Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

10 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

So there we go - the GD has become a statistic

My cousin’s husband was asked a while ago to have the antibody test as part of a random check . He tested positive. His daughter and partner, both paramedics also tested positive for antibodies. The only symptoms they had were loss of and smell. This was so long ago that it was before the loss of taste and smell were recognised symptoms. 

[New Haven Neil]

We were both convinced we had it back in February as we had a spell of feeling really quite unwell indeed. I was tested as routine as part of my diabetes care, and Debs as she works for the DHSC here, and we were both negative.  We have the flu jab anyway (see above!) but it was obviously something else.

[PhilJ W]

Hello yet again from Estuary-Land. It's official, the local Royal mail sorting office has had to close due to a positive case of Covid 19. All sorts of rumours were flying about but whatever it was there has been no post since last Friday. So I was very surprised when the postman knocked this morning with a parcel.  As it turns out parcels and packages are dealt with in a separate section and is not affected. Slightly annoying as there is a society journal on its way to me that was due last Saturday, other members have received theirs but its a bit galling not being able to join in discussions re. the journal. Hopefully it will only be a few more days as now its a case of finding extra staff to cover for those in quarantine.

3 hours ago, PeterBB said:

NCT61315 - your video was very interesting.  Not many cars and the odd motorcycle. What did come across was the number of bicycles and the huge number of people walking and in particular just crossing anywhere and many without any sign of looking before they ventured out or just going anyway.  Also the odd car taking off and doing what we now call cutting up the already moving traffic i.e. the tram.  The overall impression however was of serene peace in Leipzig.

A case of the calm before the storm if there ever was one. I haven't seen it all but I was wondering if anything still exists of what we saw in the film.

[Gwiwer]

Afternoon all. Editor cleared à la Stationmaster. 
 

Notter Good Day so far. Woke with the sensation of dust up the snozzle irritating the snot-producing membranes. Several hours attending the House of Fun in an icy breeze and fine mizzle only made things worse. Try managing an itchy and running nose when wearing facial protection. Not so fun, actually. 
 

Returned home, enjoyed lunch, opened my emails and learned that a good friend and fellow modeller has passed away. Not totally unexpected but the news still comes as a momentary shock followed by the sense of loss. 
 

Currently retired to the horizontal position hoping to reduce the unwanted snottification. There are no symptoms of the Dreaded Lurgy. There are some symptoms of the Common Cold. Words ruder than “bottom” may be used if it develops into one of those. 
 

We shall light the candles and raise glasses tonight in memory of passed friend. 
 

Stay well. 

[southern42]

' afternoon all from red dragon land.

Sun out after a wet start.

 

Not been on here for a bit - mostly using online time getting calendars & C*******s things ordered before items disappear off the virtual shelves. Some way still to go but at least I have made a start.

 

Talking of the 'C' word, as we two will be without family visits/stopovers or we doing the family visit, I have taken the brave step to make even more of the 'C' word this year.  Starting sooner rather than C'Eve. Just hope good health prevails this year - flus & colds etc banned! Not that they took much notice of my protestations, last winter.      However, there is no big front garden to light up (Do I hear a big 'AH!' from the back, there?) to delight passers-by (amounting to those going to our next-door neighbour at the end of the shared path!) but I do hope to decorate the porch as a way of a thank you to the delivery people and to bring them a bit of cheer, especially, as it seems the wet n windy Welsh Winter may prevail.

 

Fitt  n  Elfie getting prepared for this afternoon's click n collect.

Take care all and play safe.

_________

Best wishes

Polly

 

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl,  

Pre adjustment figures taken on this temperature  meter.. Now adjusting..

 

The news is that in the new year we will be getting a new ceiling in the area outside the lab.. Which due to asbestos, means my entrance to the lab will be the fire door for a couple of weeks..

 

Two of the three warned about redundancy  have taken the bait of money and are leaving. This means we won't be getting the most qualified guy in-house to take over as deputy head of lab again. So the external candidate has got it , if permission is granted by higher authorities to recruit in the new year... He has passed all interviews.. The earliest he could arrive is February, he then will have an enormous learning curve....

 

 The Visit By UKAS is now virtual, which means less work in that they might not pick up anything they see next week. More work for the boss that he be having virtual meetings and emailing the facts and figures as they request.. Not surprisingly he's taken the week off afterwards for a rest..

 

In an hour and 15 minutes I head to Tes and Co or Ben will be unhappy at having no dinner and SWMBO at having no milk for her tea..

[Barry O]

being volunteered by her indoors means a trip to Bradford for swabbing, blood letting (for various tests including an anti body test ) etc next Friday.. BUT they are going to let us know what the results are..

 

Blue skies here but is reet parky this afternoon...

 

Baz

[New Haven Neil]

A second visit to Ramsey this afternoon has resulted in a 12k step count, something of a record post-injury.  Reason being in the odd world of Fraggle Rock, some shops still close for lunch - remember those days? - so I had a while to await the shop I wanted to re-open, so had a walk around the south prom and central town.  Hips are wrecked now, foot surprisingly OK.

[polybear]

5 hours ago, AndrewC said:

I'm just not cut out to be a babysitter. These are all supposed adults with Uni degrees, and yet sometimes it feels like a f*cking creche. There'll be a few surprised people next week when they find out they failed to reach certain required goals because they couldn't be arsed to complete a couple of online forms that I'd been pestering them to get done.

 

Ahhh, those magic words "degree"....

What confuses Bear is that the place only feels like a creche some of the time?  Now that is unusual.

 

4 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

A businessman and his colleagues want to make a marina and 500 houses here by reclaiming the beach (with concrete) and dredging.  This is public land, in constant use, and a marine biological conservation zone.  Why, oh why are our Government not just saying no, before these greedy b7653rd$ even have the thoughts to ruin our bay?  Jeez.

 

Far be it from me to suggest that money may have something to do with it.  Perish the thought

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I've watched Dom's film all the way through now, very interesting and I've partly answered my own question is anything still there, well the railway station is. I Googled it and found the outward appearance has changed little from Dom's film. I seem to recall that it appeared in a documentary about railway architecture a few months ago (or did it and it was a similar building?). Time to put the kettle on, be back later.

[Tony_S]

I commented last week that packages and parcels were arriving quickly but anything in an envelope was somewhat delayed. From what Phil and our very nice postman have said I think we can expect delays. Our local post hasn’t always come every day but it is getting through. 
There are lots of encouraging comments about Covid rates and it will be all ok for Christmas but looking at the graphs and numbers here does not produce the same optimism. Cases locally were very low in numbers and could conceivably have been one or two unfortunate family groups but it is a bit more than that now. I suppose these are cases from infections just before the current lockdown started. Before the current lockdown I thought Benfleet looked (only going out for clinics or walks down our road though) almost normally busy. When we went to the pharmacy and heart clinic  this week there were very few pedestrians and light traffic. So it has made a difference.  We will see what happens to the local cases. 
 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Tony_S

[New Haven Neil]

In lockdown 1.0 I couldn't  believe how much flak we took at Trackshack about delay in parcels arriving, many, many calls or e mails with a loud whining sound at the other end.....and we could control that delivery how, pray tell?  A message had been sent saying it had been dispatched, after that it was not in our gift to know when it would be delivered.  One thing I certainly don't miss. Poor old Royal Mail did their very best, in the whole thing until we gave up I think we only lost two parcels completely.   We did get a lot of supportive messages too, which was nice, but they were outnumbered ten to one.  Retirement never felt so good! 

[Ian Abel]

BIN day, and that had me up early. Realized at 6AM that we'd not put the BINs out, so had to get going to beat the trucks. Result

 

Yesterday was a complete flustercuck of reports, and it wasn't until 7PM that I'd finally finished with what they needed. That had me needing some vino!

 

In news-of-the-stupid, bumstain-in-chief doing nothing here but attempting to ask historians via a tweet to "notice vaccines were created on his watch", pity he didn't ALSO tweet that there are now over a quarter of a million Americans DEAD on his watch too

 

Should be a quieter day work-wise as they have confirmed the "Financial Statements" look good/correct now <sigh>

Will be more of the same "shelter in place" for the post-work activities. Deciding what to have for Thanksgiving dinner is the main task, a dinner for two, we think it'll be simple!

 

Was pleasant first thing at around 5 (Sorry @Barry O, that's PLEASANT here for this time of year )  sunny and expecting a high of  11.

 

Carry on.

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Ian Abel

[AndyB]

53 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

In lockdown 1.0 I couldn't  believe how much flak we took at Trackshack about delay in parcels arriving, many, many calls or e mails with a loud whining sound at the other end.....and we could control that delivery how, pray tell?  A message had been sent saying it had been dispatched, after that it was not in our gift to know when it would be delivered.  One thing I certainly don't miss. Poor old Royal Mail did their very best, in the whole thing until we gave up I think we only lost two parcels completely.   We did get a lot of supportive messages too, which was nice, but they were outnumbered ten to one.  Retirement never felt so good! 

 

I just remember that service was excellent and was very happy to receive items purchased.  

 

Always a good idea to walk a mile in someone else's shoes before lobbing rocks at them. I think those who whined about delayed deliveries should have done a bit of planning ahead. Or, heaven forbid, got a life. 

[Barry O]

I have had one negative comment on flea bay about the delivery time.. luckily the tracker showed where it was held up.. the person receiving it wasn't in....for 2 delivery attempts....

 

Been sunny all day.. but not warm at all. Got some muddling done ..adding numbers to steam kettles not a favourite task..but it has to be done.

 

My home made pease pudding was enjoyed in a sandwich for lunch ( with a bit of cooked meat (cold).

Next up chish and fips....

 

Baz

Edited November 19, 2020 by Barry O

[simontaylor484]

I know how you feel NHN. 

When i worked in transport we once had a delivery for a major retailer at magna park near Lutterworth. Unfortunately the driver was caught up behind an accident on the motorway it was a serious accident and involved air ambulance landing on the carriageway. The driver was stuck we rang our customer who was understanding they rang their customer who virtually wanted the driver to drive through the accident to get to them or down the hard shoulder and tell the police he had a delivery for X.

It was unreal the fall out went on for a while too it involved sending data from the drivers tacho data. 

Other deliveries that were problematic came through the pallet network and involved inserts for magazines they were always chasing them as they were sent just in time a lot of effort was involved for something that was more often then not thrown away

 

[roundhouse]

6 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

I know how you feel NHN. 

When i worked in transport we once had a delivery for a major retailer at magna park near Lutterworth. Unfortunately the driver was caught up behind an accident on the motorway it was a serious accident and involved air ambulance landing on the carriageway. The driver was stuck we rang our customer who was understanding they rang their customer who virtually wanted the driver to drive through the accident to get to them or down the hard shoulder and tell the police he had a delivery for X.

It was unreal the fall out went on for a while too it involved sending data from the drivers tacho data. 

Other deliveries that were problematic came through the pallet network and involved inserts for magazines they were always chasing them as they were sent just in time a lot of effort was involved for something that was more often then not thrown away

 

I have been in a similar situation at work numerous times when the director tells me thats no excuse and make sure it gets delivered on time and keep ringing them till they do deliver it. glad that I am not working for someone anymore,  apart from my other half but she buys American locos (both N and HO scale) so I can live with that

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

A second visit to Ramsey this afternoon has resulted in a 12k step count, something of a record post-injury.  Reason being in the odd world of Fraggle Rock, some shops still close for lunch - remember those days? - so I had a while to await the shop I wanted to re-open, so had a walk around the south prom and central town.  Hips are wrecked now, foot surprisingly OK.

Come to France, most of the shops close for a  hour lunch and most public offices only open to the public in the morning.  Apparently the lunch time at home is sacred over here.  I still have to remember what time it is if I need something as most of the nearest shops are a half hour drive away.  However there is an upside, some of the shops are near the railway and there is a supermarket that stays open so I can make my excuses, but a sandwich and eat my lunch watching trains.

 

Jamie

 

[TheQ]

48 minutes ago, Barry O said:

I have had one negative comment on flea bay about the delivery time.. luckily the tracker showed where it was held up.. the person receiving it wasn't in....for 2 delivery attempts....

 

Been sunny all day.. but not warm at all. Got some muddling done ..adding numbers to steam kettles not a favourite task..but it has to be done.

 

My home made pease pudding was enjoyed in a sandwich for lunch ( with a bit of cooked meat (cold).

Next up chish and fips....

 

Baz

Unfortunately the person not being in is often incorrect, I've sat here and seen vans drive past without stopping to deliver. Or just not turn up while I've been here waiting..

[Barry O]

He did admit that he had been away (In Lockdown!) but thought they delivery should have been left with a neighbour.... strange he has stopped buying from Ebay it would appear..

 

but yes they do sometimes not deliver....

 

Baz

[polybear]

Bear is wondering if a couple of gammon steaks (still vacuum sealed) in the freezer are ok to eat.  They're dated April 2016....

[J. S. Bach]

1 minute ago, polybear said:

Bear is wondering if a couple of gammon steaks (still vacuum sealed) in the freezer are ok to eat.  They're dated April 2016....

Probably should be, I just had some frozen ground beast from 2017; other than color, there were no problems. It even tasted fine and cooked up properly.

[Coombe Barton]

... The people next door to me have got a very weird neighbour. That's next door on both sides ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/11/19/christmas-lockdown/

[Ozexpatriate]

Popping in quickly to say "hello" I have noticed much discussion on colonoscopy procedures, though I haven't read everything thoroughly.

 

I wonder if these are done with different levels of medication in the US? Here Propofol* is administered. It is technically called "conscious sedation" but as the patient I can relate that there is no awareness or pain and the recovery is much faster than a general antiesthetic. It feels like falling into a deep sleep from the moment the Propofol hits the IV line.

 

* It is the same medication that a quack was administering to Michael Jackson in his last days to help him sleep!! I recall a pædiatric nurse calling it "Milk of Amnesia" during a procedure for my son. That pun probably means nothing to Brits, since it is a play on "Milk of Magnesia" which is a laxative. (Unless that product is available in the UK.) It is the same milky colour.

 

The procedure is done in out-patient clinics and patients return home shortly after the procedure. The clinic I have used is very insistent that you have someone to take you home, and also insists that you have that person wait for you in their waiting room. Driving yourself home is strictly prohibited.

 

Some years ago during a upper and lower GI scope I started to gag as they inserted a bite appliance and started guiding the endoscope tube though the ring in the bite appliance. The attendants quickly noted my distress and I was out the instant I felt the Propofol. I made sure they did this in reverse order the next time.

 

As others have said, the worst part of colonoscopies is the preparation.

 

 

[polybear]

11 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

* It is the same medication that a quack was administering to Michael Jackson in his last days to help him sleep!! I recall a pædiatric nurse calling it "Milk of Amnesia" during a procedure for my son. That pun probably means nothing to Brits, since it is a play on "Milk of Magnesia" which is a laxative. (Unless that product is available in the UK.) It is the same milky colour.

 

Yes, definitely available in the UK too (though I've never had cause to try it)