Early Risers.

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Always preferred Tiswas to Noels Edmunds Multicoloured Swapshop.

Thanks to Flavio for his adVice on homing a rescue dog. One issue I’m thinking about is our lifestyle. Sydney is very laid back and sometimes when we have a lie in he’s quite happy to do the same. Sometimes at 9:30 we have to turf him out of bed and get him to go outside. We wouldn’t want a dog that is very ritualistic, up at 7.00, walkies  at 7.15 and then breakfast at 8.00. I know that may sound selfish but I think to fit in at our house he’d have to be flexible and being ‘an older’ dog he will be set in his ways. We’re getting more details and I would like to see him/her. I’d hate to get hopes ups, both dogs and the person who’s taking temporary care and don’t want to feel sorry for  the situation and feel pressurised into making a decision .

When I lived with my parents we had had two Boxers, one after the other and SWMBOs family had Yorkshire terriers.   We’re thought about a dog when we retire but can’t decide on what breed/size. 
On to other matters, walk with mil this morning before the weather got too bad and then watched football this afternoon. Small amount of shed time in between times. 
Not sure what’s planned for tomorrow but I’d better get a bit more paperwork done.
Goodnight All,

Robert

 

 

 

 

[jamie92208]

7 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Just finished watching the Wales v France match.

 

The best team won and scored some really good tries.

 

Wales would have done better if Pivac had insisted on taking Dan Biggar off at half time and replacing him with Rhys Patchell.

 

Putting Patchell on with just over five minutes to go was like trying to stem an arterial bleed with an elastoplast.

 

 

Does that mean that my adopted team won then Richard.  I'll just gave to have a Balluet's cognac to celebrate.  The Cock must be crowing.

 

Jamie

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, brianusa said:

You have a way with words, Ian.  We couldn't watch another hour of that nonsense although in review, old Joe held his own, even better.  What a situation, two old men trying to run a country!

       Brian.

 

36 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Without wishing to become political surely out of the population of the US why 2 old men are going for the job is there no one young and charismatic in American politics any more

The last 'young and charismatic' president was Kennedy and look what happened to him.

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

There's a medium chance that Bear's x**s could be like that this year too.  There's been several (quite a lot, actually) where Bear's din dins has been a serious pizza, with additions.  There's no way I'm missing out on roast spuds etc.

I usually spend the day with the OH + adult (?) daughter (though to be honest I'd rather be at home) and usually b****g day too - though for whatever reason the daughter becomes a right argumentative ***** and the day is spent watching OH + daughter at each other's throats.  I keep well out of it, though last year it was so bad I was within an ace of getting the hell out of it.  If I do end up there this year I most certainly won't be sitting thru' that cr@p again, should there be a rematch.  Can I wish for a lockdown?

You could always use lockdown as an excuse. You don't have to miss out on roast spuds or any other roast veg or Yorkshire puddings. Get yourself an air fryer but not one of those cheap ones with a wire basket. You need one with the basket that resembles a saucepan with a perforated bottom. I used mine for roasting my spuds and parsnips last Christmas, all I needed to do was drizzle a drop of olive oil on them and roast for about 10-12 minutes, the air fryer acts as a mini fan oven. It uses no more power than my microwave but a damn site less than the conventional oven.

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[The Stationmaster]

38 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

The last 'young and charismatic' president was Kennedy and look what happened to him.

Yes,  when he assumed the Presidency at age 43 he was three years younger than Bill Clinton was when he assumed the position.  Of course it all depends on how you define 'young' but the present two battling it out are 'old' by just about any standard I reckon.

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[southern42]

' night all and nos da.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

I spoke too soon about the weather, it started to rain about 30 minutes after this morning’s post and hasn’t stopped all day. So I had to time my return to the house at both dinner time and late afternoon very carefully. 

 

More work has been done to the turntable, the well is now almost complete, I’ve just got to add a few weed and moss stains. Once I’m happy with that, I will clad the inside of the wells retaining walls with heavily weathered brick paper. The top sill will be completed once the well has been installed and I can permanently fix the exit/entry track-work in place. I’ve also made a start on painting the bridge, the woodwork was the first item to get its first preliminary coat of a mid brown colour. I then started painting the new ‘steelwork’ of the platform extension, with a mid grey, making it similar in tone to the original colour. Tomorrow I hope to give the rest of the bridge a full coat of paint.

 

As it’s Saturday, that means it’s film night, so after tea, we settled down and watched ........... for a change, an Italian crime drama, complete with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

Don’t forget to reset your clocks, I’ve just done mine. 

 

Goodnight all 

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl inner Temple Hare, 

After 4.5 + 1 +1.5 hours sleep I'm still knackered,  I was quite comfortable on the sofa,  but Ben the very insistent Collie wanted out,  and then it was just a splash and dash back in....  He's now curled up on SWMBO's chair. 

 

It's cool dry, cloudless  and windless out there. The rain finally arrived just before 21:00 last night,  hammering on the windows,  but I was asleep soon after so I don't know how long it lasted. 

 

Today the first planned work is repairs to the conservatory window sill, it's wooden,  believed to be pre ww2,  as paint has pealed off in the area you can see where previous bits of wood have been let in for repairs.  I'm guessing it's trapped rot inside,  because it's suddenly appeared my in a major fashion. These repairs will be temporary,  it the wrong time of year to be permanent with my limited working time at weekend.  Also we are seriously looking at a modern double glazed replacement, so it might not be for long... 

If there's time left after that,  it'll be back to the garage for shelf work. 

 

But first 

Time to relax before breakfast.. 

 

 

 

 

[jamie92208]

Good morning. It's still dark outside, just, but thanks to the clock change it soon won't be.  It is due to rain much of the day but that may be a figment of a seaweed twirlers imagination.

 

Another patch of the shed floor was cleared, swept then sealed yesterday. Approx 37sq mts.  Various piles of debris were moved and disposed of. I finally found a lost mose trap, complete with it's intended victim.  I'd forgotten where that one had been placed.  Anyway, if the rain does arrive I know what I'll be doing for an hour or so this afternoon, painting.

 

The market beckons this morning, apart from that, not a lot.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

I went to Tesco for breakfast yesterday, on impulse.  They offer a decent fry-up for £4.15 called “The Breakfast” which, with a pot of tea, was just right.  I took the opportunity to buy the eggs that I forgot on Friday, found where the store-baked fruit pies had been relocated and added a pack of scones to my basket to go with the strawberry jam that I rediscovered in my fridge.  I had 15 minutes to wait for the bus home.  The countdown indicator in the bus shelter displayed “Refer to timetable”.  Nice try, Stagecoach, but try putting a timetable in the bus shelter first!  On the bus I commiserated with an acquaintance about cancelled holidays.

 

The previous evening I had taken wise counsel from a well-travelled friend.  The gist of his advice was that any plans for a festive break away from home are vulnerable to being clobbered by restrictions and regulations not yet in our nightmares, for the imagination of those who rule us is nothing if not fertile.  Despite this, the idea will not go away.  I have already spent some time googling, leaving me realising how good an idea it is to plan further in advance than was possible here.  Friday’s cancellation of the Swiss trip, though frustrating, was only to be expected.  I will soon get over being cheated out of the ferry trip from Harwich to Hoek van Holland that I had asked to be woven into my outward journey.  Not the obvious route to Switzerland, you may think.  Precisely: if you keep doing the same old same old it can easily get boring.  By contrast, losing the Dublin trip in June came before the arrangements had been completed.  I had made a big thing of it and its loss hurt me deeply.  It will be better if I do not think about festive trips for a few days and occupy my mind instead with some of the many other things jostling for attention.  Sadly one of them is the ironing.  If that is the highlight of the day it will not say much for the day.

 

It was salutary to be reminded this morning that John Peel died on this day in 2004.  How swiftly time passes.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[polybear]

8 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Of course it all depends on how you define 'young' but the present two battling it out are 'old' by just about any standard I reckon.

 

With age comes wisdom.......oh, hang on a minute.......

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Slept well until...

 

Her indoors altered her bedside clock yesterday.. the alarm went off at 06:00....twice!  Managed to roll over and go back to sleep.

 

Now, suitably fortified by a mugatea I am ready to take on Sunday..

 

I watched the Wales v France game last night. Very scrappy but Wales seemed totally lost .. and they suffered from a kicker who lost his touch... Front row skills seem to diminish with each year.. at one point the french hooker pulled the ball back with his knee...

 

Right, time to go and face day 2 of the "Leeds MRS non exhibition." I shall miss the GSAL cooked breakfast.. at £3.50 it is good VFM... bacon, egg, sausage, has browns , fried bread, baked beans, mushrooms and skinless mice, two slices of toast and a cup of tea...pah!!

 

Have as good a time as you can today. Positive thoughts to all ERs!

Baz

[roundhouse]

Good morning from a less breezy one than yesterday. I have just swept all the leaves off the patio table and will sweep the patio later.

 

A good day was had using local buses to visit various drinking establishments. Many of the pubs I havent been in for 30 years or more but with careful planning of bus routes that at best are hourly we managed a first pint along with a second mini breakfast in the Bull at Limpsfield then onto Westerham where there are now just two pubs and a newish micropub left out of eight pubs when we first learned to drive and a number of those pubs were regular haunts with me often being the lucky one to catch a lift so could drink. Back in those days most of us want to drive so often there would be a convoy of cars. The bus to Westerham we had to ourselves plus the driver so you couldnt really get any more socially distanced.

 

My other half has just booked two weeks off at xmas but I very much doubt that we will be travelling anywhere outside England, if anywhere but these days I book all hotels that are cancellable and no prepayment. Generally we will be driving. We have considered using the sleeper to Penzance but as it departs just before midnight what do you do for two hours after every bar and restaurant has closed at 10pm and the sleeper lounge at Paddington is closed for now. In the past we have often caught it at Reading but that makes the hanging around even longer.

[polybear]

Bear getting up at 06-30 seems somewhat better when brain is saying it's really 07-30.  'Course the downside will be at 21-00, when brain is telling me it's 22-00......  Watching News at Ten is looking shaky.

 

Bear should really be mixing up some mortar today, for the purposes of back-filling around a newly fitted door sub-frame.  Squidging it into the gap isn't a problem with my recently acquired Mortar Gun - though getting the mix right is a bit of an art initially, as it has to be somewhat softer than usual.  A bl00dy sight easier method than using a trowel though, and forces mortar right into the full depth of the gap as well.  However, Bear is finding the mixing of mortar, and subsequent cleaning up afterwards, a right pain; however I was also sent a mixing paddle with the gun, for use in a leccy drill so that makes life a lot easier.....

Or I could play upstairs in the wor*shop instead - I have a mains powered projection clock with an iffy power connector that requires modification.  Decisions, decisions.  I do know that if I get the mortar job out of the way I'll feel sooooo much better.

 

Edit:

Bear is trying to decide if SDS Masonry Bits from here:

https://www.axminstertools.com/bosch-sds-5-hammer-drill-bit-5-x-100-x-160-100173

- will be worth twice the price than those from here:

https://www.ukdrills.com/sds-drills

When you're buying a stack of sizes the price difference becomes noticeable.  Any views please?

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by polybear

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

.... One issue I’m thinking about is our lifestyle. Sydney is very laid back and sometimes when we have a lie in he’s quite happy to do the same. Sometimes at 9:30 we have to turf him out of bed and get him to go outside. We wouldn’t want a dog that is very ritualistic, up at 7.00, walkies  at 7.15 and then breakfast at 8.00. I know that may sound selfish but I think to fit in at our house he’d have to be flexible and being ‘an older’ dog he will be set in his ways.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when you get a dog on a permanent basis your life will change whether you want it to to or not. Although there tends to be a meeting of lifestyles (so to speak): the humans tend  change the way they approach things (to a greater or lesser extent) and the dogs will also do their best to fit in with the new household. Of course, you do (and must) match the general approach to life of the dog to the would-be owner. So, someone who likes to go on long hikes across the moors for hours would not be a good fit for a French bulldog, conversely a young Border Collie pup would certainly not be a good match for an elderly person who has difficulty walking.

 

Having said that, an older dog will tend to sleep more and if you have a garden into which the dog can go to relieve himself just before bedtime, then you don’t have to worry about getting up at the crack of dawn to let the dog out to relieve himself. Interestingly enough, dogs are very particular about voiding: Lucy will urinate in the garden (as will Schotty if he is truly desperate), but neither dog will defecate, unless absolutely desperate (such as when they have diarrhoea) in the garden (see my earlier post). It’s very important, for both psychological and physical reasons, that the dogs are not restrained from voiding when they need to (reasonably spaced excursions into the wider world or into the garden help considerably with this)

We walk and exercise the dogs three times a day: early in the morning for about 60 to 80 minutes, at lunchtime – again for 60 to 80 minutes and this is repeated in the evening, just before Mrs iD and I have our dinner. Having said that, Lucy and Schotty are very smell oriented (I think both have quite a lot of scent hound in them) and so a considerable portion of each walk is spent not at a brisk pace, striding across the countryside, but rather at more of a sedate amble as both dogs sniff around extensively and write and read their “weemails“

I suppose the thing to do, would be to ask whoever is currently responsible for rehoming that area whether or not they permit a trial period before formally adopt the dog. But beware, even with only a trial period the probability of you falling for the dog, with a resulting major change in your life, is incredibly high.

Edited October 25, 2020 by iL Dottore

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Tipping it down here and has been for a couple of hours. * There was one very loud clap of thunder at 7.15.  Forecast was for a dry start and sunny spells with the chance of showers this afternoon. 

Three rugby matches watched yesterday and I think the best teams won although Exeter made hard work of it or perhaps Wasps made it hard for them.  Unusually for me  I wish Wales had won   only because that would have taken France out of the running for winning the 6 Nations.   There are several combinations of results next Saturday that could see the title going to either Ireland, France or England.  I live in hope but am not holding my breath.

The Shed wasn't visited yesterday so nothing got broken. The same will probably apply today.

Eggs and bacon etc will shortly be put in front of me, after that I haven't got a clue what I'll be doing apart from watching the F1 highlights later.  The Boss may possibly have some input there and "suggest" something. 

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

* Now stopped and blue sky is appearing

Edited October 25, 2020 by grandadbob

[tigerburnie]

Morning, the clocks may have changed but my body clock hasn't.................................I watched the rugby, Ireland  v Italy, quite enjoyed it, even the ref was half decent too. Off out to meet up with the daughters family for a riverside walk with their new puppy, enjoy the day all and keep safe.

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, roundhouse said:

The bus to Westerham we had to ourselves plus the driver

It was ever thus. In my yoof a school-friend and myself would sometimes spend our Saturdays or holiday weekdays enjoying the delights of London’s Country buses as they then were. Westerham was a meeting-point. The hourly 403 between Croydon and Tonbridge was timed to wait two minutes at the same time as the hourly 410 Reigate - Bromley bus. In both directions.  So you got four buses together in town and the connections between them always seemed to be made. Not that anyone much used them - quite often it would be just us and the driver on board. 
 

Good morning from a newly sun-bathed Hill of Strawberries. Yesterday turned foul and wild outside. Today began grey and wet but the sky is now blue, a golden shiny thing is shining and birds are tweeting. 
 

His Lordship is resting on my knee and muggertee one has been enjoyed. The kitchen clocks need a manual re-set as does the boiler timer but the phone confirms it is only 9 and not 10 Earth Hours. 
 

Avagoodun one and all. 

[Gwiwer]

Failed to attach above ....

 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning.  I miss that, Rick.

 

A bright and breezy day outside, just breezy inside as we had that curry last night, and I had a mighty hot one!  The new venue was.....adequate is the kindest I could be, the food OK, the service (local non-Asian girl on second day at work) inexperienced but trying hard!  

 

Today is collecting several million sycamore leaves which the wind has kindly piled into the bottom of the garden making at an easier task then usual.  About 70% of leaf fall has happened in the last day, unusual as it tends to drag on.  Then off to the tip with them as our composters are full, they have industrial size composting there.