Early Risers.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Slept well amd now drinking my first mugatea. 

 

We had a water quality inspection yesterday. Yorkshire Water do this fairly regularly. Apparently our water is safe to drink so more tea and coffee can be brewed....safely.

 

Herself is off volunteering today so, apart from potentialy cutting the grass, I willget some modelling done.

Enjoy your day..Chrisf I find ironing very therapeutic.

 

Positive thoughts to all who ail.

Baz

 

[JohnDMJ]

11 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Good  evening all.  

 

Drinking vouchers have been surrendered at Ford where I didn't spot JohnDMJ among those on duty.  I now have some things to attend to this weekend!

 

 

Sorry to have missed you! Those in the shop number one sixth the total workforce, usually with only 50% of them on duty at any time!

 

I'm a shy creature who tends to stay back-of-house tending to trade accounts - don't often get to see much daylight! However, I do venture down there from time to time!

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare.. As you can see from the non dyslexic fingers this morning I had a good nights sleep. 4.5 hours Plus 3 on the sofa.. Only awoken By Ben the Alarm clock sitting by me and making hurmph noises.. Why aren't you up yet?  just as well, as it was 15 minutes after I normally start morning necessities..

 

Spatchcock rabbits .. lots of them.. all the way in on 20+ miles route in to Norwich.

 

 No clouds this morning but still quite warm..

 

 I've had a request  about "her" end of the model railway shed.. More ventilation, as the fumes off her oil paints were getting a bit much.. So a shower ventilation Kit was bought from the big orange shed yesterday, this will be installed in the ceiling space on Saturday.. Won't that be fun... Drawing air from above her built in easel, dumping it into the ventilation tower in the centre of the shed.. as near as I can to the ventilators..

Hopefull brownie points will arrive in return..

 

Meanwhile with the talk of crowded trains it was mentioned on the radio this morning. Yesterday they put a single locomotiveless carriage, on the Sheringham line yesterday. The train was packed. and a young  girl fainted.. The guard couldn't fight his way down to get to her due to the crush..

 

I'm still working my way through this pile of current shunts, now up to 5 A on my way to 100A..

 

Time too.. wait another 12 minutes for the 5A to warm up..

 

[grandadbob]

Good morning all.

The sky is mainly blue and the sun is shining but it will cloud over later. Hopefully it will stay dry.

I visited the dump recycling centre yesterday and donated a mower, strimmer and some edging shears to their "re-usable shop." These went in a heap with umpteen other similar items.

First up today is the main weekly trek to Sainsbury's for provisions.  After that I will fit the legs to the new garden table. There seems to be a manual  leaflet with it so I may well read that first although looking at the bag containing a spanner and 8 bolts and washers I don't think it will prove too taxing.

This afternoon I have an appointment to see a Knee specialist. Whether or not he can do anything for it/me remains to be seen

Have a good one,

H.E. Reshoping

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by grandadbob

[jamie92208]

The sky is also blue here in The Charente, GDB.   Morning offices have been completed and coffee has been consumed.   

 

I had another successful attack on the ivy yesterday, The jemmy and a lump hammer were used a lot and much wall is now exposed to the sun.   I even got some time in the shed doing various things connected with painted pieces of soldered brass.   

 

A good day is in prospect as I will be off to play with steamy Gauge 1 things in half an hour.  It should be a good day.

 

Dom, glad that the move has gone well.   Bob, hope you get some answers about the knee.   Perhaps those of us who have been offering to help Dave with his Toe should offer the same help with potentially removing the troublesome joint.   I have a couple of chain saws and a log splitter available.

 

Thoughts are with John and Sandy and hope that the scan is sorted pdq.    Missing ER's have been mentioned, has anyone heard anything of SimonG lately.  I thought of him yesterday as my Ratty newsletter came this week.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[grandadbob]

I must have been looking in the wrong direction as the mainly blue sky is now mainly cloudy and it it is quite dull although my phone app says "mostly sunny."

[Barry O]

I did offer GDB a quick squirt of GT85 on Sunday on his knee but he refused the offer

[AndrewC]

Greetings all from the boring borough. 

The backlash at SWMBO's office has begun. The grande poopah from the "Borg" arrived for a Q&A session. Did not go well. Her manager spent half the afternoon in tears. (to be expected as she also found her husband's cancer has spread everywhere) Talk about getting shat on from above. The disgruntled rumour mill has around 1/3 of the staff now actively looking elsewhere. In reality this means probably half a dozen out of 50 will actually leave in the next 3 months. SWMBO is still hoping for a package as 99% of her work will get subsumed in the parent company's existing admin dept eventually. 

 

Good so see ERs starting to model again now the summer is quasi-over. Debs, their modelling visibility is on other threads and forums. No need for the awl of doom. Not likely I'll get much done for a while. The shed needs a proper makeover as it is almost 11 and hasn't stood the test of time as well as I'd have liked. Surprisingly the roofing felt is the only thing that still looks new. A full exterior sanding and fresh stain/preservative is needed. The barge boards are rotting & need replacing. One wall has started to bow slightly and needs seeing to. Inside the builders from hell left it in a state of disrepair. As mentioned previously they'd used the shed as storage for their crap as well as all the kitchen & bathroom fittings prior to installation. Plaster and mortar had spilt on the floor, moistened, and now I've got lumps to chisel off. It didn't help they'd disconnected the power so there was no temp or humidity regulation all last summer. That is probably the source of a lot of the interior problems. 

 

Plans for using the interlocking Halfords style rubber floor mats to hide the ugly mess left on the flooring are up in the air as the 1/4 section of the floor I did back in the spring, shows how much expansion there is in the mats on hot days. The floor would "bubble" up where ever the sunlight hit directly. I may have to use some adhesive to keep them flat on the floor. The cheap insulation I used is starting to crumble as is the wallboard lining. All new insulation and osb wall lining is the plan. Estimates are around £950 to put everything right. Not the top priority, so trains will take a back seat again. 

 

Enough grumbling. Back to work. Coffee is calling. 

 

Enjoy the day. 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

No blue skies here, just grey with lots of grey clouds and the dining room skylight has a fine covering of drizzle on it, but none is falling and the ground is dry!

 

Breakfast has been consumed as has the large muggertea and a glass of orange juice. Sheila currently is occupying the kitchen getting herself ready for her Zumba class, once she’s left I’ll head down to the cellar and start fixing permanently all the new bits to the cellar stairs. Once there fitted I will then make a start on painting the walls and ceiling, hopefully getting at least 1 coat on today. This afternoon I’ll once again be doing the school run as Ian is in a training course and won’t be home in time to pick up the kids. Although Vickie is at home, she doesn’t drive and as the school is about 2 1/2 miles away it’s a bit of a walk and there’s no way she’d get there and back home in time to meet Ava, who’s dropped off the school minibus at about 3:45pm. Thankfully I’m just picking up and dropping off. 

 

Enjoy the day, back later. 

[Kingzance]

Bon matin mes amis

 

Tuesday night's presentation of new Sports club buildings met with a mixed reaction. As the Section 106 monies available from local development are specifically tied to replacement facilities rather than refurbishment (of an old wooden structure well past its useful life), it seems some members of the committee are either unable (or perhaps unwilling) to accept that a new facility has to come. At least a collective concentration of the collective mind was achieved so we can draw up a schedule of requirements and move on. This meeting overran so I didn't make cribbage.

 

SWMBO had a filled day yesterday which included a pedicure (the subject of fraught exchanges over preceding days). I escaped the dreaded spa and got in 18 holes at a new course (and played to my handicap - a real bonus) and a meal for eight was enjoyed in the evening. I was absolutely knackered when we got back at well after old folks' bed time so promptly fell asleep before she had turned out her light . I have been told that I was snoring as my head hit the pillow!

 

Foreign currency now ordered for our Croatian jaunt next week as per a previous post, it will be delivery here tomorrow so I will need to be present when Postie comes. Hair (or what I have left of it) will need a trim later and SWMBO wants to visit the expensive supermarket beloved of the middle-classes whose profits took a nose-dive according to today's news broadcasts. When getting the mop de-Borised, I shall take a bottle to the local salon that had to withstand the flack from the angry SWMBO when they cancelled her pedicure.

 

Nice to hear that there has been a slight improvement in some health cases and significant improvements in others, I hope the positives continue for all sufferers and carers.

[iL Dottore]

Good Morning All,

 

Catching up on the last 2-3 days posts, I noted TheQ's comments about The Repair Shop. Mrs iD and I greatly enjoy it, but we are firmly convinced that it is as heavily orchestrated as a Royal Wedding. I think that the emotions of the people reunited with a "restored" treasure are genuine, but (like all so-called "reality" shows) heavily edited and reformatted with the real timelines thrown out the window for dramatic effect (let's be realistic boys, girls, teens and tots, so much of the repair and restoration takes a lot longer than the time implied by the show).

 

Perhaps I am being cynical/controversial, but isn't there more than a whiff of the "politically correct" about the show - inasmuch as it is de rigueur to keep the "patina" and not to restore to "as new" and all the restorers on the programme seem to adhere to this approach (I am just waiting for one person awaiting the return of their renovated treasure to take one look and say "well, you haven't done much of a job, have you? It looks exactly like it did when it came in, but cleaner..."). The other thing they could do better (or would it mean giving away trade secrets) is for the narrator to tell us more about what they are using to do what they are doing (e.g. "XXX is cleaning the paintwork with a 5% solution of methylated spirits diluted with water", mind you I suspect that a lot of the chemicals they use are only "available to the trade" and require all kinds of special handling). As today's programming goes, the Repair Shop doesn't "dumb down" as much as many other programmes, but it could be more informative....

 

The Stationmaster's post about the cruise ship industry was most illuminating. I am well aware of the blight these huge cruise ships spread in places like Barcelona and Venice, but I didn't know they (the cruise organisers) had really gone so far down market to the "cheap and nasty" approach. Quite frankly, the sooner cities like Venice and Barcelona ban cruise ships with more than (say) 200 - 300 passengers, the better.  The last time I was in Venice (December 2017) St Mark's Square and the immediate environs had become most tawdry - offering cheap (and not so cheap) tat and Cibo Italiano solo in nome per lo straniero ignorante.... But away from the instagram path... Venice is a most enjoyable and atmospheric place. As an aside, Venice is loosing a lot of its native population, which means entire Villas (not just apartments) on the canals are going for a song. I was quite tempted.... Just think, for the same price as a pokey little flat in Shoreditch you can buy a Palazzo in Sestiere Cannaregio or Sestiere Castello in Venice...

 

Ciao for Now

 

iD

 

p.s. as an official ER "Foodie" I want to point out in NO uncertain terms that Lasagna, Pizza and Spaghetti with Meatballs are NOT Venetian dishes and thus to be avoided if you want to eat well (typically Venetian are Risotto alla nera di seppia, Risi e Bisi and Bigoli in Salsa...)

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Just starting to cloud over here, just as predicted in the weather forecast which also predicted a lot of sunshine for most of England, though the cloud will stay in the SE until lunchtime. As I briefly mentioned last night the clubhouse will be closed for 2-3 weeks, its even been suggested that some members could do some modelling in the meantime. Talking of underpinning thats something I wouldn't want to do on a Venetian property, that is why such properties are cheap. Muggatee to be drunk, be back later.

[81C]

Morning All 

Overcast with flashes of blue here and there.

Still steaming after yesterday encounter with the slapped #rse took a few happy pills to bring me down to earth, looking forward to Woking Show where I believe a few other ER's will be present besides the two Bobs

I will check out the layout list to see what's there.

enjoy your day Fu Ming 

[tigerburnie]

Is there a happy "mid day" greeting, bit late for morning...……………..(I have been doing some of the "G" word before being rained off, first time I have grown some trench celery, it looks fab, just need to taste it now). A small amount of muddling took place yesterday, need to get a move on then weathering can commence.

[bbishop]

30 minutes ago, 81C said:

Morning All 

Overcast with flashes of blue here and there.

Still steaming after yesterday encounter with the slapped #rse took a few happy pills to bring me down to earth, looking forward to Woking Show where I believe a few other ER's will be present besides the two Bobs

I will check out the layout list to see what's there.

enjoy your day Fu Ming 

 

Höchstädt, mit Umlauten!  Just getting the stock boxes downstairs, then I have to dismantle the layout.

 

Bill

[grandadbob]

I think that's the only layout I've seen with 2 Umlauts. What era are they Bill? 

Edited September 12, 2019 by grandadbob

[bbishop]

It's named after the first battle of Höchstädt, 20 September 1703, fought during the War of Spanish Succession.

 

The layout is Epoche 3, set in 1961.

 

Bill

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from LBG where the clouds Phil reported are starting to give way to blue skies.

 

Yesterday's 11+ was sat along with all the children. Apparently there was nothing about anxiety in the EHCP so the panel rejected the request made on Younger Lurker's behalf. I quoted relevant passages from the EHCP back to the LEA, well aware that they were not going to change their mind. Really the school should have been responding far more swiftly but the SENCO did nothing beyond the bare minimum. Fortunately, Younger Lurker was unfazed and told us it was easy. Whether that was easy as in I could do all the questions and think I got them right, or it was easy as in it was all too hard to think about but it was multiple choice we don't know.

 

The LEA response was useful in that it allowed us to modify the piece we have written as to why a particular school is our preferred choice. That has been posted today, and the school SENCO has no part in it - which is probably for the best as in our opinion she is overstretched, underqualified, and with a tendency not to put herself out to get to understand the children she is supposed to be dealing with; a key pre-requisite if you ask me.

 

Advice to Dom; unpack as soon as you can; the longer you leave it, the greater the danger you'll not get around to it and the packing boxes will be used in your next house move in umpteen years' time or to take the same contents to the tip!

 

John; I wish that I had been given your advice on dissertations when I did mine. I deliberately chose a subject area that had a paucity of primary source material (7th century Northumbrian church history) and was thus free to use my imagination to paint connections between the various Anglo Saxon royal houses, the monasteries, the bishops and the Saints. St Wilfrid's career became part of an insidious plan by the Northumbrian royal house to exercise power over the church by getting relations into high places. Mind you, I think my tutor would have been put off by the error on the second word - "seventeenth" instead of "seventh" which I had not spotted.

 

Reading back that synopsis makes me think it might be quite fun to re-read it with a mature and critical eye. I haven't looked at it since 1988!

[Happy Hippo]

Here's yet another one in training for a date with 81C:

 

[bbishop]

Mine was in organo-phosphorus chemistry, guaranteed first class travel on the Northern Line at 6pm.  After a while one gets used to the smell of bad eggs times ten, courtesy of an ineffective fume cupboard, other people don't.  My media search was simples, trace the history of everyone involved in the PhD completed a decade earlier, plus their immediate contacts.  I found two new references, which were incorporated in my dissertation.  Remember this was in the days when an Elliott was the most modern computer and who was going to spend time on a dissertation basically recording why there were no alternate routes to di-phosphorous tri-ethylene.  Happy days.

 

Bill

 

[Kingzance]

1 hour ago, tigerburnie said:

Is there a happy "mid day" greeting, bit late for morning...……………..(I have been doing some of the "G" word before being rained off, first time I have grown some trench celery, it looks fab, just need to taste it now). A small amount of muddling took place yesterday, need to get a move on then weathering can commence.

Celery is one of my favourite vegetables - not any of the flavourless sh!t that is imported from Spain but REAL celery grown in Real soil that has a distinctive texture and flavour. Well done. My taste buds have to wait until the real stuff appears in the local outlets from October to December.

[bbishop]

From another post, the church has decided not to renew the crib set this year.  We will stay with Robert Loggio and Dorothy McGuire (who are in good nick) plus Tom and Jerry, the ox and ass.  Jerry in particular needs a session with the pollyfilla then my modelling paints, probably weathered wood and rusty rails.  As Flavio wrote, I need to retain the patina.

 

To stop you hunting the references, Robert Loggio and Dorothy McGuire were Joseph and Mary in "The Greatest Story Ever Told".  Yes, our crib set are blond haired and blue eyed!  The animal references are more obscure, Mungo the donkey came to our Palm Sunday service.

 

Bill

[Coombe Barton]

1 hour ago, The Lurker said:

 

 

John; I wish that I had been given your advice on dissertations when I did mine. I deliberately chose a subject area that had a paucity of primary source material (7th century Northumbrian church history) and was thus free to use my imagination to paint connections between the various Anglo Saxon royal houses, the monasteries, the bishops and the Saints. St Wilfrid's career became part of an insidious plan by the Northumbrian royal house to exercise power over the church by getting relations into high places. Mind you, I think my tutor would have been put off by the error on the second word - "seventeenth" instead of "seventh" which I had not spotted.

 

Reading back that synopsis makes me think it might be quite fun to re-read it with a mature and critical eye. I haven't looked at it since 1988!

The critical thing that I need from my students is evidence, not flights of fancy. Evidence is a rarity sometimes.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Here's yet another one in training for a date with 81C:

 

One of your relatives?

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon,

 

Tesco has been shopped. lunch has been lunched, and the local 'paper has been read.  the latter includes some words from the local green nutter about 'car free' s Sunday this coming weekend and leaving the car at home.  i think I shall do my best to comply and take the Good Doctor's car instead should I happen to venture to Tesco for the 'papers so it means I won't be driving my car.

 

And this afternoon I have 'discussed' the car insurance renewal with the admiral's Welsh branch.  We have a multicar policy for the lad and myself and they were looking for an extra £100 on top of last year's total of £620, including a 21% increase on the cost for my car (and a less than 9% increase for the lad's Mini Cooper - odd difference there). Negotiations and threats to cancel all our policies with Admiral (i.e. cars, household, and travel) got the renewal cost down to £607.26.  Agreeing to a lumped in renewal date for household and the cars got the renewal down to £560.  Seems insurance companies are rather like double glazing salesmen in that they offer you their 'best price' and then cower into submission when you speak to them nicely and utter a few veiled threats    Result

 

Time for sudoku I think as herself has finished her crossword so teh 'paper is available to scrawl on.  Have a good day one and all.  And what fabulous celery TB, nicely blanched too.