Early Risers.

[brianusa]

On 24/08/2020 at 11:59, grandadbob said:

Particularly so since the husband of a friend of The Boss fell off a ladder trying to do some tree surgery just before last Christmas.  He's still in hospital!  He's about 80 and what the hell he was doing up a ladder at that age I'm b#ggered if I know. 

 

Gave up ladders ages ago.  I'm 85 and darned if I will climb any more, which is a shame as there is so much stashed in the loft and I'm not about to find out what!

     Brian.

[brianusa]

At least Boris knows 'wetness' when he sees it!

        Brian.

[Coombe Barton]

... and spam from Fox News ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/08/25/demolition-and-spaces/

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Sorry but I should have sent my thoughts to Tony and Aditi yesterday, I can only apologise. 
Didn’t sleep well last night. I live in a bungalow and our bedroom has a vaulted ceiling with two velux windows and the rain was persistent so after  no sleep I decided at 4am  to retire to the spare room. Supermarket shopping and paperwork today as weather not fit to do anything outside. Already got some paperwork planned for tomorrow morning and nephews and Syd coming round in the afternoon so may be a full day.

Something that I don’t  really understand is why staff at supermarkets (and other shops)  don’t we’re face masks. I’ve seen staff chatting away as if they knew nothing about social distancing. I know that at one of the ‘local’ type stores a member of staff was diagnosed with Covid-19 and that lead to the whole shift being quarantined. At my pharmacy the staff wear face masks all the time and we’ve only just this week started letting customers in.
This whole business is getting very frustrating, some people are fearful and paranoid while some are in their own little world oblivious to it all. Rant over (for now), so
Goodnight

Robert   

[andyram]

Evening all. I hope this post finds you well. Particular thoughts to Tony and Aditi at this time. 

 

I am sorry for having been away for a few days. Things have been very busy at home and in the shop. Excuse the shameless plug - if anyone is now missing a "pre-order" following today's news - I still have pre-order slots for most products.

 

www.a2bmodelrailways.co.uk

 

 

[newbryford]

14 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

nice little pannier 

 

Oxymoron alert?

 

(and I'm not including "little" in the alert)

Edited August 25, 2020 by newbryford

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone

 

Whilst I was out this morning the sun briefly shone as I completed  the Sainsbury’s Grand Prix, so I was able to get to the pharmacy without getting wet. There was a queue as I passed the pharmacy on the way to the car park, but by the time I’d parked the car, walked round and masked up it had gone. The same thing happened when I returned and then went to Sainsbury’s! The sun stayed out whilst I was driving back home, but not long after I’d got back and was sitting down with a muggertea, it started chuckinitdarn again and continued for the rest of the day, finally stopping around 9 o’clock this evening. However, the wind steadily got stronger as the day progressed too and there’s lots of leaves about too, today it felt more like autumn than late summer!

 

Sheila was telling me earlier this evening that, whilst I was asleep last night, I was quite hot to the touch, I said it was probably a nuclear reaction adding, we’ll at least I didn’t keep you awake because I was glowing green!

 

Goodnight all 

 

Brian

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Still blowing a hooley outside, bought a bit of heavy rain with it a while ago but its soon dries up. At least the wheelie bin has stayed upright and in place. Most people seem to be wearing face masks in Tess Coe's today including the staff. I receive an update each morning from In Your Area <info@inyourarea.co.uk that includes details of  coronavirus rates. Here in Basildon its very low but its increasing in other local areas. Just go into the site and enter your postcode. 

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[southern42]

Rain & strong winds all day. The well over 40 yr old elder at the bottom of the garden looks in danger of blowing over from the roots so it looks like it is destined for the chop.  Nothing else of significance so ‘ night all and nos da.

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[TheQ]

Mooring awl, 

Had about 4 hours sleep,  the nearest weather station was reporting 53mph when I went to bed,  and it's still reporting that at 02:00. I suspect Gwiwir is now somewhere over Norway... 

Ben the I'm scared of noises Collie is not impressed with the wind howling round the house and is sticking close to me. 

They are now forecasting high winds overnight Friday to Saturday.. 

 

I suspect the roads will be littered with leaves and twigs and the odd branch. I'm taking the landrover today anyway as the orange shed is required to supply me with various items. 

 

Time I think for more sleep.. 

 

 

 

 

 

[pH]

Some years ago, I did a bit of family history research. I went back to great-grandparents generations for both myself and my wife. We weren't interested in going further - we had some connections to that generation, but no earlier. I could not find a death certificate for one great-grandfather. We had pictures of him, had birth and marriage certificates, and I knew he was alive in 1915, but no death certificate. I know at least two of my cousins had also done some searching, and neither of them had found it either.

Over the years, I've gone back and looked again, when I had another idea about where to look, but never found anything.

 

Today, on "Scotland's People" (the Scottish national records website), I had another try. After a couple of hours of fruitless effort, and despite being absolutely sure of his surname, I tried selecting 'fuzzy logic' on the surname search. His death certificate turned up! The record has the surname as we have always known it, but it has been indexed under an incorrect name - "McCaferty" instead of the correct "McCafferty". I've sent a copy to the two cousins who have also been looking for it, and a report of the incorrect indexing to "Scotland's People".

 

I can't believe how irrationally happy this has made me!

[BR60103]

When my father was researching for his coat of arms. he found a few errors in the government's records. He reported them and was told that they could be fixed for a fee.

 

They've been promising us thunderstorms "tomorrow" for a week. Last night at bedtime there was thunder but no apparent precip. SWMBO reported it was opressively humid for her morning walk.

 

Our central vac. is acting up. It won't shut off. I've unplugged it. Tried the ohmmeter but there is no short circuit there.

 

I heard that when WW2 was coming up there were two attitudes towards tanks. The British remembered what a cumbersome nuisance they were to operate. The Germans remembered how terrifying it was to see one coming over the trenches.

 

 

[TheQ]

2 hours ago, pH said:

Some years ago, I did a bit of family history research. I went back to great-grandparents generations for both myself and my wife. We weren't interested in going further - we had some connections to that generation, but no earlier. I could not find a death certificate for one great-grandfather. We had pictures of him, had birth and marriage certificates, and I knew he was alive in 1915, but no death certificate. I know at least two of my cousins had also done some searching, and neither of them had found it either.

Over the years, I've gone back and looked again, when I had another idea about where to look, but never found anything.

 

Today, on "Scotland's People" (the Scottish national records website), I had another try. After a couple of hours of fruitless effort, and despite being absolutely sure of his surname, I tried selecting 'fuzzy logic' on the surname search. His death certificate turned up! The record has the surname as we have always known it, but it has been indexed under an incorrect name - "McCaferty" instead of the correct "McCafferty". I've sent a copy to the two cousins who have also been looking for it, and a report of the incorrect indexing to "Scotland's People".

 

I can't believe how irrationally happy this has made me!

Nothing unusual,  on one side of the family,  currently known as Rawlings,  there are Rawlins,  Rawlens, , Rowlings, Rowlings,  and all  the above without the S. 

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

Quite a lot happened yesterday.  Among other things, I visited my bank to print out a statement from the self-service till, which accepted my card this time.  Whose bright idea was it, I wondered, to list the entries on the statement in reverse chronological order, with the most recent at the top?  Neither member of staff present knew the answer, but almost chorused that it had been happening since the machine had been upgraded.  Some clown in head office must have been given a merit payment for that daft idea.  I am minded to make further enquiries.

 

In the town centre there is a bust of Bishop Trevor Huddleston on a plinth.  Someone had placed one of those irritating blue face masks on it.  The reverend gentleman might well have been amused but we will never know.  The little caravan from which I usually buy watch batteries was not in its normal place outside the Halifax.  Where to look next?  Why, in Timpsons shoe repair establishment, of course, isn’t it obvious?  When I bought some wheat germ in a health food shop I noticed a sign asking customers not to browse.  The assistant declined to respond to my point that you have to browse if you do not know where anything is.

 

At home, after my cuppa, I turned to the laptop and discovered a calamity.  There was no sound!  This did not augur well for tonight’s Zoom session, particularly as I have been beset by other technical hitches of late.  Someone will know what to do, I hoped.  Someone did, to wit one of the friends that I was with on Monday, and he helped me find the right button to press.  This is not something that those who sell laptops from warehouses ever tell you, so thank heavens for pals with inquiring minds!  To give it a test I called up the YouTube clip of last year’s Rule Britannia at the last night of the proms and revelled once more in the mischief wrought by the mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton when she waved her rainbow flag.  As it happens, that bit was on the news channel once an hour for most of the day.

 

Finally, Avanti West Coast launched their Pendolino Pride Train and very fetching it looks too.  I wonder what will happen today?  Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[pH]

25 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Nothing unusual,  on one side of the family,  currently known as Rawlings,  there are Rawlins,  Rawlens, , Rowlings, Rowlings,  and all  the above without the S. 

 

Not quite the same thing. What I understand you’re saying is that members of the family have used various different forms of the surname. As you say - nothing unusual.

 

In the case of my great-grandfather, he (and as far as we know, everyone else in the family) used “McCafferty” as the spelling of the surname. That is the spelling on the entry in the statutory registry of deaths, as shown by the scan available on “Scotland’s People”. However, the entry is indexed under the term “McCaferty” i.e. it was wrongly indexed when index terms were created manually. I and my cousins have been using the correct “McCafferty” form when searching and so failing to retrieve the wrongly-indexed record.

(I can relate to that, actually. I once worked in an organization which manually indexed and searched scientific publications. There is a phenomenon in chemical analysis called the ‘Lamb shift’. To try to make sure we retrieved all publications dealing with this, we had to include in any search for it the term ‘Lamb sh it’ without the space.)

[jamie92208]

Morning all. It's cloudy with bits of blue visible but no wind around here.  According to the Meteo it's going to stay that way.  I hope that readers in the UK, and on Fraggle Rock, survive Francis without drama. 

 

I got some stuff done yesterday but then inspected my eyelids in the afternoon.  Some scanning got done and I am gradually getting some sort of order out of chaos with my prints and negatives from between 1998 and 2008.  

 

I am off the leash today so will head off later to do some consultancy work on a friends setup of parallel pieces of metal on which items of Swiss prototypes run.  After that I will amble on to another friend to look through a collection of donsted model engineering tools that need a new home.  It's a hard life.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[TheQ]

Mooring again,

A well tied down mooring that is...

Except for the Marquee.. the marquee covers are held on By Bungee balls , 32 of them, On Ben the "I'm not sure about going out in this wind" Collies patrol. I decided to inspect the Marquee, and found 14 had failed, that's several scattered odd ones and an entire end wall above 6ft.. I bought a bag of 20 spares back in February...so I've run around and put new ones on where I can reach, but not of course the North end where I need the step ladder, that's out in the orchard somewhere.

I have just 3 new bungies left.. I need 10... So I've already been on the house on the house of strong ladies to order more, and  tonight when I get home I'm going to be looming and lacing the North end with spare rope, a sailor always has tons of spare rope... the wind should Have eased by then.. another thing for tonight is to measure the old bungy and bobbles, to see if buying more elastic bungy cord is a reasonable proposition as there are lots of black balls on the floor..

 

The rest of the garden is fine, just tons of leaves scattered around..

 

The journey in had less branches on the ground than I expected, but lots of leaves and twigs.. And soil... one of the first fields I bass has just been ploughed and the wind has taken some of the top soil off and deposited it along the road.. wherever there was a bit of shelter for the soil to drop out of the wind..

 

Time I went and reviewed the overnight cross check run.

 

 

 

[roundhouse]

13 minutes ago, TheQ said:

a sailor always has tons of spare rope...

 

 

My brother from HK helped sail a friends new £1m catameran from La Rochelle to Gibralter back in July. When he arrived on the boat there were just two ropes and upon saying to his friend that wasnt enough rope, his friend said  thats what the builders supplied so it must be. Also only one life jacket onboard, dishes and cutlery for one person etc. It took my brother three weeks to get him to spend money on items required with my brother having to buy his own life jacket which he has kept as he is hoping to get his own boat again. My brother should have been helping his friend sail the boat to Greece but the three weeks lost in LaRochelle (and that his friend would go to bed when he should have been on watch) meant that he had to leave him at Gibralter.

 

Morning all form a sunny and much less windy Surrey.

 

Today some crust earning turning up with one sound decoder fitted loco that I installed back in March now being collected. Maybe some prepping the fascia and soffit boards on the house ready for painting then it will be beer o'clock at 4pm.

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

Where does the time go?  We have a very blustery morning in this part of the world and it would appear that autumn is fast approaching.

 

I'm working from home again today, having spent the past three days in the office.

 

Hoping all ERs are staying healthy!  Have a good day everyone...

[polybear]

22 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Many years back I was told that it took approximately 9  man hours of maintenance to keep a Lynx (then the Army's sole airborne A/T platform) in the air for one hour.

 

Many moons ago I believe WHL produced a civilian variant of the Lynx, nick-named the Westland Breadvan.  I heard rumour that they gave/lent one (or more?) to a U.S. Operator, in the hope of selling some.  By all accounts they gave it back again as the maintenance and spares costs were astronomical.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Nice to see a visit from Robert.

Still quite breezy here after a very wet and windy night.  Some sunshine and blue sky here at the moment and sunny spells are forecast for the rest of the day....said he....hopefully.

A quick glance out of the windows has confirmed that everything is where it should be.  Car, The Shed and even my dodgy fence panels are still in place.

Forgot that there were two rugby matches on last night, first time on a Tuesday I believe.  Luckily the magic box is set to record all such things so I'll be able to watch them later.

Other tasks today include finishing off re-cataloguing and revaluing the muddle collection for insurance purposes.  I've been a bit lax in adding new additions over the past year or so.  The printer has been working overtime but at least here in my new "office" it is beside the desk so I can easily keep an eye on it.

The Boss has just reminded me that "we", that means I, have to finalise the online shopping list today.  (She doesn't "do" computers)

Have a good one,

Bob.