Early Risers.

[pH]

Some pics from today's walk in the woods.

 

A fungus - a bit out of focus, but nice colours:

 

 

Lots of little fungi:

 

 

We live in a temperate rainforest, and the moss grows well:

 

 

As do ferns - even on trees:

 

The trilliums are coming out now. It's the official flower of Ontario, but we get them here as well:

 

 

[BR60103]

Had a note that one of the Platelayers who lived locally has died. Brian Fayle had his layout in RM in the '60s. He then moved on to O and larger scales, finding a calling in painting figures. We operated together at Windermere station on Lostock Junction.

He's been deteriorating for the last couple of years and gave up the operating sessions as he couldn't get down to the basement.

 

[TheQ]

9 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Plenty, but not a Robert.

 

 

Muddy Pool

Oi you're not supposed to show pictures of layouts...

[TheQ]

10 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Rant 2:  Fair enough that the Scottish Health Minister has been a naughty girl.  But in my book all the Scottish Sun has done is huge harm for five seconds of glory.  A private big, big b*llocking and a police warning would've been plenty.  Presumably she was in the job cos' she was thought of as being The Best.  Now all the Sun has achieved has put a temporary Second Best into the job.  Great Move, that.

Perhaps all those sunbathing in the parks should lose their jobs too.

 

Disengage Rant Mode before I rupture a b*llock.

Dr Caroline Calderwood  was Chief medical officer,  that's a political appointment not a Minister ( the same for all the other CMOs of the UK)  her job was advising the government on medical matters. She was formerly England's NHS director of maternity and women's health. 

Temporarily her deputy Dr Gregor Smith a GP will take over until an official appointment is made. 

 

If you want to speak to the Scottish CMO,  you have to speak to my sister first... But you're right the office of CMO, has been extremely busy for weeks my sister, the CMO and others in the office did not need this disruption. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by TheQ

[TheQ]

Mooring awl inner Temple Hare, 

5 hours ish sleep so far will try for more. 

 

I'm visiting the bank today but plans for TES and Co visiting have been abandoned due to a red cross  van parcel delivery from SWMBOs friend.

 

While working in the garden garage etc I tend to wear a pair of riggers boots,  however they self destructed yesterday wearing through the sole at the front and the foot plate trying to escape.

This is where modern technology and the house of strong ladies come Into its own. A new pair will arrive by Saturday. With  for rigger boots it would have been a 50mile round trip to Norwich if the shops had been open...  

 

Time to hit the snooze button 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AndyID]

10 hours ago, polybear said:

Fair enough that the Scottish Health Minister has been a naughty girl.  But in my book all the Scottish Sun has done is huge harm for five seconds of glory.  A private big, big b*llocking and a police warning would've been plenty.  Presumably she was in the job cos' she was thought of as being The Best.  Now all the Sun has achieved has put a temporary Second Best into the job.  Great Move, that.

 

I understand your point but a private warning would only reinforce the notion that the rules only apply to some people. We have a similar situation here.

 

We live in an area where something like 85% of the homes are the second homes of people who live in another state (Washington). Both Idaho and Washington are currently under "stay at home" orders and yet 50% of the cars we see driving around here are people from Washington (and in some cases California) visiting their second homes. Far too many people seem to think the rules apply to other people but not to them because they are somehow special.  Sadly that means the virus will spread faster than it really has to.

 

We will get over this thing eventually but when we emerge at the other end of the tunnel I suspect the World is going to be a very different place. Hopefully it will be better.

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

I did not sleep at all well last night, in contrast to the night before.  As I hit the pit the news came through on the radio that the PM had been moved to intensive care.  I am no fan of the man but cannot help admiring his huge appetite for work and sheer determination to get things done.  Hey, that would make a good slogan.  May he make a full recovery from the great plague, however long it takes.

 

There is much to be said for dogged persistence.  Before breakfast yesterday, unless you count a small pot of yogurt as breakfast, I braved my local Tesco on the fodder run.  I had a list of sorts but left myself scope for improvising.  For the second time in the current situation I indulged myself with a frozen black forest gateau, once again scoffing at the very idea that it should yield eight portions.  The main course menu for the coming week will be basic in the extreme, including a Bolognese sauce of my own devising and stir fried pork.  It was here that I nearly came unstuck.  As I unloaded the last of my haul at the checkout I realised that I had neglected to hunt down a jar of sweet and sour sauce.  Somehow I resisted the urge to cry out “Oh sh!t”.  Instead I explained politely to the bemused checkout lady that I had forgotten one item and was it OK if I dashed off to fetch it?  She acquiesced and off I scampered, through the crowds of shoppers who do know what they are doing.  By the time I returned to the checkout she had not quite completed the task of totting up the items.  All was well, very well in fact, for amid my purchases were two cans of the much hunted baked beans with pork sausages, finally back in stock after five unsuccessful visits.  How I came to forget my lottery ticket is another question.

 

Today there is writing to do, m*d*ll*ng to progress and food to prepare – ah yes, and the lottery ticket to buy.  I look upon it as the donation to charity that it inevitably becomes. 

 

Best wishes to all.

 

Chris

[AndyID]

6 hours ago, Barry O said:

Notice Kingzance hasn't been around since Saturday. Hope him and his family are ok.

 

 

IIRC he made it known he was more than disenchanted with some of the one-sided "nonpolitical" innuendo on ER, and I can't say I blame him. It's bad enough having to deal with some of the nationalistic clap-trap.

[Ozexpatriate]

37 minutes ago, AndyID said:

IIRC he made it known he was more than disenchanted

This might have been his most recent post in ERs. (He has posted in other places since then.)

[jamie92208]

Morning all from the Charente. Not a lot of news from down here.  It's cloudy but not raining.  Breakfast has been had and coffee is being drunk.  Apart from that the day will be seized and hopefully a bit of muddling undertaken.  

 

Dificult times.  We are now starting week 4 of lockdown and have heard that it may be extended till the end of April.  I worry for my friends in the UK  and hope that thi gsvover there improve.  We seem to be doing OK and are able to keep in touch with the kids by phone and video.

 

Stsy safe everyone.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

1 hour ago, chrisf said:

For the second time in the current situation I indulged myself with a frozen black forest gateau, once again scoffing at the very idea that it should yield eight portions. 

Chris

 

You're supposed to cut it into portions?  I never knew..... 

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Sunny morning so I believe a walk for fitness purposes is scheduled as is some gardening.

 

Stay healthy everyone.

 

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. It seems I will have to venture out for supplies later, bread in particular. The bakery in Tess and Coes is still operating but the bread slicing service is understanderbly suspended. they do offer some ready sliced but that quickly disappears so I have to resort to the breadknife, this has resulted in doorsteps rather than slices. Hopefully there will also be some eggs to be had but I'm not holding my breath. 

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Sunny start here and a dry and warm day is forecast.

Chris, you could buy your lottery tickets online. You would need to pay a minimum £10 into your account which you can then use as and when you wish and top up when necessary or you could set up a direct debit which means you wouldn't forget to buy your ticket. Winnings are paid back into your account which you can either leave or withdraw as you wish. Large amounts can be paid directly to your bank account. (Very promptly, don't ask me how I happen to know )

Today I'm expecting a parcel from a Scottish butcher containing er  meat! Current tracking puts it on the way to the DPD depot in Croydon. I live in hope of being able to replenish the freezer.

There may be a little bit of POTtering in the garden as I have found a packet of tomato seeds which I thought I'd lost. I also need to have another look at my specs as the screw is coming loose again. Yes folks, it's official, GDB has a screw loose. 

On that note I bid you farewell and if you do venture away from home "Lets be careful out there!"

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by grandadbob

[AndrewC]

 

Greetings all from the boring borough. 

 

Feeling slightly less crap o rama today. 

 

SWMBO was finally granted her wish by the evil queen. She starts 7 1/2 weeks of furlough as of today. With the refund on her Oyster season ticket and no longer having to pay next year's yet through salary deductions, her take home pay won't change by more than a few £. 

 

Managed a surgical strike on Horrorsons yesterday afternoon. In, done, out in 20 minutes. The only thing I couldn't get was chicken stock pots. No idea why there seems to be a shortage of them. Lamb, check. Beef, check. Veggie, check. Chicken, WTF. With a quick inventory at home, apart from fresh food which we get delivered weekly, we are good for at least another 4-5 weeks of isolation. I think tonight will be just nibbles, cheese, crackers, etc. Tomorrow, I'll reconfigure the big Kamado and we'll do wood fired, stone baked pizzas. 

 

I was surprised by the amount of traffic around though. Only half a dozen or so shops on the high st were open yet, the streets were quite busy. 

 

Time to try and get some work done. Don't feel like it but I don't have the Douglas Adams luxury of listening to deadlines go whooshing by. 

 

Enjoy the day. 

[Andrew P]

Just catching up and checking in.

 

Wishing Boris and any CV19 sufferers a speedy recovery.

 

As I explained to a mate of mine, if you stood in the middle of a Motorway (prior to this lockdown) you would have stood a good chance of being hit, injured or killed. ignoring the Governments advice is like doing just that, but also endangering those around you.

 

Stay home, Stay safe. 

A.

[Happy Hippo]

4 hours ago, TheQ said:

Oi you're not supposed to show pictures of layouts...

That's not a lay out it's a lay in!

[Barry O]

3 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

IIRC he made it known he was more than disenchanted with some of the one-sided "nonpolitical" innuendo on ER, and I can't say I blame him. It's bad enough having to deal with some of the nationalistic clap-trap.

That is one heck of a "junp to a conclusion". If he was dissatisfied that much he would have said so.  If you don't t like it you can always go silent?

 

Baz

[grandadbob]

Hooray! "Maurice" has my parcel and is approximately 4 hrs 15 mins away. Fingers crossed that he doesn't get lost.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

The sun is shining and the sky is blue, with just a few white clouds about. Breakfast has now been consumed and I’m shortly heading to the cellar where I will turn over the inner door and give the back of the door it’s first topcoat. After that there are no firm plans, but a short spell in the garden or workshop is the order of the day. However, this afternoon I plan to make some almond scones, this is a new recipe I haven’t tried before and one that Sheila spotted online the other day.

 

Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. 

[roundhouse]

Good morning all.

 

The timber for the new high level line in the shed arrived early by over a week. so yesterday I cut the curved board sections and then cut and glued the brackets together. Today they will have the screws put in then put up on the wall.

 

 

Been to Mums this morning to deliver the food then walked from there to the doctors to drop off my prescription renewal request. got back to Mums then she remembered that she was out of milk so another walk back into the village. Luckily the small supermarket (that I used to work in after school) was quiet.  Seems odd not being able to go into Mums for a cup of teat and toast in the morning but at least I do get to see her from the drive

 

Now back home with the car parked up for another week. the other car will be used for more essential supplies during the week.

 

Now WFS ready to start work again on the high level line

 

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

IIRC he made it known he was more than disenchanted with some of the one-sided "nonpolitical" innuendo on ER, and I can't say I blame him. It's bad enough having to deal with some of the nationalistic clap-trap.

I certainly think that "political" postings on RMWeb are very much a minefield and I don't envy AndyY and his mods one bit. However, at what point does a point of view become political? Somewhat of a dilemma, I agree - but I would like to offer a viewpoint.

 

Let's take government subsidies for British OO Modelling (no such thing, of course [alas], but it will serve as an illustration). Now I might say that the Government should not support British OO Modelling, but allow the quality of the products and the service determine the fate of any company, The Stationmaster (Mike) - who I take at random as my counterpart (apologies Mike) may argue that the Government must subsidise British OO modelling or risk being flooded by cheap far eastern products made in sweat shops. So far, so good - a difference of opinion, but not what I would call "political" Even questioning or challenging each other's point of view need not be "political" (ME: I think that it is inappropriate to pour tax money into small companies whose output only benefits a small number of Britons - is that fair?. MIKE: But if you have an absence of Government support, British jobs will be lost to the Far East, is that fair?).

 

Where it gets "political" is when people start getting personally insulting ("you're delusional", "you're evil") or worse: wishing one's opponent ill ("I hope that iD's steel knees rust", "I hope the Stationmaster's nose explodes"), indulging in Schadenfreude (an all too common, and human, failing) or telling outright lies ("most British OO Modelling companies are owned by a few, big, Swiss companies" "people making OO models in the far east are paid under starvation wages" And for me, the most awful aspect of modern political discourse is not just that many are utterly vile towards their political opponents, but they cloak themselves in a veneer of indignant self-righteousness to be so.

 

British political discourse has always been robust, but when members of, or supporters of, any political party start actively wishing that their opponents come down with a very nasty and devasting disease, then it has gone too far. Furthermore, not only does it reflect badly on those people hurling such invective, but is hardly an advertisement for the political philosophy or party those people are championing... And this is true all across the political spectrum.

 

Personally? I can see distinct advantages to the democracy as originally practiced in Athens: all citizens, over a certain age who have completed military service and are property owners. Thus requiring all voters to be citizens, to have served/given something to the country, thus being old and experienced enough to make informed decisions and through being property owners have an interest in creating benefit for the country as a whole (not just their own little "in-group"). Of course, Athenian Democracy was flawed (Churchill famously said "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"), but as a political experiment re-introducing Athenian Democracy may be wiser than extending the vote to 16 year olds! Could work!

 

Stay Safe, Stay Healthy, Stay Sane

 

iD

 

p.s. again, Mike, my apologies for using your nom du web

[Simon G]

Morning all,

 

This morning has been spent so far try to deal with a bunch of thieving charlatans known as British Gas.  Our MRC recently moved premises and I called BG to terminate the 4 accounts we had , ie one for each room.  I then receive a bank statement yesterday, saying that they had taken money via Direct Debit for two of the rooms.  When I then go online and log onto the account, all 4 accounts are supposedly in debit, instead of two of them being in credit.  Hence a call to bank first to cancel all Direct Debits with BG, then a very polite but angry phone call demanding they terminate the accounts, refund our money and reinstate the credit.  A termination letter from our previous landlord has been email to them, so that should hopefully do the trick.

 

The CV19 outbreak has now got very close here.  A guy in his mid 30s, with supposedly no underlying health conditions, who lived in the village, has passed away from CV.  I didn’t know him, but some of my near neighbours did, and said what a lovely man he was.

 

I am rather weary today, having probably done too much yesterday, so today’s gardening will be limited to light work.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Thank goodness Chrisf has at last got some baked beans with sausages into stock.  i think I can now safely admit that I always try to maintain a small stock of said comestible by making sure that my stock never runs lower than 3-4 tins and during the prelude to what I (rightly alas) predicted would be a season of all out nutcase panic buying I very gradually biuilt up my stock level by buying a couple more tins each week.  I hasten to add that at that time I appeared to be one of very few people buying them as a new tray appeared on the shelf at more than weekly intervals. Once the panic buyers hit they vanished of the shelf within a couple of days, like all sort of other things peopel never usually bought.

 

I haven't got a clue why we haven't seen KZ among us in recent times and am hoping that he, or his family have not been stricken by the wicked lurgi.  Over the years people have come and gone from ERs for whatever reason they chose and it is perhaps not for us who are still here to pass judgement on their motives for doing so especially as in some cases they simply didn't visit becaudse they didn't have the time to do so.

 

 

In the meanwhile the buriers of cables are on the last leg on the other side of the road with some final bits of cutting back existing tarmac around their new excavation which i can only presume is to give their new black top something to 'key' to by adding a bit of width in places?   They also took some delivery of some proper green cable pipes down the road yesterday so I suspect they will be using those where they have to go under the road - obviously from that the code has not been changed to pink, whatever their ambition.

 

Another sunny day and getting warmer by the hour.  Have a good day one and all and stay safe.

[TheQ]

As there are only 300 known virus cases in Norfolk out of a population of 860,000 I risked going out gloved up and masked.

 

Traffic heavier than I expected but then I don't know how heavy it should be at this time. 

 

Bank first, no queue, when I went in, two arrived behind me, one Cockwomble decided the appropriate place to stand was in the single person doorway, till the member of staff on patrol duties told her to move. 

 

Then Tes and Co,  a very short queue,  a policewoman stood with the entrance control person.  So something must have happened.. 

Lots more one way signs,  plus strategically placed moveable sales stands blocking short cuts.  Everything thing wanted, got,  no gaps on the shelves. 

 

Then to the  doctors to post the prescription, through letter box as normal when closed, though they were open of course.  They have put up a tent in front  of the window they are using to serve prescriptions ,  problem. It's square so only two can stand in it at safe distances if its raining. 

 

It's warm out there I need to find my summer coat.

 

And so to today,  when the Muggacoffee is consumed,  time to sit in the sunshine and sand a keel...