Early Risers.

[Dave Hunt]

A very good morning to everyone and welcome back Baz and Chris. Jet lag can be a real pain can't it? In a previous existence I often used to shift a large number of time zones and know only too well that it can play havoc for a while with both physical and mental functions so I hope that our intrepid travelling duo get their body clocks back onto local time soon. Also happy St. Piran's day to all Kernow folk, in particular Rick.

 

The view from the homestead this morning is of a bright and breezy Salopian borderland and now that my Dad is reinstalled in his own home things are starting to return to something approaching normality. Today there is a pancake lunch at a local community centre in aid of  MacMillan nurses so we will be attending. I will probably have a bacon and cheese one followed by a traditional lemon and syrup version and to h**l with the diet. Mind you, it will be my main meal of the day so I will probably be able to salve my conscience with that thought.

 

This evening I will be venturing into the darker reaches of the county where there is a settlement of large, happy grey creatures that appear on this forum. Whether it will be on the banks of Kipling's great grey green greasy Limpopo river remains to be seen but the aim of the exercise is for me to be educated in the more arcane aspects of Templot as well as sampling the contents of HH's biscuit barrel.

 

In between these activities there will doubtless be some SWMBO inspired duties to attend to so whether any quality workshop time can be squeezed in remains to be seen.

 

That's about all to report here and now. Have a good day everyone and avoid life's banana skins.

 

Dave

 

Dave

Edited March 5, 2019 by Dave Hunt
Predictive text interference again!

[Tony_S]

3 hours ago, Barry O said:

as part of our trip we had a night 9n a houseboat. All went well until we were driven aground by another boat. Our trusty captain soon had us on our way again.

 

And it didn't cause any problems for the breakfast delivery team!

Baz

MiL lived on a Dal Lake houseboat for a while while she and the rest of her family were moving from Lahore during partition.  They were having a house built in Delhi. After the rather fraught earlier parts of the journey I think the houseboat must have been quite pleasant. MiL’s much younger sister managed to fall in the lake but was rescued safely.

Tony

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

It is quite sunny here. I am off to the garage to do some tidying before heading to the recycling (tip) centre. 

Tony

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Welcome home Baz and Chris from places that I would just love to visit, problem is that I hate flying. Proceeding with emptying the shed, making use of the dry weather to shift some items to the garage. I have quite a bit of 9mm ply which I will be lining the walls with, should cover about 75% of the walls and most of that I'm using is 'recycled' a lot of it from the packing of a photocopying machine that was delivered to work about 15 years ago and diverted from the skip. Thats all this morning, be back later.

[PhilJ W]

12 hours ago, 81C said:

I have all the Modeller Back Tracks it only lasted about 2 years, full pedant scriptures, it was just like reading a comic barring that there was some excellent features.

 

Tony we now stream our TV viewing off the modem we only watch the odd program's on the ariel the cable went months ago.

I did have some but not all of the Modellers Back Track. Then I had a chance to buy the whole series bound for a very low price which I purchased. I made almost as much as I paid for them by selling on the individual copies.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Those Indian houseboats look rather good. SWMBO was hinting over the weekend at a trip  to India, looking at photos of the Taj Mahal. Like Phil JW, I can't really be bothered with flying that far. I don't mind flying as such. I'm OK on short-haul flights but beyond that my claustrophobia kicks in.

[TheQ]

After the years spent in airport terminals waiting for flights to and from Saudi, i promised myself I wouldn't fly again...

 

Meanwhile the asbestos tent has gone from the boiler room, and it's gone quiet as they wait for the forklift to lift out large lumps of machinery...

 

A system that has been broken for 6 months has resurfaced "fixed" how did they fix it? they replaced the entire electronic unit in the rack.  That's easy way out for them, but I now have to generate new measurement and history files as it's not the same unit anymore... I suspect the normal 2.5 days of calibration will be a bit longer..

 

just broke my watch dragging said unit ito the lab.. typical not the watch pin broken but the socket on the watch, now you know why I only buy cheap waterproof watches..

 

Never read "back track" or even looked at a copy, I'll have a look at the next few shows for some secondhand copies to read as to commit to buying it would probably have to be mail order for me.. Ah I seem to confusing "backtrack" with "modellers back track"

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by TheQ

[Barry O]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Those Indian houseboats look rather good. SWMBO was hinting over the weekend at a trip  to India, looking at photos of the Taj Mahal. Like Phil JW, I can't really be bothered with flying that far. I don't mind flying as such. I'm OK on short-haul flights but beyond that my claustrophobia kicks in.

The flights to and from are fine. The internal flights are,  "different" shall we say. We saw the Taj at sun down as it raining at dawn...still a wonderful sight!

But India is very different. Each place we visited had a different feel. 

If you are someone who doesn't  like chaotic roads and huge pot holes then it won't be the place for you.

Snow in Shimla, 40°C in Kochin.

 

Baz

[Joseph_Pestell]

3 minutes ago, Barry O said:

The flights to and from are fine. The internal flights are,  "different" shall we say. We saw the Taj at sun down as it raining at dawn...still a wonderful sight!

But India is very different. Each place we visited had a different feel. 

If you are someone who doesn't  like chaotic roads and huge pot holes then it won't be the place for you.

Snow in Shimla, 40°C in Kochin.

 

Baz

 

"chaotic roads and huge potholes". Daily fare here in rural Dorset.

[Barry O]

15 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

"chaotic roads and huge potholes". Daily fare here in rural Dorset.

When you can hide a tuk tuk in a pothole ..un between people driving the wrong way up roads, using the horn to let everyone know you are coming through then Dorset has changed a lot since I last visited. 

[grandadbob]

Shed centre visited and decisions made. Final quote was accepted but I've just had a phone call telling me that in fact another quote will be coming which will be a couple of hundred quid cheaper. Fine by me! Now waiting for that and then I can pay a deposit and get things moving. 

[lightengine]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

"chaotic roads and huge potholes". Daily fare here in rural Dorset.

..... and the beggars outside Greggs making it seem like downtown Delhi .....

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

When you can hide a tuk tuk in a pothole ..un between people driving the wrong way up roads, using the horn to let everyone know you are coming through then Dorset has changed a lot since I last visited. 

That sounds a bit like the holiday we had in Somerset some years ago. It was some Royal Jubilee and every village seemed to have drunken locals wandering or driving chaotically. No potholes but plenty of ditches!

 

[lightengine]

18 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

Shed centre visited and decisions made. Final quote was accepted but I've just had a phone call telling me that in fact another quote will be coming which will be a couple of hundred quid cheaper. Fine by me! Now waiting for that and then I can pay a deposit and get things moving. 

GDB, will the erection be done for you or can we expect the worst?

Stand at ease Mick no EA intended

[81C]

I don't think he will hire a Gigolo Light' (you asked for that one). 

 

Afternoon All

Been busy today Her has cleaned the conservatory out and deemed the blind headrails need replacing bought in Argos many year ago I didn't think I could buy them, 

now things looked they were on the web page until I went to pay for them out of stock said Argos useless as ever Her said. me in dog house again.

Baz I own a Tuk Tuk it's for my Indian Hill Rly it says Matchbox USA on the packet.

                                                                                                                                                 must get on Mem Sahib 

 

[roundhouse]

10 minutes ago, 81C said:

I don't think he will hire a Gigolo Light' (you asked for that one). 

 

Afternoon All

Been busy today Her has cleaned the conservatory out and deemed the blind headrails need replacing bought in Argos many year ago I didn't think I could buy them, 

now things looked they were on the web page until I went to pay for them out of stock said Argos useless as ever Her said. me in dog house again.

Baz I own a Tuk Tuk it's for my Indian Hill Rly it says Matchbox USA on the packet.

                                                                                                                                                 must get on Mem Sahib 

 

Try www.blinds2go.co.uk

Used them for mum's new place and they were good, depending on the type of blinds you are after

[grandadbob]

LE, all works are being undertaken by the shed suppliers including the base and insulating and lining. Total size of the building is 18' x 8' so a bit too big for me to do on my own.

Electrickery works will be dealt with by my local friendly sparks as he is also doing some stuff in the house.

I will just be watching and making tea. 

[AndyID]

10 hours ago, pH said:

So how did you get the truck to start, then?

 

We were trying to take our daughter to Billings for her flight to the Right Coast. Called the AAA for help but the local garages were inundated with calls and they were having trouble getting their trucks started too.

 

After the Sun came up I was able to get the truck going with a battery charger but that took a couple of hours and we could not make it to Billings in time for the flight. Fortunately our daughter was able to change her flight and flew from Boseman instead.

 

I heard the airlines were having trouble starting some of their planes too.

[Ian Abel]

Morning!

Was planning on posting the weekend excitement yesterday, my internet provider had other ideas

In an "effort" to upgrade the local service "planned outages" were supposed to be notified. Turns out they weren't at the outage lasted most of the sensible part of yesterday!

 

Birthday weekend was excellent. Started out Friday evening at a friends' birthday party - everyone managed to show up even with it snowing pretty hard...

 

Saturday major events being;

iFly flights

 

and a great dinner/gathering Saturday evening;

 

Indian food (birthday boy choice) plenty of wine and music, AND a trivia game Julie put together which included/required me to expand on the various questions after the guests attempted to get the answers...

 

We're still working through a very cold and snowy spell here, with lows in the -22 to -24 over the weekend, breaking several records for lowest "daytime high" as well as racking up plenty of severe wind-chill events.

 

-15 and sunny getting the paper today, supposed to stay "cold" through Thursday although the high today WILL reach a balmy -9  by all accounts.

 

Hope the week is going well, I'll try and read back through the posts but they are accumulating at a rapid rate!

So congratulations and commiserations where appropriate.

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Ian Abel

[jamie92208]

Mafeking has been relieved a food parcel of Tea Bags has arrived, courtesy of the friend that I lit the fires for.   He also brought some small boxes with modelling items in that Beth has not investigated …..YET... 

 

Anyway the logs got split, various other tasks got done and a repaired loco performed very well on the layout after I managed a couple of hours in the shed.  Not a bad day so far.   The dinner smells rather nice but that will have to wait for an hour at least.

 

Jamie

  

[BoD]

Evening all.

 

Welcome back to the wanderers. I'm glad to hear that a good time was had.

 

I have spent nearly all afternoon scratch building windows using LibreCAD, acetate sheet and very fine microstrip. Not sure I'm entirely happy but they are a darn sight better than any I could have bought off the shelf, which would only have been an approximation of what I needed anyway.  I have used a Deluxe Pin Flow tool for the first time.  Most impressed.

 

I need to go and uncross my legs and eyes.

[AndyB]

After listening for 5 hours to the speech by the Chinese Prime Minister, Mr Keqiang, listing all their amazing achievements in 2018, tens of millions of new jobs, thousands of miles of new high-speed railway etc etc  the one fundamental question lay unanswered....

 

Where the hell can you buy decent, proper, Chinese chips these days!?!? 

This has been worrying us at work.

Well,  the CFO and myself, at least. 

 

Time was when a Chinese chip was a crisp, savoury entity made in a wok. A naughty but delightful thing. Ideal after, for example, a beer festival.

Now it seems they have simply replicated the British chip in a "me too" culinary exercise. This was the one time it was not a good idea to replicate western technology!

So, does anyone know an enclave where the real thing is still made?

In due course we may need a national survey to chart the demise of this. I'

 

And surely with a name like Keqiang this man must surely be wise to a good capitalist wheeze if he opened up an old-school Chinese chippy chain. 

 

BTW the diet is going ok, but I may be getting a bit obsessed by forbidden fruits!     

 

[Coombe Barton]

Chips in a wok? Cooking them now.

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Chips in a wok? Cooking them now.

We didn’t even get pancakes this evening. In the past I have done them as a surprise for Aditi, but since retiring she really likes cooking and said she would do pancakes tonight. She then decided none  of our frying pans were suitable although I was certain I had used them. A new pan is on its way, hopefully tomorrow, and hopefully they won’t be burned pancakes suitable for Ash Wednesday. I didn’t suggest the wok. 

[Happy Hippo]

I have Dave Hunt, Gordon Roden and Andy Morris trapped in a terrifying Templot continuous loop.