Early Risers.

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

The temperature has dropped quite significantly again this morning.  We are below freezing with quite a heavy frost.

 

Having said that, it is nice a bright.

 

Time for a coffee!  Have a good day everyone...

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all

 

I went to the surgery yesterday morning, principally because I had a prescription request to drop in, but decided to ask the question while I was there.  One of the nurses called me back mid morning.  It appears that I have a virus that I can expect to be around for at least another week.  If I still have it this time next week, then and only then will the surgery want to see me.  I have been advised to keep up my fluid intake – always a good idea, I feel – but sooner or later the virus will go, which is what I thought in the first place.  Never let it be said that I do not listen to advice.  Even I know to be careful with viruses.

 

I came too close to forgetting about a concert tonight.  Chris Wood is playing at The Stables, the gig having been rearranged due to illness – his, not mine.  Last night I enjoyed one of Rob Foxon’s “Railways Remembered” shows at Kettering – real films, real projectors.  You can’t beat it.

 

I ought to do a fodder run this morning and will examine the logistics of that after a long hot wallow.

 

Best wishes to all in need of them

 

Chris

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Chilly but dry here.

Debs has had an awful time over the last few years and has kept a positive outlook despite her major health and family health problems. I hope she gets to see an improvement in her health and also her families health soon.

As it happens I had a phone call I knew was coming and dreaded having to receive it. My very poorly marra has got very, very poorly. I will see him at the earliest opportunity...but his health is mimicking the last, very painful days of my mother.

 

Positive thoughts to all who are Ill and to their family and friends as well.

Baz

[grandadbob]

Good morning all and a Happy Anniversary to Mick and Mrs NB.

Raining at the moment but not too heavy and a mainly dry day with some bright spells is forecast. I hope so as the roofer has only just started and there's a few more days work to go.

A quick trip to Sainsbury's required first today as Joe and Gemma are visiting after school and will require feeding.  Gem is still a veggie after over a year so we need to get something that appeals to her.

After that it's possibly "mind your head Bob" as I duck under the layout and start the job of dismantling. I need a haircut but I suppose it might be better to leave the little that's there in place as it may give a very slight level of protection. 

Have a good one,

Bob.

Edited March 19, 2019 by grandadbob

[Barry O]

Happy anniversary Mr and Mrs MickB.

Baz

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare,

 Well after the previous nights long sleep it was to be expected that this one would be carp and it was..

 

I've got dry feet this morning, even though it's been raining, yes new steel toe capped work boots arrived courtesy of the strong ladies... Ben the Border Collie  wanted to play out there, where we had had a small shower of rain, I had to disappoint him, No time.

 

Driving home yesteday , it is obvious spring has sprung... no less than 5 sets of road works, Bridge repairs, gas pipline, BT fibre, road resurfacing and a we're not admitting who we are..

 The road surfacing is a bit more than that, that piece is an old railway line built across marsh land. Not surprisingly 130 years of single track impacted ballast into the marsh behaves somewhat to the 40 year old full width of the A road and they are parting company..

 

Packaging, i ordered some micro strip also via the strong ladies, as the cheapest supplier...it turns out is came from the USA... 1 Pack of micro strip in a cardboard envelope big enough to take a very Thick A4 pad....

 

And I have no Time..

Time to.. go get that chinese system running... more on that later...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by TheQ

[BoD]

Morning all.

 

Happy anniversary MrB AND MRS B

 

I shouted that last bit so she will hear in Sri Lanka.

[Barry O]

Good thinking BoD!

[tigerburnie]

Morning, rather misty looking out there but the sun is trying to get his hat on, hope all is well out there and everyone has a good day.

[jamie92208]

Morning all, it's sunny here but there are clouds around and we had quite a cool night as well.  Despite my best efforts at feeding the log burner at 06.00 (I'd got up for another reason) it was out when we got up about 08.00. 

Thoughts are with Debs who has had a terrible time over the past few years.   Happy Anniversary to Mr and Mrs NB.  For Mick this will probably be unique in that he won't be told that he's done anything wrong for the whole day.

Beth is busily compiling a shopping list.   I'm not qualified to take part in that expedition as it's well above my pay grade.  I will probably toddle over to the shed and chop some more logs.   After lunch we are of to the former mayor's funeral. It's expected to be very well attended so we are going early to get a seat in the small church.  

This evening two elderly French friends are coming for a meal but we don't expect it to be a late evening.  Hopefully we will be able to settle down and watch the last episode of Shetland.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

 

[TheQ]

Knock Knock....

 

 

Who's there?

 

 

The builders knocking seven shades of XXXXXX out of various walls and the concrete pad on the floor of the old boiler room next door. They are also using a big grinder cutter, that makes it vibrate in here somewhat. The ventilator above the door has been replaced by glass, the others through the walls chiselled out, ready for bricking up. 

 

 

 

 How do you measure AC voltage very accurately?...

 

Well roughly this way,

You have a resistor and a thermocouple inside a glass bead, carefully insulated from the outside world.

You feed the resistor with a known amount of positive DC voltage and measure amount of heating with the thermocouple.

You Feed the resistor with AC voltage and measure amount of heating with the thermocouple.

You feed the resistor with a known amount of Negative  DC voltage and measure amount of heating with the thermocouple.

Then using a little maths you can work out the value of ACV..

 

Except yesterday ....

The Chinese system decided it wasn't going to feed the Resistor with +DCV,  every measurement  from 10Hz to 6Khz (about 30 measurements). I checked all the connections, turned everything on and off, tried running again, three times...

Then waited for the boss.

He came, checked everything I had done... all OK..

so we ran it again..

it worked...

2 hours lost work time...

 

Today it's running OK, which is just as well as this run takes 289 minutes not the 40 minutes of yesterday..

Meantime I'm just waiting for 1.9Kohms to settle on the other major system.. I've made 40 other measurements between typing this, time for the next one...

[45156]

13 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Rick, I think Special Delivery has stricter rules than signed for. One of our former posties told me it was a sacking offence to break that rule. 

 

 

Quite correct, and I can vouch for that, as we had a temporary postie here once who had a 1 pm guaranteed delivery - a very expensive (think £500 plus) teddy bear for 30747 and it was signed for at 12.47 but not by us.  To cut a long story short, she had signed for it herself, as she was running late.  Unfortunately, as 30747 was waiting at home for said delivery, and I went online for her and found out that it was already signed for (but not delivered), we got the sender to start a claim for mis-delivery.  30747 then went looking for the postie, who was then compelled by her to go back to her van, where the package was sitting on the front seat - by now it was well after the 1 pm delivery promise.  30747 signed for it - teddy was obtained, sender got a refund on the postage, which she then sent to us, postie got the sack.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Looking out of the kitchen window, it became obvious that it has been raining during the night. Breakfast has been consumed and I will make a start on the Sainsbury’s Grand Prix as soon as the school run has ended. Sheila had threatened hinted that she might come along today,  it has decided to stay in a catch up on some domestic jobs. This will mean that I will only be out around an hour, instead on the 90 minutes or so if she decided to come! Once I’ve got back and put the shopping away, I’ll have a quick muggertea and we will then head of to Waitrose to pick up what we can’t get from Sainsbury’s, I will DEFINITELY be accompanied for that trip!

 

Mick and Mrs NB happy anniversary. 

 

Back later

[jamie92208]

I am  very annoyed and may well go and start bashing various pieces of wood into smaller bits in retaliation.  I did my usual check of the bank accounts and discovered a deduction of our UK account labelled Amazon Prime Amazon.fr.   I detest the idea of prime and will not have anything to do with it.  Needless to say I promptly logged on to amazon.fr and after a while managed to find my account details.  I discovered that I had somehow been signed up for Prime in France but my UK account had been debited.   I promptly cancelled the account (£43) and think that there is a refund on the way.   They are very sneaky with this.   Beth once signed up for it without realising on the UK site and we had to cancel.  I suspect that something was lost in translation for me.   I will check carefully with both French and UK accounts over the next few days.

 

Anyway on a completely different tack.   Without getting into politics, I have been very impressed with the way that the PM of New Zealand has come across after the terrible events in Christchurch.  There was a short clip of a speech she made in their parliament this morning and I thought how wonderful and statesmanlike her words were.

 

Jamie

[bbishop]

21 hours ago, roundhouse said:

Let's see if this photo ends upin someone else's post. It will give them a surprise if it does.

 

Stonehenge Signs of Spring and its much nicer than it looks. Currently sitting in a pub where I had an impromptu interview with a previous bossmany years ago as the office was nearby. It became a lunchtime local for a few months till the company closed the office and messed up the whole company and we all ended up leaving.

 

 

Input?  Output?

Bill

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Not a lot happening until lunchtime. Then we would appear to be going out for lunch with some friends, Aditi forgot to tell me she had arranged this. 

Tony

[45156]

Morning All

 

I did post earlier, but just to offer my response to Rick's comment about Special Delivery.

 

So it's a Happy Anniversary to Mick and Mrs Mick, and a belated one to NHN and Mrs NHN.  It's also a very special cyber hug to the most deserving ER, in the extraordinary personage of Debs, who has really suffered both herself and with her family.  Of course, generic greetings are also on offer to all other ERs who are ailing, suffering, or celebrating.

 

Now then, what about here?  Well not a lot really, other than a bit of painting which is ongoing.  We decided that we wanted the gloss paintwork in the front room to be a cream colour - it has been so for years, but the old colour has now faded to a tobacco stained yellow.  We decided that what we'd really like was a Farrow And Ball colour called Farrows Cream, but it is not available locally and also is not available in oil based gloss, which we need, as I'd already prepped all the woodwork in oil based primer and undercoat.  So asking at B&Q and Homebase, they only do mixed colours in water based gloss now "for environmental reasons".  There is a Dulux trade centre in Morecambe, and an enquity there got the reply that they could "try" to colour match Farrows Cream, for £20.56 a litre plus VAT.  I sort of recalled that I had seen another paint Trade Centre, Johnstones, and a quick Google found it.  A quick call, and they could GUARANTEE to match Farrows Cream in an oil based gloss, also at just over £20 a litre plus VAT.  When I visited, they were as good as their word, but as I'd been in touch before, and had decided to pick them instead of Dulux, they were happy to give me a trade discount of 25%.  Guess where I'm going in future for ALL my painting and decorating requirements?  And it's utterly, utterly brilliant paint - thick, so it doesn't drip or run, brushes on easily, and it seems to cover well in one coat.  It is a bit smelly, though , but then it's oil based.

 

Anyway, I've now got to go to town for a few errands and to pick up 30747 from work.

 

Back tomorrow -hopefully, but the fodder run is also calling.

 

Regards To All

Stewart

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. NB and thoughts are with Debs and other ailing ER's. Had a reminder letter from Railway Bylines this morning about renewing my subscription so I phoned up earlier to be told that their computers were down so I'll try again in a few days time. Muggatee to be drunk, be back later.

[81C]

Morning All 

 Nuffink  to say.

                   enjoy your day  bye bye.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Hearty congratulations to Mr & Mrs Mick (hope you'll be talking to each other today ).  And so sorry to hear the continuing travail for poor Debs and now her father - somebody as nice and caring as her really does deserve some better breaks in life so my fingers remain firmly crossed for her.

 

No plans for today but the G word still lurks - v cancelled yesterday due to rain stopped play.

 

Have a good day one and all.

[jamie92208]

Stewart.   I'm glad that you've discovered Johnstones.  They are based at Birstall not far from where we used to live.  It was a local company called Silver Paint and lacquer that grew, took over Leyland Paints and then got bought by an American company.  They still manufacture at Birstall and I have a friend who helps manage the IT there.  As a result we can get to use the factory shop which has a very helpful set off staff.  They matched Midland Red for me from a colour swatch and all of LGA's pelmets and baseboard edges are painted with it.   I am sure that they will do you a good job.

 

Jamie

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, and I'm pleased to say it is running a lot smoother than yesterday!  IT issues behind us and catching up nicely.

 

Indeed, I cannot express my feelings for Debs, she has had such a rough time, but has been a model of decorum throughout.  Quite a lady.

 

My congrats to the 'Micks' on their anniversary too, oh how the years go by.....

[newbryford]

38 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Morning all,

 

Hearty congratulations to Mr & Mrs Mick (hope you'll be talking to each other today ).  And so sorry to hear the continuing travail for poor Debs and now her father - somebody as nice and caring as her really does deserve some better breaks in life so my fingers remain firmly crossed for her.

 

 

 

We have exchanged messages via WhatsApp. She is 5 1/2 hours ahead, so I have a built in delay in complying with her requests...………...

 

Thoughts with Debs

 

Mick

Edited March 19, 2019 by newbryford
typo

[TheQ]

Just received an email from the company, they will be driill and hammering all day doing as I mentioned before.. Nice to know before hand...

Edited March 19, 2019 by TheQ

[BSW01]

Stewart, I've used Farrow and Ball paints for a few years now and not had any problems with painting over prepared oil paint before. It's a very hard wearing paint and very low odour too! 

Edited March 19, 2019 by BSW01