as he is in the middle of the bad weather zone.

 

I must just mention my to grit or not to grit tale from many years ago.  Our cottage in Norfolk was on a minor road, at the end of a long straight, with 90^o left hander.  We were close to the Lotus factory in Hethel, and they used this road sometimes to test cars.  The locals delighted in telling us how many cars, including a new Lotus model on test, were pulled out of our garden.  So when winter arrived, and the bend became treacherous with ice, we drove to the village grit box with a couple of dutbins and boxes and filled up - to be told that the box was for the village to use, not those outside - to which I answered that the grit box was for the road, and not for the villagers drives and paths.  So, many nights, we gritted the bend, so that we would have no nocturnal visitors in the garden.  We stopped, as one of the locals said that if we carried on, the road users would expect it, would not be so careful, and then it we didn't grit, and there was an accident, it would be our fault.  Hey ho, so much for public spirit.

 

Possibly back later

Regards to All

Stewart

[Gwiwer]

Morning all. Strong wind all night has blown the top layer of snow around and has much of it airborne currently. Most paths, gardens and roofs are still white but the roads are largely clear of snow but feature icy patches.

 

There are trains and buses running but services are disrupted. It is a day for staying home and being thankful that the 70 mile drive to Sussex does not now have to be tackled.

 

Stay safe and warm. Best wishes to Sherry.

[Ohmisterporter]

No problem with snow here but the wind has been destructive. I have five fence panels blown out: two of them took out the wooden post they were attached to. Looking forward to arguments with neighbours who think I should be paying for fences on all four sides of my garden. I don't mind going halves but two neighbours are in rented houses and their landlords don't want to know. The heating engineer has arrived to do the boiler service, so must go. Stay safe all.

[BlackRat]

Every cloud.......took 5 year old grandson sledging yesterday, only about the 3 rd time in my sons 28 years we have been able to get the sledge ( which his grandad built) out and running!

 

Glowing faces, runny noses and tingling toes......then home for hot chocolate with whippy cream on top!

 

Best wishes to all, stay warm, stay safe.

 

Now, where's me old ice skates......

[Smiffy2]

Sherry has posted on Facebook that she is now checked in for the ferry. The journey yesterday took 15½ hours instead of 4, and she was rescued by the army. Phew.

[45156]

No problem with snow here but the wind has been destructive.

It has, there was a tree down on the main A683 last night.

 

Sorry to hear of your fences, but some of them (on the rented poperties) were looking a bit suspect from what I could see.