Early Risers.

[chrisf]

Greetings

 

I’m afraid that the counselling has hit the buffers for the time being.  When I submitted my request on 28^th October I was given a name.  The possessor of that name has not made contact with me to arrange an initial meeting and no-one at the practice answers the phone.  If, as I suspect will be the case, my ultimatum of a response by 9 am today is not met I will cut my losses and approach another practice, for I do not have time to waste.  If there is a trade association or regulatory body embracing the activities of counselling practices I propose to ensure that it is made fully aware of what has happened, or to be strictly accurate what has not happened.  I see no reason not to get mad and even.

 

On a happier note, the Folk Show on Radio 2 played the excellent “Battle of the Somme” off the new Sam Sweeney CD last night.  I’ve not played it myself yet but it’s next in the player after The Trials of Cato’s CD which I am currently enjoying.  Who needs the Spice Girls with so much good new music around?  

 

Warm thoughts to all in distress and those who are missing. 

 

Chris

[AndyID]

Why did the salmon cross the road?

 

 

To avoid the sturgeon?

[roundhouse]

Morning frm a sunny Surrey. Good job we weren’t using the cars as they were iced up yet quite pleasant walk to the station. Ticket to Warwick bought and a chat with an rmwebber who works in the ticket office as there were very few people buying tickets.

 

I bought one to Warwick as it’s only a pound more than to Banbury so gives me the flexibility if I do decide to head further towards Brum.

 

After a few pints of a Tribute then Harveys Old finishing on Harveys Bonfire Boy I not be have many beers today. More of a rail photos day hopefully

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Mugatea made. Tablet taken. Dry outside so this little part of the world is ok

 

Bits and bats to sort out today.

 

Anyone seen any whelkmen recently?

TTFN

Baz

[trisonic]

 

 

Sometimes the juxtapositions are funny when you get "Candidate A is the right choice for yourstate", immediately followed by "We can't trust Candidate A" - but it's only mildly amusing the first time.

Is it over yet? I got pissed off with all the comments about the Fighter Jet flying lesbians (who seemed very competent to me); there seemed to me to be at least two candidates lumped under this description.

 

It was all the appalling adverts that drove me crazy....

 

Mostly it was just the same old, same old.

 

Best, Pete.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Blue sky and a bit of sunshine here and it shuld be a mainly dry day.

The Boss was up early and brought me tea in bed so I must be doing something right.

The first of 3 bin lorries is outside making a racket so anyone wanting a quiet lie in has had it.

Some shopping required today and as usual Sainsbury's will have the pleasure of our company and custom. This always takes twice as long as it should because The Boss worked there for 37 years and knows everyone, staff and customers alike.

As the sun is shining I may get a couple of tasks done in the garden. Also got to hoover out the car.

Still trying to work out a track plan for my little shunting layout. 

Second bin lorry has just gone in the opposite direction.

Have a good one,

Bob.

[Barry O]

Chris F, the move to someone else may be a positive step in your quest. Just hope someone gets back to you soon.

Baz

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a rather misty corner of the world.   We were woken at 05.37 this morning by a mutt wanting to go outside.  I was volunteered for the job by the boss but was able to get back to sleep.   Then a weird dream where a wedding party of drunken chain smoking Brits decided to park up on our property and had to be ushered off the premises and some of my retired colleagues appeared to help.   Really weird.  Anyway then it was up eventually just after 8, off to the post box and now breakfast has been had. Said mutt is asleep at my feet.   The next job will be the ironing.  Then it's time to sort my stuff out and pack a bag as I'm off on a 2 day jaunt to Orleans to the big show there on Saturday, with day of trainspotting tomorrow. However I have to make sure that the paraffin heater is fully fuelled and there are two baskets of logs for Beth to use.   Apart from that there is not a lot on the agenda.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone

 

The sun is trying to shine, but there is a bit too much cloud preventing its success. Once Sheila has gone to her Zumba class, I’ll start tidying up the front garden, we seem to have half the streets leaf litter in front of our door. It’s nothing new, we’ve always seemed to collect it. I suspect that I’ll half fill the garden waste bin though. After that I’ll get a bit more done in the workshop, perhaps even a bit of modelling?

 

Back later

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

We are in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Sunny and forecast to be 24C later. Though we are packing coats as it is slightly below freezing still at our destination up a volcano. People on the trip have been warned!.

The bossy woman yesterday at lunch yesterday was unusual on this cruise. Nearly everyone we meet is pleasant. Our regular dinner companions are lovely.

Tony

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Here,

 6 hours sleep, that followed a 1 hour nap after tea eyelid inspection, that did some good , I was making mistakes yesterday and having to redo bits of measurement..Then the equipment itself joined in and I got very confused...

 

At least it's your election, we get hours of it on news our programmes even though it's not our election. I don't suppose our election gets more than a passing mention on DisU.S.A. TV...

 

A black dog walked past, while trying to doze, with aches and pains running through. Why am I here? what am I doing all this for? Is there a reason for all this? How long have I got?

 

Ben the Border Collie was happy though, He charged around the garden this morning, no clouds, lots of starlight and a hint of dawn.

 

 

Olive Green, well Sort of,  that varied a bit over the years, deliberately and by weathering, supposedly mixed from Chrome yellow and soot by the shed foreman.  I'll stick to olive green from a can, Highland Railway locomotive Colour. Exact drawings are now being made for the trailer hard top, although there is a good chance it won't be built till next summer...I've discovered a 1ft radius, 1/4 circle, can be imposed on the leading edge of the hard top, so some concession has been made to Aerodynamics..

 

I've sorted the major equipment itself this morning and It's out doing it's crosscheck for the next 8 hours. So I'm now measuring the resistor set that comes with it.. I notice on the shelf there is a Shunt set from the DisUSA, for me to measure once others have done their bit..So that will be some of next weeks work probably.

 

I need to find my slab of Horse hair, the type that is now replaced by polystyrene in packaging these days, I frightened my self at the cost of stick on heather for the vast hillsides of Tiree. So Firday I'll have experiment with horse hair and purple paint..

 

Let us go, lassie, go
Tae the braes o' Balquhidder
Whar the blueberries grow
'Mang the bonnie Hielan' heather
Whar the deer and the rae
Lichtly bounding thegither
Sport the lang summer day
On the braes o' Balquhidder

 

 Time for.. more resistors..

Edited November 8, 2018 by TheQ

[Purley Oaks]

Morning all

 

Sunny morning with some house hunting planned.

Morning all.
We are in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Sunny and forecast to be 24C later. Though we are packing coats as it is slightly below freezing still at our destination up a volcano. People on the trip have been warned!.
The bossy woman yesterday at lunch yesterday was unusual on this cruise. Nearly everyone we meet is pleasant. Our regular dinner companions are lovely.
Tony

Yes it's cold up there, Tony, even when it's 30C on the beach. Are you taking the cable car? It's a wonderful place to go, probably above the clouds.

 

Now that the US mid-terms are over the news is back to the B-word; Gabe has changed channels so I stop shouting at the radio!

 

Hope your days go well

 

Mal

[shortliner]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Here,

 

 

I need to find my slab of Horse hair, the type that is now replaced by polystyrene in packaging these days, I frightened my self at the cost of stick on heather for the vast hillsides of Tiree. So Firday I'll have experiment with horse hair and purple paint..

 

I couldn't find mine anywhere - found a nearby lady who does upholstery who very kindly donated me a piece when I explained what I needed it for!

Edited November 8, 2018 by shortliner

[Happy Hippo]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. The fireworks outside have ceased, there is quite a large Hindu population hereabouts and today is the principle day of Diwali hence the fireworks.

 

Good luck with the walking stick. You will find it very useful at exhibitions. You will find that if you hold it between 20 and 30 degrees from the vertical its ideal for removing haversack wearers when they shove said haversack in your face. A quick whack across the shins keeps them out of the way.

If you have a tungsten tipped variety of stick,  accidentally placing it on top of the offenders foot and then letting the stick take the weight off your body................

 

I leave you to imagine the rest.

 

I may have mentioned this before, but it is also useful when held perpendicular to the vertical in ensuring cars give you a wider than average berth on a country lane.

[Happy Hippo]

I need to find my slab of Horse hair, the type that is now replaced by polystyrene in packaging these days, I frightened my self at the cost of stick on heather for the vast hillsides of Tiree. So Firday I'll have experiment with horse hair and purple paint..

 

I use the same polystyrene blocks glued down covered in a layer of card (old file folders) or papier mache then topped with hanging basket liner which is then trimmed with a variety of clippers and scissors before adding various bits of static grass.

 

[Barry O]

Q

 

do you mean British Leyland Tundra (aka Highland loco green aka British Army car colour)? BLVC 94

 

We had a mini in that colour. We could go snap with exhibitors with Highland Railway locomotives on their layout.

 

Baz

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

The sun is shining and herself is off to the Doctor's for something or other and will then frequent Waitrose so all I have to do is drive down and collect her - which usually isn't quite as simple as it sounds as the idiotparkingwombles have a nasty habit of congregating in the Waitrose/town car park.  Just to add to their stupid behaviour part of the car park has been shut off in connection with 'an exciting development' of shops and flats.  The only real benefit of all that, apart from creating yet more empty shops, is that the flats are not part of geriatricsville and presumably, unlike one of the other camps under construction for geriatrics, they probably won't be built out of something looking more like giant Meccano rather than real building materials.

 

No other major plans exist for today but the appearance of sunshine might lead to mention of the G word, time will tell but we do have slightly further afield shopping to do as well so that might take precedence in the managerial mind - I will obey (if it suits me).

 

Have a good day one and all

[TheQ]

Q

 

do you mean British Leyland Tundra (aka Highland loco green aka British Army car colour)? BLVC 94

 

We had a mini in that colour. We could go snap with exhibitors with Highland Railway locomotives on their layout.

 

Baz

Well Something like that, having looked at the online reperesentation of BVLC94. From what I can fiind no two people exactly agree on  the colour of HR loco green, but i believe the chrome yellow mixed with soot is from a chemical analysis of chips of loco paint.

 

However I see you can buy olive drab Military paint online for about £16 a litre So i'll probably use that with a coat or two of varnish on top.

 

 

Happy Hippo, the intention for the horse hair slab is to cut up into thin layers to represent heather when the tops are painted purple.  My scenery is normally polystyrene blocks, but for Tiree for the big hillsides it's expanded mesh covered in J cloth soaked in polyfilla as there is a fiddle yard beneath.

 

I fear we are decending into the territory of the dreaded Awl, time I went back to work...

Edited November 8, 2018 by TheQ

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. The usual bin wagons dawn chorus this morning, including the lesser spotted glass and bottle. They do discourage the Chelsea tractors on the school run. One of said CT's tried to mate with one of the bin lorries a few weeks ago according to one of the bin wagons human attendants, or as he put it "It was well and truly f****d!"

 

If you have a tungsten tipped variety of stick,  accidentally placing it on top of the offenders foot and then letting the stick take the weight off your body................

 

I leave you to imagine the rest.

 

I may have mentioned this before, but it is also useful when held perpendicular to the vertical in ensuring cars give you a wider than average berth on a country lane.

Mine is rubber tipped, the tip does have an affinity for feet though. Have you ever seen someone wearing a heavy haversack trying to hop on one foot without falling over? The only problem is that hopping on one foot helps distribute certain odours.

[81C]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. The fireworks outside have ceased, there is quite a large Hindu population hereabouts and today is the principle day of Diwali hence the fireworks.

 

Good luck with the walking stick. You will find it very useful at exhibitions. You will find that if you hold it between 20 and 30 degrees from the vertical its ideal for removing haversack wearers when they shove said haversack in your face. A quick whack across the shins keeps them out of the way.

 

Why the shins I would have thought a belt around the head catching the ear would be more effective even a sharp jab in the goolies depending what presents itself 

as the easiest target.

                                 COWABUNGA.

[The Stationmaster]

Waitrose car park, or rather the drivers of various motor vehicles in it, today excelled itself in a manner never before seen.  All I saw at first was a problem actually getting into it at the north end, which is extremely unusual as the entrance usually works well, it just gets awkward finding somewhere to park.  But today the brain donors were out in force and Mrs Stationmaster gleefully informed me that I had missed such entertaining sights as one unattended car parked across the back end of three others locking them in the parking spaces plus other idiotic antics.  However I very definitely encountered the prize winner - a large Waitrose artic parked at the narrowest point of entry to about one third of the car park's capacity forcing anyone attempting to get past it to drive up onto the kerb;  another occasion to bless the convenience of the ability of my car to fold in the driving mirrors at the touch of a switch.   But I then had to contend with the idiot twosome who had parked to block folk getting out of spaces but in this case the second one had managed to also partially block in the blocker.

 

Definitely loony tunes day in the car park and not much better out on the roads where it seems a green traffic light means 'don't move' to many drivers.  But a better quality of motorist in Tecsco's car park today so some respite was achieved.   All the shopping was safely gathered in and then home for a cuppa.

[PhilJ W]

Why the shins I would have thought a belt around the head catching the ear would be more effective even a sharp jab in the goolies depending what presents itself 

as the easiest target.

                                 COWABUNGA.

Below the knees is better, its not that obvious where it came from.

[Gwiwer]

Evening all.

 

Two thoughts on the subject of being a vegan.  One: a former employer, never known for his empathetic tones and often one for a memorable if inappropriate quip, referred to vegetarians as "woolly people".  When he encountered a vegan his response was "Woolly women with hair all over".   I didn't care to ask how he knew.  Two: a friend is a lactose-intolerant vegan.  That limits even further what she can eat.  On the three-day Indian Pacific / Overland train trip from Perth to Melbourne she was obliged to stock up with chick-pea products before departure but still ran out of "anything edible" well before the overnight stop in Adelaide.  As she said - "There's nothing on the train I can eat".  Aussies apparently exist on a diet of meat pies and sausage rolls, all of which have to be smothered in red sauce (ketchup).  

 

A slightly better day at the House of Fun today.  We almost got away without incident but some heavy passenger loadings resulted in slow turnbacks at Waterloo and gave rise to late running.  If you hear the announcement "Congestion caused by earlier delay" this is one of the causes behind what sounds like a very lame excuse.  Put another way a train has typically 7 minutes from booked arrival to booked departure at Waterloo during the peaks.  If it arrives more than a few seconds late it also fouls the points and signals for something else waiting to leave.  And if it arrives more than a couple of minutes late it is unable to disgorge a thousand or so passengers, collect those wishing to board, exchange crews (and safety checks between them) and get away on time.  And so the delays snowball.

 

I have described the art of getting trains to and from the Great Glass House to those waiting in terms of driving a car.  Can you set off at precisely a given time and drive the same route every day, with other road users not necessarily in the same place and time, stopping and starting at given places (let's call them junctions with traffic lights) at the exact time required and reach your destination at precisely the specified time?  That makes a few folk actually think about how easy it isn't to run a train service punctually.  And then there's the days when everyone is just slow to board or alight for no particular reason .....

 

It is time to attend the kitchen.  Curly Cumberland Sausages with mash and seared red onions sounds nice.  I wonder if I can convince SWMBO of their merits.

[Ozexpatriate]

At least it's your election, we get hours of it on news our programmes even though it's not our election. I don't suppose our election gets more than a passing mention on DisU.S.A. TV..

UK elections will be reasonably well covered in US news outlets - variably so depending on the outlet. There will be a lot of stories ahead of time and analysis afterwards. It won't be 'wall-to-wall' coverage or anything like the fixation on results of US elections - the networks won't go live with the results as they come in.

 

The nature of the 24 hour news cycle needs something fresh to feed it every day so UK elections will get some prominence that day and depending on what else happens *might* be the lead story.

 

UK elections get more coverage by US news outlets than for any other country. Australian elections happen with barely a blip. 

[Ozexpatriate]

Two thoughts on the subject of being a vegan.

It is becoming more and more common here. A friend who suffers from migraines went vegan to help in that matter. The spectrum of pesca-vegetarians, ovo-lacto-vegetarians, vegetarians, vegans and Jainist vegetarians is a minefield of prohibitions.

 

Certainly there are the "conscientious objectors" who do not want to kill animals for food or clothing. While I do not embrace it, I am sympathetic to their stand so long as there is no judgement applied to the rest of us. I do think that technology in sustainability will lead us down this path eventually. 

 

Aussies apparently exist on a diet of meat pies and sausage rolls, all of which have to be smothered in red sauce (ketchup).

On of my favourite guilty pleasures - when I can get it. My son is a enthusiastic convert to the superiority of Aussie tomato sauce over American ketchup.

 

Curly Cumberland Sausages with mash and seared red onions sounds nice.  I wonder if I can convince SWMBO of their merits.

Sounds delightful. Focus on your sagacity and conviction.