Early Risers.

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare, 1496/935

4 hours +  3 hours semi dozing on the sofa.....

 

Getting to and from work is getting more difficult as the road works spread, unless I go a very much longer way round there are 2 road works on either normal route.

 

First village on the way in they are loading sugar beet, lorry parked facing into the traffic headlamps on, blinding anyone trying to get past... Later on the main road, convoys of Beet lorries all heading the same way loaded or unloaded. This is because most are now using a circular route, so those loaded up at earlier farms are intermingled with those coming to my area to load up..

 

A piece of reassuring info in my emailbox this morning... the first line of which reads..

"Today we took restructuring actions globally across XXXXX XXXXXXXX  to position the business to navigate the economic downturn and emerge stronger. "

and another emails just arrived 

"We’ve been talking for much of this year about economic headwinds and the need to reduce expenses. This has culminated in a decision to reduce our workforce. Today we laid off employees in each of our businesses and regions, representing about 4% of our total employee population. This is an average – our businesses have varying levels of exposure to market challenges and made decisions accordingly. "

 

Doors, all mine are none standard sizes in the 113 year old house, So I have to buy over large and cut down carefully taking some off both ends and the sides so as not to remove any structurally needed joints.

Added to that the house is half built on the earlier foundations of the pub that stood here. This means the new foundations have settled differently, so no door frame is square. So when I replaced all the doors upstairs, much carefull measuring was required.

 

It's flu jab day, the tannoy will summon groups of five to sit outside the first aid room waiting to be punctured..

 

 time to start taking measurements

Edited October 30, 2019 by TheQ

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

i have ventured out to leave a bin bag at the edge of our front lawn (small patch of grass). It isn’t  raining. My spectacles have been repaired so I can collect them  this morning. A fitting is required so I have an appointment at 9.30. Aditi has a routine blood test this morning. We have sent a video of us singing “happy birthday “ to Disneyland Paris. Hopefully our (now) 4 year old niece isn’t too traumatised.

Tony

[Ozexpatriate]

Another gloriously sunny Autumn day followed by an overnight freeze in the great northwet. November is normally our rainiest time of year. It is forecast to begin dry.

 

A busy day beginning with a fasting blood test and 'flu shot at the doctor's followed in the mid-afternoon by an attempt to have the struts that (fail to) hold up the rear hatch of the car replaced. (Regrettably these are non-adjustable, air filled pistons that degrade over time such that during cool weather* they have a tendency to surrender to gravity with the potential result of a nasty bump on the head from the latch.) Some weeks ago, I ordered (shockingly expensive) replacements which apparently also needed new custom mounting hardware as well, meaning little was accomplished during this afternoon's efforts.

 

* See Charles's Law.

 

The evening was capped off with an excellent celebratory dinner with my son and daughter-in-law at a Spanish restaurant we had unsuccessfully tried to patronize a year ago.  Once upon a time (long, long ago in a continent far away) my "cast iron constitution" was complimented** but now I find such repasts can lead to variations on the theme of grumbly tummy*** despite a full panoply of gastric treatments including but not limited to reflux medications, tropical fruit-flavoured Calcium antacids, probiotics and fibre supplements (in pill form).   

 

** I can neither confirm nor deny the employment of terms like "garbage guts".

*** Thankfully not the condition known by Antipodean cricketers as "Delhi belly". 

 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

20 minutes ago, TheQ said:

"Today we took restructuring actions globally across XXXXX XXXXXXXX  to position the business to navigate the economic downturn and emerge stronger. "

and another emails just arrived 

"We’ve been talking for much of this year about economic headwinds and the need to reduce expenses. This has culminated in a decision to reduce our workforce. Today we laid off employees in each of our businesses and regions, representing about 4% of our total employee population. This is an average – our businesses have varying levels of exposure to market challenges and made decisions accordingly. "

A lot of that going around these days.

[81C]

Morning All 

Blue sky waiting for the sun to appear.

Off to see the freehold management to get the run down on the flat I'm buying, kitchen shop next, b and q for some new paintbrushes a burger from the chuck wagon outside 

best burgers for miles around and home to some more work in the garage top up the skip and phone Hippo Bag to collect it.

Tomorrow I'm out to a pub quiz with some friends should be interesting something I've not done in years.

Yesterday the slapped #rse tried to get one over me with the Solicitors I sent a copy of her silly email to the Solicitor copied her in with my own annotations on it which denounced

her email to them it was a real madam Edith job, again she was trying to tell me what I should be doing.

Must get on enjoy your day A. Busybee 

Edited October 30, 2019 by 81C

[Kingzance]

Good morning all,

 

The sun currently shines on NEHerts and there is frost around. It was a chilly walk back from cribbage last night but a warm glow of more wins than losses helped defeat the cold that indicated the summer weight jacket needs to be put away. SWMBO returns today but I know not when, nor whether she will have had her main meal with her sister prior to departure. I therefore have something of an unstructured day with a variety of things that could fill it. I shall hopefully move into a more decisive mode once muggertea has been drained.
 

Best wishes to those celebrating, sympathies to those with troubles and ailments to be resolved. From one piece above, it would seem that the US elderly population is already equal to the supposed total population of the U.K. - I can almost hear the cross-pond creaks and groans as I write this. No doubt this is a consequence of less frequent global conflicts (of which I heartily approve) and advances in medical knowledge and skills but I have to wonder how the planet can support such a growing population with its finite resources when the rise in CO2 levels and the rise in average global temperatures exactly parallel the growth in population. We must be heading for some sort of reset.

 

on that cheery note, I will go back to lurking. Bonjour.

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a rather grey and misty Charente.  Builder hear and tiling, nurse has been.  Beth is off to the French class this morning so I am chief transporter, wheelchair handler as there are two steps to negotiate.   This after it's off to Angouleme  to pick up some special tiles that got forgotten 3 weeks ago.  Hopefully I will be able to spend an hour in the shed  making shutters this morning.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[AndrewC]

Morning all from a bright but bloody chilly boring borough. Recycling day. Whoopy do dah. 

 

Belated Happy Anniversary to Udders & Ash. Belated Happy Birthday to Jamie. 

 

Another day of waste of time meetings that should be emails. Not much else to say. 

 

Coffee in hand. Enjoy the day. 

[tigerburnie]

Morning, quite nice here after over night rain, sun is shining, so after getting our flu jabs, a day in the sun is planned somewhere, not sure where yet, enjoy your day all.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

It’s another sunny blue sky day here in the northwest of England, where the current temperature is 4C. After Ava’s accident yesterday she has been advised to stay off school until she’s seen the dentist, so she will be spending the day with us and will arrive sometime in the next 30 minutes or so. I was hoping to go swimming this morning, but that has now been postponed until next week, so that I can assist Sheila looking after Ava, not that she’s any trouble. Today also marks our 41st year of wedded strife bliss, bl00dy hell, where did the time go? We’d not got much planned anyway, as we usually keep these things very low key affairs anyway. 

 

Enjoy the day, back later. 

[BlackRat]

Ooooooo been called into an emergency meeting (on my days off!) as apparently things aren't what they appear to be on the surface.

 

Im hoping its redundancy.

 

Fingers crossed.

[TheSignalEngineer]

6 hours ago, BR60103 said:

Toronto has two major postal sorting stations -- one in the west suburbs and one in the east.  I'm sure that sending a letter across Yonge Street  (the major NS road) requires going to one station then to the other.

 

When I order from a well-known Yorkshire box shifter, which is located 22 miles east of me by road,  the parcel goes to Warrington which is 32 miles west of me by the shortest route or 36 miles by motorway. It passes 500 yards from my house. 

Next day it comes back to the local delivery office. Into the local van it then passes twice before the postie parks to deliver to our row of houses, passing again as he/she does the opposite side before doing ours. 

As for letters, before the present system came in local ones were filtered out at the office in the town. Now they go to Warrington to be mechanically sorted overnight then come back next day. 

When we lived in Birmingham it was possible to get same day delivery in postcodes B1-B5 by posting in the office at Victoria Square at 0830. The box had a hole in the bottom which let the post drop straight through into a tub in the sorting office. It was sorted in time to go out on the 1130 delivery.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. After a grey and cloudy start the sun is beginning to filter through but its still cold outside. When I went to fetch the milk in I put it in the fridge to warm up. Not much else to report, be back later.

[TheQ]

9 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

 

When we lived in Birmingham it was possible to get same day delivery in postcodes B1-B5 by posting in the office at Victoria Square at 0830. The box had a hole in the bottom which let the post drop straight through into a tub in the sorting office. It was sorted in time to go out on the 1130 delivery.

Many post offices that had built in post boxes have now had them sealed up, to reduce the chance of someone setting fire to the building.

Unfortunately the state minimum reducancey payments fall as you approach retirement, meaning, it's not a good bargain for me..

Edited October 30, 2019 by TheQ

[TheSignalEngineer]

Bright sun two mornings running. Another tomorrow would probably set a Dark Peak record for 2019. Upside is we didn't have a wildfire season this year. 

Clean the kitchen floor and do the bins while Mrs SE is out for two good behaviour points. Then the sun will be on the drive so I can clean the bikes after yesterday's trip. Too cold and getting dark last night. Need to check chain and front chain ring as I think a problem is developing. These 1x11 drive trains may have less fiddly bits but are a mechanically compromised design IMHO.

Edited October 30, 2019 by TheSignalEngineer

[roundhouse]

Good morning from a sunny Surrey.

 

Yesterday I went out before 9am to photo two freight workings from a footbridge 8 minutes walk from home then decided to stay out all day as quite a few freights about. I bought tickets for one stop to Earlswood station and then later to Nutfield for a quick pint at the only pub there. Not even a shop of any sort left, not even an estate agents or a hairdressers but just a pub that seams to still be thriving especially as its half term so full of families having lunch.

 

back at Redhill station whilst waiting for a late running freight three GW Worms in a row heading to London were cancelled, well they ran but just not calling at Redhill with one crawling through the platform but not stopping. They often do that and is very frustrating if you are standing on the platform. Luckily I was only waiting for the freight to arrive. When it did it went into a different platform than shown on Realtime trains so last minute musical platforms as people waiting on platform 0 now having to make the mad dash to platform 1 for the reading service which in turn delayed the departure of the Tonbridge train further up platform 1. Nothing was due through platform 2 as those had been cancelled. Then last minute the Reigate Vic service was also diverted so again all those standing on platform 0 for it had to make a mad dash with people throwing their arms up in the air. All so common these days ever since they opened platform 0 . Glad that I was not making any more trips that day.  My other halfs train was also late being delayed daparting East Croydon. her train this morning also late. Glad I don't commute anymore and she cant wait to give it up when she gets chance.

 

I need not have bought any tickets as no ticket checks on any train I was on (GW Worms getting quite vandalized these days with graffiti in in the toilets and glass scratching) and no barriers but I do buy tickets for all journeys.

 

Anyway no train travel today but been looking up fares for my nephew who wants to come down form Manchester to Mums. National rails says circa £61 Manchester to Upper Warlingham but to Sanderstead (2 stops before Upper Warlingham but makes a better bus connection) its saying £252!!

 

Anyway rant over - it was a good day yesterday for me.

[Sir TophamHatt]

Well... what a difference 24 hours makes.

 

The bedroom above the open fire I have has a small vent.  Seems there may have been a fireplace in the room upstairs (doubtful!), but after clearing it out of muck and nests, it seems I've opened up some sort of void with the flue from the fire downstairs.

The carbon monoxide detector I bought went off showing 70ppm - not bad in the grand scheme of things but worse than the current 0 reading it says now.

 

Advice from a local sweep means thousands lining the chimney - he said I may as well look at a log burner.  I did get a quite in but the guy said it would be a lot of work as there would be a fair amount of building work to do to meet current regulations.  The sweep did suggest trying to fill the small hole in the upstairs room, which could encourage mould as there'd be no air flow.  But it could also pretty much block the bad oxides from being sucked into the room.

 

Dunno if it was like this before I cleaned out the muck and soot or whether I have caused it.  But I think blocking it up using mortar, silicon sealant and finally filler will almost put it back to what it was before as I doubt much could have come through the soot and dirt I hovered out!

 

Made me a little sad.  Owning a house seems to be a sucker for money!

 

 

 

Still had time for a little modelling though!  Decided to start on some of the projects that have been in my "projects" drawer for 12 months!

[TheQ]

Many houses had upstairs small fireplaces mine had two. they should have two entirely separate flues up to independent chimney pots. My unused flues were capped at the top and sealed from the rooms.

 

I've been punctured, and now having a late tea break as I was sitting in a row during my normal time..

[jamie92208]

I seem to remember  that the 1930's built house we lived in when I was a nipper had 4 fireplaces, 2 up, 2 down but only 2 chimney pots, the upstairs fed i to the flue from downstairs.   It was also piped throughout for gaslights as well as electrickery, with the gas pipes capped off next to the ceiling  roses.

1 hour ago, BSW01 said:

Good morning everyone 

 

It’s another sunny blue sky day here in the northwest of England, where the current temperature is 4C. After Ava’s accident yesterday she has been advised to stay off school until she’s seen the dentist, so she will be spending the day with us and will arrive sometime in the next 30 minutes or so. I was hoping to go swimming this morning, but that has now been postponed until next week, so that I can assist Sheila looking after Ava, not that she’s any trouble. Today also marks our 41st year of wedded strife bliss, bl00dy hell, where did the time go? We’d not got much planned anyway, as we usually keep these things very low key affairs anyway. 

 

Enjoy the day, back later. 

Happy Anniversary  Brian.

 

Jamie

[Simon G]

Belated happy birthday to Jamie.

 

Lovely sunny day here again today.  A second coat of coloured emulsion has been applied to the Hall walls, making a total of 4 coats, as the first 2 were white to cover up the plaster colour.  It now looks pretty good, but a little more painting may be required in places.  Next job is to fit the newly gloss painted skirting boards, then I can put the radiator back on the wall, and start to get things back to normal.  This work has been done to a soundtrack of Pink Floyd, Emerson Lake and Palmer and now Led Zeppelin.  That is one way to make the task of painting tolerable!

 

Hopefully the sun will persist into this afternoon so we can get out for a walk when painting is completed.

[Stubby47]

Currently experiencing balmy blue skies and gentle summer breezes.

 

Well, we would be if it wasn't blowing a hoolie and persisting more across than down.

 

My planned lunchtime excursion to KMRC will have to be postponed.

[grandadbob]

Happy Anniversary to Brian and Sheila

Sainsbury's visited and once again we took advantage of their latest 25% off 6 bottles of wine offer which along with the 10% "veteran's" discount The Boss still gets means we got 12 bottles of assorted plonk for £48 instead of £72. Not bad.

Garden Centre visited and the new owners are doing various offers including £5 off for signing up for their "club." £45 worth of purchases only cost me £20. Not bad either. Also the "club" entitles OFs like us to 10% off on Tuesdays.

Lunch due in about 30 minutes and then I'm off for my eye test. I shall have to get on one of Tfl's big red vehicles as I won't be able to drive afterwards.

[TheQ]

Just realised it's Spalding show this weekend.. I haven't warned SWMBO .... Ummmm

[woodenhead]

7 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

Currently experiencing balmy blue skies and gentle summer breezes.

 

Well, we would be if it wasn't blowing a hoolie and persisting more across than down.

 

My planned lunchtime excursion to KMRC will have to be postponed.

The sea is out now but you can see how 'balmy' it is today in Dawlish.

 

Last night and this morning's tides have seen lovely gentle undulations in the water lapping up against the sea wall.

 

Couple of track workers earlier in their orange vest and shorts.

[Kingzance]

Looks like Dawlish may be heading for trouble with his/her groins again! 
SWMBO has a veteran’s card for past uniformed service but her preferred supermarket (as frequented by Hyacinth Bucket) offers no discount. I have two e-mail accounts with the regal high street and on-line wine shop. If one account isn’t used regularly, they send me discount vouchers so I tend to use one account in spring, a different one in summer etc.

We used to have a (rather expensive) garden centre named like a valley in the Forest of Dean. That closed and has re-opened under new ownership (or branding). I suspect that we will visit at some future date but they face stiff competition on price and quality round here.

It would seem that the northwest of England is on some sort of painting kick. If you are addicted, please feel free to offer your services in this direction. No restructuring or replacement of plaster / wood / doors etc., only minor settling cracks to fill but a host of spiders who believe they have squatters rights will be disturbed.

Weather here remains breezy but we are at the maximum predicted temperature so just off to fit the new outside lights. Meanwhile the automatic Dhobi-wallah is on a max temp cycle to give it a good clean and a loaf is gradually rising in the bread-maker. What an exciting life this OF leads!