Early Risers.

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all

 

Martin Simpson brought a stack of CDs to last night's concert in St Neots.  Far from having a cheap evening, I spent £65 and the hessian bag will soon look much better nourished than of late.  Two members of Trials of Cato, the support band, are Welsh.  They admired my T shirt, or strictly speaking the Welsh language slogan that it bears.  Earlier I had introduced my rainbow bobble hat to the world and was amazed by the acclaim that it received.  The Tie must be worried.  I bought some other rainbow stuff at Cambridge Pride and it will appear about my person in due course.  I looked longingly at a rainbow top hat before dismissing it as OTT, even for me, but the idea won't go away.  One of the helpers was wearing a pair of Pride boots, made by Doc Martens.  I was told about them in Auckland by a member of the tour party and now I have seen them.  Let's see what happens.

 

Pride itself was wet until early afternoon.  Despite this it attracted a healthy crowd, which must have encouraged the organisers to do it again next year.  The event has support in High Places and both the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and the Mayor of Cambridge spoke from the stage, to obedient cheers.   The range of music was satisfyingly varied but the sound needs to be improved significantly to bring out the best from the vocal groups and choirs.  Not all of it was to my taste but then it never is.  In a rare touch of adventurousness I partook of my first dose of Thai cuisine - chow mein with prawns, since you ask.

 

Tonight I return to St Neots for an appearance by Les Barker.  There is much else in the diary for this week but more of that tomorrow.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris  

[jamie92208]

Good morning from the cliff top in Bournemouth.  We are safely installed in our next temporary home for the next few days. The drive down was wet for the first 2/3rds but then we started to see blue sky a d the sun came out. We even decided to walk to a restaurant rather than eating in the hotel.  We are loomi g forward to a few days of peace a d quiet and doing not a lot.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

It's not raining and there is blue sky and sunshine here. However some showers, possibly heavy, are forecast. 

Bill the Bathroom man turned up early yesterday with some good ideas which may turn out to be expensive. We shall see. The bathroom was last "done" 30 years ago by me and a friend so is badly in need of a makeover.  It needs to be completely gutted and started again from scratch. That will cause an immense amount of upheaval but will be worth it in the end. Said he, hopefully. 

Nothing has changed with the knee but I will try and get something done in the shed as I am fed up with sitting around.

Just been told to "get a move on" but in a nice way as the smell of bacon and eggs etc will shorty be wafting through the house. 

Have a good one,

L. Imping.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Sun shining but lots of clouds overhead.

Packing in hand . Departure time 11:30 ish.

 

Weather not looking promising for cricket at Southampton on Monday. Petethemole, can you get the sun dance going please?

 

Have a good day with especial thoughts to all who ail. GDB the weather is creating havoc with my rugby scarred joints.

Baz

[tigerburnie]

Morning, been awake for ages again, funny how the sun shines in the bedroom at daft o'clock, but then vanishes behind the clouds when you finally get up and want to go out and do something. The grass badly needs cutting and as it seems Scotland's monsoon season is about to re start this coming week, today might be the only chance to do it, better give the neighbours another half hour in bed before I wind up the mower though as it is Sunday.

[tigerburnie]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm precipitation has begun already, so much for the "G" word

[Kingzance]

4 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm precipitation has begun already, so much for the "G" word

And an extended rest for your neighbours too! 

IIRC in Federal Germany during the late 60’s / early 70’s, the operation of motorised garden-tamers on Sundays was verboten and shops also remained geschlossen.

 

Yesterday KZ-land descended into mini-crisis as SWMBO suffered bouts of blurred vision and headaches throughout the afternoon / evening. As she didn’t want to miss out on seeing what I was up to, she chose to remain downstairs despite my urging her to lay quietly in a darkened room. Eventually she did go up, although she couldn’t avoid using phone / tablet to communicate her ailments with friends and family, thereby only straining her head even more - but what do I know, I’m just unsympathetic and grumpy. I have been asked for advice (probably presaging a request to assist which will, in itself presage a “well could you take care of it all” sequence) on how to provide pork for twenty adults at a wedding anniversary do being held by a friend of my daughter. It appears that I have developed something of a reputation of being able to create tasty pork and crunchy crackling.

 

Today I hope to achieve that which I didn’t achieve yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that...... and to fellow contributors (and those currently unable to post for whatever reason), may all your troubles be miniature.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Bright and sunny this morning if a bit chilly but now beginning to cloud over. The poppies in the front garden are starting to flower. They are self seeded as they have been for the last few years. Muggatee awaits, be back later.

[Happy Hippo]

As I wheeled a neighbour's sickly motor mower into my garage last night, I realized that after the blitz we had at getting the garage tidy, it is starting to not look it's best.

 

I will freely admit that much of the clutter is due to intense OFMC operations!

 

This means that I need to get back out there today to de-clutter, in order to give tomorrow's OFMC meeting somewhere to re-clutter.

 

I can then put the mower to the back of the garage where it will await the PH's (aka 'Squealer') attention.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

The sun is shining, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but there we go. Up early and for breakfast once up I then refitted the net curtains that I had taken down yesterday. Now sat having muggertea No2 and when finished I’ll attend to a bit of gardening before dinner. After dinner the plan is to spend the rest of the day in the workshop, what I don’t know yet is how MUCH of the rest of the day there will be left!

 

Enjoy the day, back later. 

Edited June 9, 2019 by BSW01

[TheQ]

Boat work went to plan... Sort of,  the tabernacle was cut down no problem.  But removal of part of the old centreplate box was a disaster,  it's a wood, fibreglass,  tuffnol laminate,  it eat jigsaw saw blades and the space was too tight for the reciprocating saw. Eventually the jig saw gave up as well.

It got very hot and sweaty in the humidity and sun. 

 

Just had a messenger message from my oldest sister,  Dad having been transferred to the cardiology unit,  has had a heart attack while in there.  Not good news,  she reckons it could be heart failure,  Dad is the last of the 5 brothers. 

Dad has done this before,  when mum was in A&E after falling down the stairs,  Dad had a heart attack while standing in A&E. 

[The Stationmaster]

9 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Any relation to Otto Flick?

 

Speaking of which the ELO concert in Hyde Park is on the telly at the moment.

None whatsoever Flic of the café is a lady of clearly West Indian parentage notwithstanding her re-coloured hair (to a much paler shade) and I don't have a clue how good she would be in a song & dance act.  In contrast Richard Gibson, who played Herr Flick, is no mean hoofer and singer on stage and fitted in well when we saw him live a while back in a musical.

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

The fencing man has duly attended and polished off the job quite rapidly as he had the relevant tools (well the specialist ones that is - certain more workaday items he borrowed from me).  He then progressed, under instruction, to assist with some jungle clearance work which also went well while I had a go in other parts of the jungle and the size of one. bonfire heap duly trebled.  All I need now is we some of the promised rain and I can get at least one of the bonfires underway ('chemical assistance' for it is in stock).

 

Although rain is promised my knee has been much quieter of the last few days, maybe moisture in the air makes if t less 'graunchy' as I can't hear bits inside it rubbing together when going up the stairs - seems to be the opposite way round to what is often said!

 

Enjoy the rest of your day. one and all.

[tigerburnie]

Afternoon all, just finishing off a can of cloudy cider, not quite scrumpy but as near as we can expect in Scotland, dinner was an excellent free range chuck cooked with it's crispy skin on, might be unhealthy, but boy was it tasty, shame the veg was tasteless, still won't be too long until we can pick our own fresh from the garden again.

Spent around 4 hours in The Old Summer House fixing in the base boards for the new Scottish station and yard layout, might get some track tried and even movement of rolling stock in the next week, need to go to Wickes in Dundee for some cork tiles first though.

[Tony_S]

Evening all.

I am not too sure what happened to morning but after taking paracetamol to hide joint and muscle pain last night I slept well. Aditi got up early (I didn’t know) and emptied and cleaned the middle sized shed. I then impressed her by dragging it away from the fence and proceeded to apply the preservative. I then had a trip out to buy some rubber floor tiles as Aditi thought it would be a good thing for the shed, and could I buy some milk and pork pies while I was out. 

Everything went back in the shed after I repositioned it. By then I decided I had done enough and watched some of the India v Australia cricket on television.

I tried to watch the Grand Prix but couldn’t get interested. I used to really like F1.

Lots of rain forecast for the next few days so no painting! 

Tony

Edited June 9, 2019 by Tony_S
Omission

[brianusa]

15 hours ago, TheQ said:

Minus 32C that's chilly... 

 

I must remind myself not to uses a hyphen when a comma would do!

    Brian

[Coombe Barton]

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2019/06/09/sandys-treatment-day-173/

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. The seaweed wranglers forecast for the week ahead is wet and windy with the odd bit of sun. Not a lot been done on the lads layout because of the weather but as soon as its dry I'll be out cutting the plywood for the ends, then its only a matter of fixing it together. Tea is brewing so be back later.

[Gwiwer]

Evening all

 

A reasonably pleasant day here weather-wise apart from a few heavy showers mid-afternoon. 

 

I strolled over to St. Raw Berry Hill House for their annual “music and fun day” the proceeds of which support continued restoration and maintenance of the house. As minor local festivals go it was a bit average this year. Lunch was purchased from the “Indian Street Food” stall and comprised sag aloo with rice and samosas. It looked ok. It tasted ok. But it was cold when I had expected warm. It seems the burners on their equipment had gone out and not been attended to.  A quite reasonable white wine was obtained from the bar at less than local pub prices to accompany said lunch. 

 

The music while I was there was a pub-band selection of rock covers, followed by a rhythm ‘n’ blues band who in turn were followed by an outfit I could best describe as playing jazzed funk. As the rain arrived and I was unimpressed with their performance I wandered home after a couple of hours. 

 

Notter Lott else to report from today. I have flattened some uniform and set the llama for 5am. It’s back to that large House of Fun in the morning with a wetter forecast of very heavy rain. Summer has been cancelled due to late running of the inbound service. 

 

G’night all 

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well it raining but, luckily I was just about ready to pack up the gardening tools anyway. I got done what I wanted and a barrow load of prunings and quite a few roses that needed dead heading was put into the green bin. I then spent the next 45 minutes before or so in the workshop until it was time to go in for dinner. 

 

By the time I’d finished my dinner the sun was back out again. However, as I was walked back to the house this afternoon for tea, it had started to rain again. This time it seemed to have set in for the day, but it finally stopped raining just after7:00 this evening. 

 

After dinner I spent the rest of the afternoon in the workshop, where a little more work was done on the L class. This mainly consisted of starting work on the front steps. These were not included in the original kit and so they will require scratch building. Some suitable pieces of scrap brass etching was sourced from my stash of bits. These were marked and cut slightly over size, fixing holes were also marked and drilled in them. I’ll finish them off next time I get to the workshop. 

 

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all, with thoughts to Q for his dad.

 

I enjoyed Les Barker and his surreal poetry last night.  Our 43 year acquaintance began on the Isle of Man in 1976 and I am still impressed by his ability to conjure up subjects for mirth.  Last night he shared with us the tale of Spot the zebra and a few tweaks to “Windmills of your mind” covering the bewildering subject of Brexit.  Audiences now know some of his poems so well that they join in with the choruses.

 

There are a few interesting events for your truly this week.  On Tuesday I’m with Poorly Pal during the day, when some m*d*ll*ng may occur, and at the Hitchin chapter of the Royal Corps of Train Spotters in the evening.  Friday will be quite well occupied with LGBT group matters as the regular late afternoon meeting in a coffee bar is due to be followed by a pub night in the presence of a karaoke machine.  I’m not sure I should say any more about that for fear of tempting providence.  Saturday sees the anniversary of my father’s passing and a period of quiet contemplation at Cambridge Crematorium will be followed by lunch with a friend.  I had been hoping as well to attend a concert in Wolverton of all places by my old friend Miriam Erasmus, formerly Backhouse, but the afternoon timing makes it quite impossible.  Back in 1977 she broke many a heart, including mine, by leaving behind the folk clubs for marriage and a new life in South Africa.  Such is life (sigh).

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl Inner themple Hare,

I awoke at 1:00 to the sound of heavy rain this morning, but it can't have gone on long as the roads were patchy wet and dry this morning,  later I rolled over on the sofa to tell Ben the Border Collie it was too early and.... it wasn't, he was on time... So maybe 7 hours sleep was had which is good.

 

I have however got aches and pains, lower back, from leaning into the boat to work on it and across the chest , from leaning on the cockpit edge to reach in. I also have itchy wrists, from where fibreglass got in above the rubber gloves and below my  overalls. A good reminder why I was wearing a full dust and fume rated face mask, in the sun.

 

No further news from Scotland about my Dad, which is good news..

 

Work this week 1 major system and a load of current shunts, If I then have time, A spare major system..

 

Time too     stroll down to the lab and get started..