Early Risers.

[45156]

Totally agree, Pete!

 

And much to his surprise (and mine!) Ian enjoyed the parts of the ceremony he watched, especially the highlights you’ve identified.

 

I was very proud to see a past pupil of mine singing with The Kingdom Singers.

Great to see you posting here Sherry - please come more often, and if you can get Ian to do so as well, so much the better - we do all miss your inputs here on ERs.

 

Morning All from a sunny village to the East of Lancaster.

 

All posts read and rated since yesterday,   I see that Geoff is with us from time to time, though I'm not sure from where as he's still away with the motorhome as far as I can see.

 

Andy - sorry to read your post in some respects.

Pleased to hear that Debs appears to be online somewhere even if not here at the mo - it will happen, I'm sure.

Supportive vibes to our other ailing ERs - Simon, Mal, Tony, Robert.

Brian - hope that you are able to get a hire car sorted quickly, and then the claim against the other driver dealt with quickly.

 

No idea what the rest of the day holds yet here, but it may involve a trip into Lancaster.  A growing shopping list which cannot be got locally.

 

Back later/tomorrow.

Regards to All

Stewart

Edited May 21, 2018 by 45156

[beast66606]

Morning all,

 

Hope the car gets sorted out Brian - obviously won't be instantly, but hopefully painlessly for you and not for the "driver".

 

Slightly worrying on my hog front, the overnight camera captured one with a pronounced limp although it ate plenty and had a drink - but not the huge amount that animals in distress often take on board so hopefully it's nothing major.

 

Yesterday we decided to put out an old petrol lawn mower, we couldn't get it started and the handle needed some spares due to wear and tear so we bought a new one, it was outside the gate with a sign "Free - not seized but not working" - Nicolas Cage would have been proud, it was gone in 45 seconds. Spurred on by the success we sorted out some good clothes (worn once type clothes) and 3 old pushbikes, they will all make the final journey to the gate later - probably won't go quite as quick as these aren't free (they are very cheap though) but generally someone will buy them eventually. It's quite common around here for people to have "gate sales" where unwanted, but good, items are left at the gate "For Free" or a modest sum.

 

Now I must resume my squirrel vs DAS fight, he's after my nuts (ooh. Missus) but when he gets near the water pistol reaches out to wet his..

 

Have a good day all and thoughts to those in need.

[AndrewC]

 

Another glorious sunny day in the tropical paradise of the boring borough. Construction continues at the proverbial snail's pace. I did manage to get the undercoat of paint on the new office/spare room yesterday. Sadly for me the effort has left my shoulders and back protesting greatly. 12 days until the MiL arrives. Today I have to get 120 small creeping thyme plants into the garden. Tomorrow is the Chelsea Flower Show. 

 

I too enjoyed watching the wedding. No, not that one. Sheldon & Amy's wedding on Big Bang Theory. Only took 22 minutes after zipping through the adverts. 

 

Hope the scroat that wiped out Brian's car gets nailed to the wall. The advantage to the b*stard is that by abandoning his car and the delay in arresting him means they aren't likely to be able to charge him with drunk driving. 

 

Great to see Debs doing better. I fear there will be a great gnashing of teeth and screams of pain once she returns with her awl to administer punishment to those who have posted about the forbidden subject. 

 

That's about it from me. Enjoy the day

[br2975]

Greetings

.

Many thanks one and all for your support and best wishes.

.

UPDATE:-

.

My wife had found a replacement runabout for sale online, locally, and before the recovery truck had arrived to remove our write off.

.

A test drive was arranged Saturday lunch time and I pick the car up later !

.

Throughout all this, I've maintained a sense of humour..........unlike a certain Mrs Beckham nee Adams, I don't have "a face like a smacked @rse !"

.

Thanks again RMwebbers !

.

Brian R

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Nice to hear from Sherry and belated birthday wishes though I have already given them on Facebook. Wall to wall sunshine outside so off to make the most of it, if the hay fever holds off.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Sorry to hear about the car Brian and hopefully the miscreant was at least driving his own car even if he might have been/be apprehended too late to donate various samples for testing to legally establish his lack of sobriety;.  No doubt in my mind that the Police will throw just about every book they can find at him which might be small consolation and good to hear you got back mobile fairly quickly.

 

Another 'nothing planned' day but hints about the length of various areas of grass were dropped yesterday - but rain is forecast for later so maybe the 30% chance of it will work out to my advantage.   Good to hear Debs is getting a bit more electronically active, hopefully a good sign.

 

Have a good day one and all.

[Ashcombe]

Great to see you posting here Sherry - please come more often, and if you can get Ian to do so as well, so much the better - we do all miss your inputs here on ERs................

 

Back later/tomorrow.

Regards to All

Stewart

Thank you very much ..... we are doing our best ......

[BoD]

Sorry to hear about the car Brian and hopefully the miscreant was at least driving his own car even if he might have been/be apprehended too late to donate various samples for testing to legally establish his lack of sobriety;

 

How come my doctor can look at my blood tests and tell me how much I had to drink 3 months ago gone Friday?

[Horsetan]

Another one of my old clients has died. He was a massive rugby fan, and once showed me a 1995 South African RWC shirt signed by none other than Francois Pienaar. Not only that but he was an early member of the Campaign For Real Ale.

[Tony_S]

How come my doctor can look at my blood tests and tell me how much I had to drink 3 months ago gone Friday?

She was probably standing behind you at the bar.

[Oldddudders]

Morning all

 

Just a drive-by. I am currently in Devon, and we hope to be at Railex next Sunday. Sherry has just completed a week of performances as Miss Benita Mullett in Tons Of Money, as updated by Ayckbourn. Despite the role being a mature woman with mobility issues, deafness and general grumpiness, Sherry found it hard work, because the play, most unusually for this comapny, lacked direction, so the players, not all of whom were wonderful, were improvising stagecraft as they went along. I did FoH duites for both perfs on Saturday, and the evening perf had off-stage moments to forget. We stewards were warning patrons that there would be a loud bang at about 20.00, but that wasn’t enough for one lady, who mentioned needing to protect her lugs, and under HSW legislation etc etc. She really should get out more. Then not long after the interval a young woman left the auditorium, suffering from peanut allergy, allegedly due to another patron eating them. She did not have her epi-pen with her, and so paramedics spent nearly an hour stabilising her. A mature lady in her party was berating the theatre for daring to sell peanuts......

 

Meanwhile, back in France, my cleaner Alison may be on the cusp of a worthwhile new relationship. Guillaume is unmarried, a former pilot, so speaks excellent English, and is not very fond of his fellow Frenchies. He has worked all round the world, is more interesting than some of the online contacts she has made. Bizarrely, his divorced brother had also been on the same website, and one feels there may now be bad blood between them if G pulls - which he could do with minimum effort. Alison’s English friend Gill, who lives about an hour away, has suddenly fallen on harder times. She has five children, and she and partner had bought a house about 18 months ago. Last Tuesday, he announced he was leaving her to return to the UK. On Saturday! While he has apparently said he will continue the mortgage payments, and support the children until adulthood, he has left precisely 100 euros in the bank account. A geek who worked from home, they had been together for 20 years. At least three of the children - ages are 10 to 19, the eldest being at college in theUK -have serious health issues, though not the same one. Gill is in meltdown, has stayed with Alison over the long weekend (today is a holiday in France) so Alison, who herself has no money, is feeding 5 extra mouths all weekend. Fortunately, Alison drove over to Gill’s on hearing the sad news, and found the house in chaos. Six loads of washing have gone through Alison’s machine. You truly can always find someone worse off than youself.......

[Purley Oaks]

Afternoon

 

Another sunny and warm day here, expected to last for a few more days, wonderful.

 

Sorry to hear about your car, Brian, am glad the miscreant's car was found. Sadly when the same thing happened to us about 5 years ago the polis weren't interested because no one, thankfully, was injured. They didn't even bother to check the cctv cameras nearby (film kept for 2 weeks), nor the registration number until 9 months later. "Wot? Not me, guv!"

 

Dave of Dormans is going to be mightily unimpressed if his evening commute doesn’t go as planned because of holdups at Hitchin. I doubt the average user’s ability to comprehend why a c0ck-up at Cricklewood causes lateness at Littlehaven when the two - to Joe Public’s mind - aren’t even on the same line.

Think I can raise you on the one, Rick, when a delay at Finsbury Park can upset travel from Edinburgh!

 

Good to hear from Sherry and Ian, too!

 

Hope your day goes well, new timetable implementation notwithstanding

 

Mal

[Danemouth]

Nice to see you on ERs again Ian, I see your neighbours could rival any soap opera!

 

Regards,

 

Dave

[Ian Abel]

Excellent to see Sherry and Oldd here again

Brian, sorry to hear about the car woes, sounds like very good fortune that no-one was in any of the vehicles the ar$ewipe demolished

 

Moanday arrives.

 

Weekend pleasant and pretty uneventful;

Avoided both the wedding AND the Cup Final, though was glad Chelsea won - anyone so long as it wasn't Man U.

 

I DID manage to install the TTS decoder in the S15. As mentioned already by another tempting the same fate, it's not without it's issues.

Seems Hornby, whilst designing the space for the decoder/speaker and expected installation of a sound decoder setup, didn't think it all the way through (THERE'S a SURPRISE   ) when assembling the non-sound equipped tenders.

They routed the wires that provide tender bogie pickup through the two holes that SHOULD be used to secure the speaker baffle! Rookie mistake if ever I saw one <sigh>. I didn't have the patience OR inclination to re-wire so...

Since I was removing a Soundtraxx Econami I had previously installed, I simply ditched the baffle assembly (it's not very good anyway as it doesn't snap together as it should/looks like it's supposed to - at least mine didn't) and secured the new Hornby speaker in the same way I'd secured the previous one, a few small applications of blu-tak. Also found a use, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, for one of those decoder sleeves that used to be provided with Hornby locos. All previous decoder installations have either been direct plug-in variety or had their own sleeves/shrink-wrap as in the case of the Soundtrax ones.

 

Sunday a few chores including replacing a torn screen on our porch, then a relaxing day overall, given I had to catch the late plane to NY/Long Island <yawn>

 

Brings me to here and now, on Long Island for 4 days again.

15 and sunny driving to the client, supposed to make 24 for a high, pleasant enough.

 

Hope the week starts well for everyone.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Ian Abel

[jamie92208]

Afternoon all.     Just a legal point about drink driving.  There is no impediment to arresting someone some distance from the car depending on the competence of the arresting officers.  As long as they can prove that he is still drunk, which the screening breath test does, then you just need to do some questioning.   the simple answer is to arrest for drunk in charge then a proper interview when the scrote is sober.   However unfortunately a lot of officers haven't a good enough knowledge of the law to give them the confidence needed to take decisive action. 

 

Jamie

[andyram]

Afternoon to everyone on what is another beautiful sunny day in this corner of Derbyshire. My best wishes to Brian, I am sorry to hear about the drunken fool who has written off your car. Shocking! I hope the person gets what they deserve.

 Good to see ChrisF back amongst us and in good spirits. It sounds like you had a good weekend sir. It was also heartening to see a return to these pages by Ian and Sherry - they have been missed.

 Here another sleepless night has given way to a day of trying to sort out various bits of paperwork. I am currently trying to prove my 18 years unbroken service to my current employer in order to ensure I get my full pay for a while to come. There is also a doctor's appointment to organise to find out whether I will be returning to work later this week. After the last seven days I sincerely hope that will not happen. All my ex-colleagues have told me to take as long as possible to ensure there is no relapse when I do return to the classroom. 

 I have also been working hard on the website. Traffic has been pleasing this week with plenty of visitors to the site. I continue to improve it and add more items. Sales are slow at present, but that is to be expected. Thanks again to all of those who have liked and shared the page, and for all of the positive comments.

 

Best wishes

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

I don't have "a face like a smacked @rse !"

.

 

.

Brian R

You must have a magic mirror then (like mine).

[Happy Hippo]

A lovely day in very sunny Mevagissey.

 

We took the ferry to Fowey for the day and generally just shambled around visiting various establishments that sold food and drink or tourist tat.

 

We also managed to gain entry to a much more salubrious art gallery where the Obergrumpenfuhrer decided she wanted a statue of a Cormorant. I have called him Graculus in homage to Noggin the Nog.

 

I can now claim to have had to go all the way to to Fowey to get an expensive sh*g.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Happy Hippo

[Horsetan]

.....A mature lady in her party was berating the theatre for daring to sell peanuts......

This is sometimes what happens when minorities - or those who like getting outraged on their behalf - are allowed to trump the interests of wider society. The theatre may now wish to increase the availability of peanuts - or indeed any nuts - in future. This may keep other nuts at bay.

 

Meanwhile, back in France, my cleaner Alison may be on the cusp of a worthwhile new relationship. Guillaume is unmarried, a former pilot, so speaks excellent English, and is not very fond of his fellow Frenchies. He has worked all round the world, is more interesting than some of the online contacts she has made. Bizarrely, his divorced brother had also been on the same website, and one feels there may now be bad blood between them if G pulls - which he could do with minimum effort. Alison’s English friend Gill, who lives about an hour away, has suddenly fallen on harder times. She has five children, and she and partner had bought a house about 18 months ago. Last Tuesday, he announced he was leaving her to return to the UK. On Saturday! While he has apparently said he will continue the mortgage payments, and support the children until adulthood, he has left precisely 100 euros in the bank account. A geek who worked from home, they had been together for 20 years. At least three of the children - ages are 10 to 19, the eldest being at college in theUK -have serious health issues, though not the same one. Gill is in meltdown, has stayed with Alison over the long weekend (today is a holiday in France) so Alison, who herself has no money, is feeding 5 extra mouths all weekend. Fortunately, Alison drove over to Gill’s on hearing the sad news, and found the house in chaos. Six loads of washing have gone through Alison’s machine. You truly can always find someone worse off than youself.......

No word from philandering farmer, then.

[The Stationmaster]

It has rained, the washing got a bit wet and the awning got a lot wet.  All of this was apparently my fault - seemingly I am promoted to be the God of Rain.

[BSW01]

It has rained, the washing got a bit wet and the awning got a lot wet.  All of this was apparently my fault - seemingly I am promoted to be the God of Rain.

It could be worse, you could’ve been the god of hell fire!

[Ozexpatriate]

... the god of hell fire!

Pele-honua-mea has been particularly cranky of late.

[roundhouse]

Pele-honua-mea has been particularly cranky of late.

Some of the roads we drove around on Big Island ten years ago are no longer passable.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone

 

Well, great progress has been made today with the sound decoders that I got on Saturday (I’ve now got my 3rd sound decoder to fit, as the one I ordered on Thursday arrived this morning). The one I put in the S15 yesterday is now complete, the engine completely reassembled and working fine. I then made a start on one of the N15s and found that the decoder wouldn’t fit inside the loco at all. So after a rethink, I’ve decided to put the lot in the tender. There’s plenty of room in there, it just means a bit more work. So far, I’ve completely rewired the loco, and fitted a standard Hornby 4 pin plug and I’ve also fitted a matching socket in the tender, as well as fitting the 8 pin decoder socket in there too. Throughout this work I constantly checked and double checked the pickup wiring, which is a good thing, as for some unknown reason the colour coding of the tender pickups is reversed and certainly not to NMRA standards. So tomorrow I’m going to rewire both of the bogies using black cable, I’ll also make them long enough to reach the socket directly and not via a join. I’ve also drilled holes in the tender base for the sound to escape and holes for the speaker mounting screws.

 

Bl00dy typical, after spending about 15 minutes this afternoon watering all the pots in the back garden, it’s now raining.

 

Brian. Glad you’ve got your car sorted out, well, in a fashion anyway.

 

OD and Sherry Welcome back, it’s been far too long.

Edited May 21, 2018 by BSW01

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Perhaps I should keep my big mouth shut, I mentioned the 'wall to wall' sunshine this morning. Almost as soon as I'd mentioned that it clouded over and as I ventured out a few spots of rain were evident. Had a bit of luck in Tesco's. I use a water filter as the local water is very hard. My current water filter is now looking very tatty and I intended to get a new one. In the bin for damaged items in Tescos there was a filter jug in a very battered box so I checked the contents and they looked OK so I took a chance on it as it was marked down at £5:75 from £23:00. When I got it home I found it to be in perfect condition except for the pouring spout cover that was rattling about inside the jug and that was soon clipped back in place. I'm not using it just yet as I've only just replaced the filter on the old jug.