Early Risers.

[roundhouse]

36 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... "is he all there?" ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/09/24/three-score-and-ten/

I keep hugging my other half on the basis that one day, one of us wont be around

[simontaylor484]

Its certainly dropped colder here tonight more rain. Dave is flying the mach loop as much fun as it looks?

Has been a very quiet day apart from a phone call from the independent doctor re my application for early retirement due to ill health

[Dave Hunt]

2 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Dave is flying the mach loop as much fun as it looks?

 Oh, yes.

 

Dave

[Barry O]

Thunder storm this afternoon incuded a downpouring of hailstones. As I was in the loft room at the time it was a bit noisy to say the least.

 

We were talking about having a holiday in Crete. My father uttered the words " dropped a stick of 250lb bombs down the middle of the runway at Heraklion" hopefully these are long gone...

 

I have parcels to wrap and post tomorrow so an earliyish night is required so...

 

Goodnight all!

Baz

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well I did end up do some gardening today after all, but the ground was a bit claggy and kept sticking to the soles of my boots. I’d only been isdide about 10 minutes when started to rain, but as we were eating, it didn’t matter. During dinner I ate the first apple from this year’s crop, it was very nice, but home grown fruit always tastes nicer than shop bought doesn’t it?

 

However, by the time I went back outside it had stopped, so I just emptied the wheelbarrow, which I’d filled this morning, then came back inside, as Sheila had asked me to clean the leaded windows on the front door, so I cleaned the windows, inside and out and earned a few extra brownie points whilst doing so!

 

Goodnight all 

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Got to wait in for a parcel tomorrow. DHL have informed me that its going to be delivered but can't give a time. I had to pay duty but I thought that I might have to but at least they haven't added any fees as Parcel farce do. With the return of the damp weather Arthur Itis is having a field day so the co-codamol has been deployed.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[simontaylor484]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Thunder storm this afternoon incuded a downpouring of hailstones. As I was in the loft room at the time it was a bit noisy to say the least.

 

We were talking about having a holiday in Crete. My father uttered the words " dropped a stick of 250lb bombs down the middle of the runway at Heraklion" hopefully these are long gone...

 

I have parcels to wrap and post tomorrow so an earliyish night is required so...

 

Goodnight all!

Baz

Sadly the bomb craters have gone Baz. Last time we went the airport was horrible and the queues for security and passport control were horrendous. We liked the island and people but the Airport put us off going again

[monkeysarefun]

19 hours ago, chrisf said:

Monkeysarefun, you know me too well.  When I need cheering up, which is not unusual, I do like to view footage of koalas and there is plenty of it on YouTube. 

 

Looks like you've been self-medicating..  Going by this study though, you'll  have to up your prescription to include Quokkas!

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/54245971

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[laurenceb]

Birthday greetings to Ian & John

Night awl

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

I've been reflecting on the lengthy telephone conversation I had with someone from BT on Wednesday evening.  Her "organisation" seems so reluctant to accept that it is at fault.  I pointed out that hers was only the second response since 2nd August when I reported the first of three disappearances of e-mails from my sent box.  It seems that whoever took the first and second calls referred my case to a part of the empire which was not in active service due to that ruddy virus.  Could the cause be, as she seems to suggest, the interaction between my laptop and my mobile phone?  Have some more straws to clutch, madam.  In short, I am not impressed.  No, the correspondence section in Durham is not the address to which I propose to send a written complaint.  I suspect that the staff there are trained to put incoming grievances with all the others and if I want to find an address for the chairman or chief executive I shall.  So there!  It was a minor source of annoyance that she rang while I was cooking.  Gammon steak is not at its best when served luke-warm.

 

The ironing finally got done yesterday after festering for two days.  This morning I need to head for the supermarket sooner rather than later, not least to replenish the diminishing stock of bread.  A cheese sandwich can be a timely snack and the line of least resistance, but the bread which complements the carefully sliced mild Cheddar or Red Leicester and generous dollop of Branston needs to be relatively fresh.  Having said that, yesterday's snack lunch was four fish cakes garnished with ketchup.  Plebby or what?

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris     

[TheQ]

Soggy Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare, 800/500 now there's a milestone..

A reasonable Nights sleep, 5 hours plus 1.5 hours, though all the waking times it was heavily raining as it is now, and the radar says it will for some time.

 

14 lots of water right across the road on the way in.. The first being the deepest, about 6 inches deep right by the bridge over the first Dyke. so it's likely the drainage channel cut in the verge to the dyke  is blocked.

 

One cockwomble on the way in in Norwich, 15 to 20mph on 30mph roads, it may be raining, but on a well lit road there was no need for that , first time I've overtaken a vehicle in town for years..

 

Good news my brother (aged 52)  has a new job... I didn't know he'd lost his last one, although I did notice they've spent a lot of the last 3 months on holidays round the UK. His wife's business is shut down as teaching babies and children to swim isn't viable during the virus..

Also a niece (about aged 25) is in the process of being head hunted, out of the blue she's received an offer of work she didn't apply for. She's off to an interview next week to see if it's worth jumping ship. Quite what she does I don't know, her degree is in Art and she's a very good artist, but I doubt that's what they are head hunting her for..

 

Two major systems are still in work, one the boss has written new test programmes for and a different method of testing as the current tests are proving too unreliable.

The other had some minor hiccups on the first run, I'll check that shortly.

 

Poking a hole in my fingers has been going on for a week, I now have a base line to work from and will start varying food. First to go will be the lunch time sandwich, to be replaced by a non carbohydrate salad..

 

Time , I went to the lab, serenaded by the rain falling down the internal drainpipes.

[Barry O]

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Looks like you've been self-medicating..  Going by this study though, you'll  have to up your prescription to include Quokkas!

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/54245971

 

Quokkas are sooooo cute ! And very friendly..

[Barry O]

Good Morning  ERs!! ( well that is to those who are awake!)

Rottness Island trip this year was made so we could see the Quokkas or rather for the Quokkas to "inspect" us..

 

Abd, it was warm..unlike today here in the North West Leeds Highlands.  Cricket tomorrow will involve multiple layers of warm clothing as it is scheduled to "feel" like 9°C..

 

Our illustrious Council Leader has asked for some law changes for Leeds but still doesn't see the need to force changes on anyone..

 

I am going to have to by a blood glucose meter as the new tablets are definitely improving how I feel..although one of the side effects  means more trips to the little boys room..but hey..it is manageable!

 

So time to ..finish my mugatea,  wrap some parcels, put my rain gear on and a trip to the post office beckons...

 

Have a great day.. Carpe Diem!!

Positive thoughts to all ERs especially those who are not posting at the minute.

 

Baz

Edited September 25, 2020 by Barry O

[polybear]

7 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

With the return of the damp weather Arthur Itis is having a field day so the co-codamol has been deployed.

 

My hands started getting painful a couple of months or so back, just four months into early retirement .  The doc suspects arthur, though I did have a fight with a very large jar of beetroot a while back - the lid just would not shift and Bear just wouldn't be beaten; I do wonder if it's a very bad strain, though it's been two months now..... 

A blood test for rheumatoid arthur has been arranged; co-codamol has been mentioned though I don't fancy the side effects.  I had Ibruprofen in the cupboard but that didn't help, and I'm aware that long term regular use isn't a good idea.

Is co-codamol a winner?

 

1 hour ago, chrisf said:

Greetings one and all

 

I've been reflecting on the lengthy telephone conversation I had with someone from BT on Wednesday evening.  Her "organisation" seems so reluctant to accept that it is at fault.  I pointed out that hers was only the second response since 2nd August when I reported the first of three disappearances of e-mails from my sent box.  

 

Whilst it won't recover lost emails, one option would be to include your own email address as a recipient on all emails; these can then be moved into an archive folder for safe keeping.  Works for me.  I'm sure there are other settings that could achieve the same thing, but I find they require a degree in computing (or access to a five-year old to set up)  and the method above can be seen to be working every time.

[roundhouse]

Morning from a breezt and damp Surrey.

 

A good day was had yesterday . Most pubs were open during the day but very quiet. The first pub only reopening at Midday (was 5pm)  from Wednesday but just us two in there . Oddly you have to sign in at the bar but then sit down a couple of steps away to be able to order, then facemask on to stand up, turn round and two steps out the door. The next pub had two or three customers when we arrived and just after we sat down next to the entrnace door a young bloke turned up sans mask but the staff gave him one. Next pub insisted that we downloaded the NHS app in the doorway despite us asking to sign in with pen and paper, so we turned round and left. Its a Fullers pub with a much reduced range of beers so no loss for us and was very quiet inside. Many people dont have a smart phone. Next two pubs were fine letting us use pen and paper. We took a very quiet bus back to Redhill and finished up with a Thai meal and a pint of Doom as the Tribute had run out.  Departed there at 9pm well before the new closing time kicked in. Some pubs are calling last orders at 9.15pm and others last entry at 9.30pm with final bell at 9.45pm.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning to all from a rather wet and cool Charente. 9 degrees according to my phone and my toes agree as ICBA to put my socks and trainers on yet. I have however had to abandon shorts and go back into long trousers. 

Belated birthday greeting to John and Ian.

 

I had another little trip out yesterday, to Angouleme to buy the winter cover for the pool along with some graphite pencils for an activity I can't talk about.  In the evening we went for fish and chips then later watched the last part of the drama about Fred and Rose West.   Many parallels with the Nilsen saga the week before.

 

Not a lot on the agenda today but an appeal letter to HMRC re the penalty charges will be posted.  We each got two identical letters yesterday about the same subject, which were posted before the previous one but took longer to get here, 3 weeks in total.  I feel that we have good grounds for appeal.

 

Anyway after that I may make a trip to try and buy some more logs before the sawmill shuts then it will be shed time.

 

Chrisf, have you thought of installing a email handling system such as Thunderbird that then allows you to store your emails on your own computer. I did that when Virgin media started getting silly and it works well.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[New Haven Neil]

Morning.

 

Chilly 8c here but sunny, autumn has arrived after yesterday's deluge, 40mm rain.

 

Bike/breakfast club morning, jury is currently out on the likelihood of actually going on a bike, the BMW has heated handlebar grip though so it may be its turn for a trip out.  

 

New interweb router for a change in my interweb package here arrived yesterday, which although promised to be all set up, wasn't of course.  Eventually the helpline diagnosed the code on the attached sheet was wrong, and that got it working.  This morning it didn't work, and........I had to change the code back to what it had been previously. But nowhere in the destructions does it tell you how to find the log in screen again.  #sigh#   Turns out you have to turn it off and on again and it then self diagnoses and opens the otherwise hidden log in screen. I have a relationship with computers somewhat like Chris and BT.  I need one of those children things to come and make it work.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Staining readily here and has been for some time.  Should brighten up later with a bit of luck.  Cool enough to put the heating on for a bit to take the chill off, especially in the bathroom.

Reading Ian's posts about pubs has just made me realise that I haven't visited one this year!  Not sure I'd want to under present circumstances.  It's a lot different to my working days when a pint or two more was almost a daily occurrence.

First job today is to drop a bit of shopping off for Steve.  He was coming round yesterday to collect it but got lumbered on a very long conference call and has more today.  I suspect this may be to do with the next lot of redundancies. 

The Shed was visited yesterday and after days weeks months of dithering I actually made a start on platform building and will carry on today.

Have a good one,

M.E.T. Calfeman

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by grandadbob

[TheQ]

The boss has taken over testing both major systems now, as there are odd unexplained results that cannot be put down to me making a cockup..

So... seeing as it wasn't doing anything, I've started on next weeks system, after the first couple of reading I can already see it's noticed the change in the weather.. No I'm not joking..

Resistances and voltages change due to the weather in some cases. In this measurement I'm just doing, - 2.3 parts per million between the hot dry summer (two months ago's measurement), and todays chucking it down.. The limits between calibrations  of this particular measurement being 3 PPM.

 

As for hands mine obviously aren't as bad as Polybears, normally needing a pink pill or two on the first day of a weather change for the worst. I can feel them today, but more as a dull throb than pain..

 

I use graphite sticks (9B of course) rather than pencils , as they have a much bigger working area..

 

I use the standard MS email system, but it's always been set to download the files, I rarely go direct to the BT site for the emails themselves, only when I'm out and about and find wifi signal on the tablet computer for something important. 

 

 

 

[grandadbob]

8 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 I have a relationship with computers somewhat like Chris and BT.  I need one of those children things to come and make it work.

 

I too occasionally have these problems but do have a "children thing" in the form of son Steve who as most of you know runs an IT department for a large business travel company.  Well, he does at the moment, let's hope that he will continue to do so.  Any IT problems are immediately referred to him and he always manages to sort them out.  When I apologise for my lack of skills in this department he always says "You're not bad for somebody your age* and in fact better that some of the  people who work for my firm."  

 

*emails from me to him are always signed AP.  (Aged Parent)

[grandadbob]

I've got a bit of Arthur Itis in my hands but have also got Dupuytren's Contracture in a couple of fingers.  One in particular on my left hand is sometimes quite painful and wakes me up at night and needs a bit of force to uncurl it although I can't straighten it completely.  It's not bad enough for long enough (yet) to require pills.

Edited September 25, 2020 by grandadbob