Early Risers.

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

I've been lurking, and every time I've got near to posting to say that I'm still here, something has turned up. like 30747 wanting me to visit other websites (apparently they are available, and apparently I have to visit them on 30747's say so from time to time - and that time seems to be coming round more often these days) or like having to go out on the fodder run.  Today I got close, but my sleep intervened, as I slept for about ten hours, which is unprecedented, then the weekly check of the bank and credit card came in the way - then I was just thinking that I could maybe, just maybe start to get a post down, when 30747 decided to go out to prune the pear tree - a task which much needs doing, as we got no pears at all this year - but then, she went on to "tidy" the garden, which of course needed my "assistance".  So with all that, cider o'clock came early, and a nice bottle of Westons Vintage (8.2 ABV) has been consumed.

 

I have managed to catch up, and so much water has passed under the bridge, what all I can offer is generic greetings, but they are really meant sincerely.  Rick, I hope that the missus is continuing to mend - likewise Jamie.  Chrisf - just keep on with your activities as long as you can - AFAIK, you only live once so make the most of it, and enjoy your music, your LGBT activities, and your visits to the various exhibitions that you attend - and just remember that a shroud has no pockets when it comes to deciding whether to spend or not.

 

So what has 45156 been up to - well not a lot really - the usual battle with Barclays to get statements - and yesterday a visit to the local theatre to see a new production of "Wind In The Willows", which featured our vet, Suzie, this year in a supporting role - she played Eliza in "My Fair Lady" last year, and the prodution was really really good.  This year, the actual perfomance was very good, and there was a nice touch in not having the characters in masks but  having them recognizable as people, but the songs were a bit forgettable, and the plot was a bit thin, so the final verdict was "nice try".

 

Tomorrow it's LASAR, then pick up 30747 from work, but perhaps, just perhaps, it'll be back tomorrow.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[TheQ]

Afternoon awl,  

Ground frame poles inserted at the ends of the marquee,  not too difficult but you have to keep the tension on the canvas while inserting the poles into the corner brackets. 

While grovelling down there realised if I insert a decking board through where the slot for inserting poles ( after the poles are fitted) is I can put a sandbag either side and not cut the canvas..  More sandbags will be required..

 

Mast now hung up in the roof supported in three places. 

 

Piles of bricks and pavoirs that had been used for boat support were moved into the corners of the tent and loosely laid to keep the undergrowth down.  Scraps of timber  that are lying around will be collected up next week for the fire, the old ground cover tarpaulins rearranged to continue in service. A waste bin will be got to keep things tidy..  And then.... I can get back to working on the boat. . 

 

Ben the interested in what's going on in the marquee collie, was then taken out by me,  SWMBOs left knee having given up.

 

Ben is now snoring in his bed,  I've had dinner, 

time to inspect eyelids 

 

[Andrew P]

1 hour ago, grandadbob said:

"So how did your morning go Bob?"

Well, it started  OK with a nice breakfast but after that things went a bit downhill. 

Went to The Shed (which is actually downhill as the garden is about 4 feet lower than the ground floor of the house.)

Switched on controller and my PA­²  power pack refused to come to life. Cue swearing. This has happened before when The Shed is cold. Turned up heating and waited, eventually it came on.

Decided to replace the chip in the H2.

Removed brake rigging from tender. Removed one set of wheels. Removed stupid little connector plug from tender without breaking. So far so good. Got tender body off OK. Tried to remove chip. It didn't want to come off. After applying a bit more force it did but I bent 2 of the 21 pins in the process. More swearing. Attempted to straighten pins. Thought I had. Tried to fit new chip. Didn't want to go on. Now got 3 bent pins. Swearing. More attempts at straightening  pins and fitting chip made (with swearing)and eventually with a lot of force it went on. This'll never ######g work said I.  Replaced tender body etc anyway and everything went back together without any more damage. 

Put H2 on programming track to test and lo and behold there was life after awl. Then put on test track and it runs as sweetly as anything.

I'd originally fitted a Bachmann 36-557 decoder and it ran like absolute carp. Now fitted with a Lenz Silver21+.   First time I've tried Lenz although I've been advised to many times before but it won't be the last.

Tea break now and the day is looking a bit better.

Hornby used to GIVE AWAY, a special FREE TOOL / Gripper to remove those plugs, and very good they are too. Might be worth a phone call to see if there still available Bob.

[New Haven Neil]

A'noon.

 

My GDB'ing of chip fitting went well, Lenz 21 too, Bob.  They did invent DCC after all, there's a lesson there, they are very good.  Zimo are perhaps better, but we don't sell them. Ahem.

 

I once did the same with a 21pin blanking plug, so now am very careful to lever up from both sides with small screwdrivers, and never try to take them off by hand/finger power - they always come off with a rush and....bent pins.

 

So, the new motive power was inspected by the Foredonk, and found to be satisfactory.....

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by New Haven Neil

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all.

 

I have one of those Hornby plug removing tools somewhere or other (probably other because the tool in my experience is best put into a sentence after the word 'useless').  Nice (??) grey day here and Tesco wasn't too busy although I joined the shortest check-out queue and rapidly found out why it was the shortest as the lady in front of me was taking longer to take the stuff out of her trolley and put it on the belt than most  the slowest people need to take it off the belt and put it in their shopping bags (she wasn't much better at that either but by then it came as no surprise).  Ah well it takes all sorts and it seems they don't all need to drive Beemers to put a spanner in the works.

 

But the trip meant a new punnet of mushrooms and that meant mushrooms and bacon on toast for lunch so that meant a happy Stationmaster having got both bacon and mushrooms 'just right' (and plenty left for tomorrow    ).  Meanwhile the lad has actually  communicated from his south coast pub crawl (Deal) and advised swmbo in good time that he won't want a full meal this evening.  i hope he doesn't change his mind because the lamb joint has been duly reduced as a result of his message.

 

Time now for sudoku and to see if I can fill in any blanks herself has left in the sunday times crossword.  Enjoy the rest of your day one and all.

[jamie92208]

Evening all from down here.   Off betimes this morning to take the merry widow to the airport which happened to be at La Rochelle.   She was duly deposited in the terminal and then as I was a free agent for a while I went to explore the docks.  The first thing I saw was the covered lock that was used to get U boats in and out without them being bombed. It's not very accessible but this is the best shot I could get

At the other end of the basin are the U boat pens.

A bonus as I drove along was a Class 66 in the docks.

It was a bit of grey and misty day so after taking what photos I could of the railway infrastructure I headed for the station for a Croque Monsieur and café For lunch.   

These just happened to come into the station while I was reading my book.

bA TGV Atlantique from Paris and a local to Saintes.

La Rochelle is an interesting place as well as being the home of the prefecture for Charente Maritime.   The covered U boat lock is unique and was used for the filming of Das Boot.  However the town had a very bad time during the war and was the last prefecture in France to be liberated having been bottled up by the Americans and  Free French till the surrender.  Some hostages were murdered quite late on in the war and memories are still very raw.   There was a proposal to uses the U boat infrastructure as a tourist attraction but the idea was so unpopular that there was a local referendum and the decision was made that no publicity should be sought and the port is now just a commercial port and all the defensive works are firmly within the secure port area.

 

Anyway after lunch I headed down to Sainted to see Beth.  She still seems to be improving but is fed up.  Hopefully she will have her pot off tomorrow and get some test results.

 

Now time for some tea.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

23 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

So, the new motive power was inspected by the Foredonk, and found to be satisfactory.....

 

I'm glad to see you are not only embracing superior Swindon product, but also the wonderful area of South Wales. 6439 was a long term resident at Newport Ebbw Junction

[New Haven Neil]

That's the third Pannier hereabouts Richard, but the number is the out of the box one currently.  A 64 is a little out of place in the Forest of Nead (ahem) but a 64 was used on some specials at the end of steam in the Forest, but I haven't researched numbers yet.  My 57 is a loco regularly photographed on the line, (urrrr the number is...ummm…..in the garage! I think its 8745) with top feed and rivetted tanks.  The other is NCB owned 7754....early transfer from Maesteg or something.

 

So one Dapol, one Lionheart and one Minerva.  Oh and an empty wallet.

[jamie92208]

3 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

That's the third Pannier hereabouts Richard, but the number is the out of the box one currently.  A 64 is a little out of place in the Forest of Nead (ahem) but a 64 was used on some specials at the end of steam in the Forest, but I haven't researched numbers yet.  My 57 is a loco regularly photographed on the line, (urrrr the number is...ummm…..in the garage! I think its 8745) with top feed and rivetted tanks.  The other is NCB owned 7754....early transfer from Maesteg or something.

 

So one Dapol, one Lionheart and one Minerva.  Oh and an empty wallet.

You and Richard are obviously in search of and adrenaline fuelled life and treading on dangerous ground.   Don't meet up or you present a good target, 2 pannier nerds with 1 awl.   Could be messy.

 

Jamie

[New Haven Neil]

I'll hide behind Richard, he's good with bangy things.

[Tony_S]

7 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

adrenaline fuelled

Among the top three "trending" topics on Twitter this morning. 

[roundhouse]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

A'noon.

 

My GDB'ing of chip fitting went well, Lenz 21 too, Bob.  They did invent DCC after all, there's a lesson there, they are very good.  Zimo are perhaps better, but we don't sell them. Ahem.

 

I once did the same with a 21pin blanking plug, so now am very careful to lever up from both sides with small screwdrivers, and never try to take them off by hand/finger power - they always come off with a rush and....bent pins.

 

So, the new motive power was inspected by the Foredonk, and found to be satisfactory.....

 

I recall the first batch of Dapol 22's in OO  had 22 pins but luckily was aware of that when I fitted a 21 pin decoder so cut off the extra pin before fitting but if you weren't then that would have caused some damage.

 

 

Been in the shed fitting two new speakers to my Heljan class 33. Took a while as one had to go in the fuel tank and the other in the roof, both cut down iPhone speakers. Sounds so much better now. Will probably have this one with me at Warley

[Happy Hippo]

31 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

I'll hide behind Richard, he's good with bangy things.

I'll shoot you in your good foot and make off at high speed.

 

Then the Awlmighty can pick you off in slow time.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Still haven't finished transfering everything over to the new computer. Not going to transfer everything over, just the important things like RMweb.

[Coombe Barton]

9 hours ago, TheQ said:

I notice people are claiming Venice's flooding is caused by global warming...  Absolute codswallop.. 

Not really.

 

Global warming is a common expression for climate turbulence and instability, and this affects both the generation of storminess and the frequency of said storms. It's not only down to wind direction, although in this case the wind direction is crucial. Under low pressure systems, which causes the sea level to rise because of the nature of the ocean/atmosphere interdependence, and the increased intensity of those low pressure system, the propensity of vulnerable areas to get affected will increase. Global Warming is not an expression currently accepted, but Climate Change is, and that is what should be the attributed cause. Currently the position of the Jet Stream, which is itself affected by the turbulence and instability, is propelling systems in the wrong (for Venice) direction.

 

https://www.smhi.se/en/theme/air-pressure-and-sea-level-1.12266

[AndyID]

33 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Not really.

 

Global warming is a common expression for climate turbulence and instability, and this affects both the generation of storminess and the frequency of said storms. It's not only down to wind direction, although in this case the wind direction is crucial. Under low pressure systems, which causes the sea level to rise because of the nature of the ocean/atmosphere interdependence, and the increased intensity of those low pressure system, the propensity of vulnerable areas to get affected will increase. Global Warming is not an expression currently accepted, but Climate Change is, and that is what should be the attributed cause. Currently the position of the Jet Stream, which is itself affected by the turbulence and instability, is propelling systems in the wrong (for Venice) direction.

 

https://www.smhi.se/en/theme/air-pressure-and-sea-level-1.12266

 

 "Climate change" seems to be more politically correct but it's a bit misleading. Taken as a whole the Earth is actually getting warmer. If you impede the rate at which a body re-radiates energy its temperature increases to establish equilibrium.

[tigerburnie]

The changes to this little bit of our planet are there for all to see, mankind is trashing the place, give it what ever name you like, but if we don't do something positive, then floods will become the norm, so whilst politicians continue to play the money making fiddle Rome isn't going to burn, but drown. Africa might well burn through drought, our grandkids are not going to have much of an inheritance from us sadly.

[grandadbob]

3 hours ago, Andrew P said:

Hornby used to GIVE AWAY, a special FREE TOOL / Gripper to remove those plugs, and very good they are too. Might be worth a phone call to see if there still available Bob.

 

Yep, got one of those Andy. Still find it awkward as the plugs seem to fit so tightly it needs GDB type brute force and ignorance to remove them and then anything could happen. 

Spent a couple more hours in The Shed and a little bit more track laid and seems to be working OK. Then Head, Knee and Back started complaining so I came in for beer. Just finished dinner which was a very tasty beef casserole/bourguignon which The Boss excels at. This was accompanied by an Aussie Shiraz. It will be followed with some as well.  It will then be time for feet up in front of the idiot box but I suspect that the only thing that I'll watch will be the inside of my eyelids.

[Ozexpatriate]

26 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Africa might well burn through drought

Australia is closer to home for me. It is happening there. 

 

While deniers in the Northern Hemisphere sarcastically jest "what global warming?" with each snowfall, parts of the Southern Hemisphere are on fire.  This spring's bushfires in NSW and QLD are unprecedented. Now there is talk of Sydney running out of potable water by 2022 - much like Capetown last year.

 

EDIT: Of course the water shortages are as much a function of increased population as climate change - it is harder to measure historical drought data over the same period that we have temperature data. (Fossilized tree ring data helps, but the record is less complete.) We do have data for 200 years.

 

Meanwhile in my home away from home (the traditionally rainy Pacific Northwest) we are now 2.28" behind normal rainfall for November (which is normally our wettest month) and are 3.77" behind normal for our "rain year" which began in October. If we don't get a decent snowpack in the mountains we will have water restrictions next summer.

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by Ozexpatriate

[Coombe Barton]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

 

 "Climate change" seems to be more politically correct but it's a bit misleading. Taken as a whole the Earth is actually getting warmer. If you impede the rate at which a body re-radiates energy its temperature increases to establish equilibrium.

Even the words are political.

 

"Global Warming" - then we get a cold winter and the politicians deny it.

 

"Climate Change" - it's always been changing, say the same politicos.

 

What we really need is some words to say that we're up sh1t creek without a paddle.

 

 

[Barry O]

you want water?? well just visit Yorkshire...please.....we have gallons of it!

 

Baz

[Tony_S]

It took much longer than usual to get to Enfield. Traffic to the M25 was a bit slower than usual, mainly due to tailbacks from retail parks. The M25 took some time to leave as a lot of people were trying to avoid the traffic jam just past our exit. 
MiL tried to cheer me up (I didn’t actually need to be cheered up) by telling me about various acquaintances who had had heart problems!  
The journey home was quite uneventful. 
I noticed that ChrisF had mentioned a new cd from June Tabor and the Oysterband. It took me a while to find it but one should be arriving from darkest Essex (Coggeshall) next week.

An evening of television beckons. 
if Aditi doesn’t want her car tomorrow I shall take it to have its tyres, as it is going to be cold enough consistently now for winter tyres to be effective. 
Tony

[Barry O]

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

A'noon.

 

My GDB'ing of chip fitting went well, Lenz 21 too, Bob.  They did invent DCC after all, there's a lesson there, they are very good.  Zimo are perhaps better, but we don't sell them. Ahem.

 

I once did the same with a 21pin blanking plug, so now am very careful to lever up from both sides with small screwdrivers, and never try to take them off by hand/finger power - they always come off with a rush and....bent pins.

 

So, the new motive power was inspected by the Foredonk, and found to be satisfactory.....

 

Good to see Donk.. missed him in Newcastle last week..but you should have brought those far too clean wagon and loco as well.. we could have easily covered it in ink and powders weathering while you visited!

 

baz

[Barry O]

1 hour ago, grandadbob said:

 

Yep, got one of those Andy. Still find it awkward as the plugs seem to fit so tightly it needs GDB type brute force and ignorance to remove them and then anything could happen. 

 

Bob there are some ERs who could take on the role of chip fitting with no problemo for a small fee...

 

Baz

[Barry O]

Busy day ..trip to the club to put Chapel en le Frith back together, stuff done for Warley, eyelids inspected, tea cooked (roast beef and Yorkshire pudding as it happens).

 

More paperwork to complete tomorrow, but for now...a glass or two of the Wine Society's French Syrah... very enjoyable!

 

baz