Early Risers.

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, and a miserable one it is.

 

Throwing it down, has all night, and as the naproxen doesn't seem to have kicked in yet, I am in quite some discomfort in the dodgy hip.  Little sleep has been had as a result, and Mrs NHN is no better as she had a toxic day at work yesterday due to interference from someone higher up from a different team, that really got the wrong end of the stick due to poking their nose in and only hearing half a conversation.  But bosses are never wrong, are they.....

 

Our GP practice is the only one on the island still only doing telephone consultations, and have even gotten extra locum doctors in to help with that.  But they're seeing hardly anyone face to face so why do they need.........oh forget it. 

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Dull, fresh and breezy here with more rain due this afternoon.

Roofer couldn't make it to Nicki's yesterday because of problems on another job so now rearranged for Thursday.

I quite like maps but don't have a collection. I've just got rid of some dog-eared and torn Surrey, Kent and Sussex road maps along with a very tatty vintage London A-Z from my car clear out the other day. These were left overs from my Sales Rep days in the 70s!  Still keeping another A-Z and a GB road atlas in the car (just in case of Sat Nav(s) failure) but they're both a bit old and rather out of date now.  We do have a large (approx 5ft x 3ft) map of the world in the spare bedroom which we got in 1993 when Steve started in the travel business:

 

First up today is a walk and then I'm going to the car dealers to pick up some missing paperwork.

After that I've got a couple of mini security cameras to set up

Have a good one,
Bob,

Edited December 16, 2020 by grandadbob

[Dave Hunt]

For map reading in my former employment the map was always orientated in the direction of travel, which makes a lot of sense when travelling at several hundreds of mph as there isn't really enough time to interpret the picture if you have the map north orientated. It also makes sense to my mind when walking as it is a lot easier to relate what you see in front of you to what is shown on the map. The problem a lot of people have when orientating maps in the direction of travel is relating compass bearings to the map, which I think is why some always go for north orientation; I long ago gave up trying to teach Jill how to take a compass bearing and relate it to the direction of travel and she always has to have the map 'upright' as she calls it. 

 

A funny story I heard concerning map reading was when a chap's wife was navigating in the car and it turned out that she was sending them completely the wrong way. It was early morning and he knew they should be going east but the sun was behind them so after a rather heated discussion in which she agreed that they should be going east he demanded, "Where does the sun rise then?" Her reply was, "Over Bill and Mary's garden; why, what's that got to do with it?"

 

Today is putting up the Christmas tree and the cards day chez nous, although since we will be the only people to see them I'd just as soon not bother but decisions like that are way above my pay grade.

 

TTFN

 

Dave

[polybear]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I must confess that I am surprised (and somewhat horrified) that you had to wait outside.

 

 

My GP is the same - wait outside.  Five minutes early, and chucking with rain?  Tough - be on time.  But when they're running late it's still tough....

 

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

I'm not sure is Hippos and bears are allowed to travel to the EU though. Lockdown 2 has now ended and curfew 1 has started here. Not much will change but I am having a combined shopping and trainspotting day out tomorrow.

 

Stealth mode engaged...incoming.....

My next-door neighbours are travelling out to their place in France at the weekend, for about a month.  We're in Tier 3, but it seems the rules still allow it.  Barking.

 

32 minutes ago, TheQ said:

It's not as good as fresh, but you could always make the roasties and yorkies beforehand and freeze them . So only needing to radiate them to hot on the day.. Lashings of thick gravy make them acceptable.. 

 

Or buy ready frozen.....they're pretty good in general.  Are Auntie Bessie's available in Switzerland?

 

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

No roast spuds, yorkshire's OR Cake??  Are you sure you've thought this out properly? 

Not my call, Guv. Mrs iD, when on one of her rampages, makes Captain Cynical look very cuddly and benign indeed. The holiday hovel is - in truth - far from being my Alpine refuge but is Mrs IDs retreat from the world. She sets the operating rules by which I must abide. Having said that, I may try and persuade her that we do indeed need CAKE at Christmas.

48 minutes ago, TheQ said:

It's not as good as fresh, but you could always make the roasties and yorkies beforehand and freeze them . So only needing to radiate them to hot on the day.. Lashings of thick gravy make them acceptable.. 

By radiate them I assume you mean reheat them in the microwave (or meecro wavey - according to Nigella). Unfortunately, Mrs iD refuses to countenance a microwave in the holiday hovel, claiming that there is no space for such a device. To be candid, I have very mixed feelings about microwaves, mostly in the negative. Certainly, it is useful for reheating certain foodstuffs but apart from that I feel that it has no place in real cooking (incidentally, may I advise that if when in a restaurant ready to order you hear the ping of a microwave coming from the kitchen, you should run - not walk – to the nearest exit).

 

As a relevant digression, I have to say that one of the reasons I no longer eat out around here (of course I am talking about pre-CoVID19) is that not only can I usually cook better than most of the restaurants in the “average” price range, but when I go to the trade supermarket I shop at, I see familiar faces buying large cartons of things to either throw in the deep fat fryer or into a microwave. Quite frankly, I go to a restaurant for great food, great ingredients and great cooking not something microwaved!

 

On the topic of maps, some friends of mine did something which I thought was rather fun: what they did is that they had a large mercator map mounted on a corkboard and whenever they went someplace, either on business or on holiday, they would put a pin in the respective part of the map. The pins were colour-coded: red for her, green for him and blue for both. (actually, now that I think about it, I dimly recall that their tracking system was even more sophisticated with different colours for his and her business trips, different colours for his and her holidays and yet another colour for joint holidays). Creating such a map recording Mrs iD’s and my travels could be just the thing to keep us amused during the next lockdown.

Edited December 16, 2020 by iL Dottore
Typo

[TheQ]

There is a map on the wall of the Avionics Test bay tea room at RAF Mount Pleasant  in the Falklands, it's painted onto metal. When a serviceman arrives they make a magnet based model of something and start it on the Falklands.. Moving it every so often If they do the 4 months standard tour, it finally reaches the UK when they leave...

Edited December 16, 2020 by TheQ

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. The sore foot kept me up for most of the night but now that I'm up its calmed down. One of the most interesting maps I have ever seen is of where I was born, Romford. It is called the Gotto Plan, after the cartographer. It's to a very large scale, larger than the OS 25" scale and large enough to show individual rails, not lines of the railway. It dates from c. 1850 and was used to illustrate the towns (proposed?) sewage system showing every privy in the town. As you can imagine even though the town was a lot smaller back then it took IIRC 14 maps to cover the town. The railway station is on one of the maps in its entirety, this is the original 1837/38 ECR station so was only 10-15 years old when mapped. I was able to spot something that was in error in several publications and articles. The railway access to the brewery (north of the railway) in later years was through a tunnel under the main line from the goods yard on the south side. Before the yard was opened rail access was by a wagon lift. Most if not all authors assumed that it was on the north side the same as the brewery but the map revealed that it was on the south side and the tunnel was in place at the time the map was published. In fact the tunnel still exists and alongside it can be seen the site of the wagon lift marked by the different coloured brick of the retaining wall also painted white in the picture.

Edited December 16, 2020 by PhilJ W

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Today I’ve decided to suspend work in the cellar until after new year, when work will then recommence. The reason is that tomorrow I’m at the dentist, so I’ve brought forward my usual Friday shopping and next week I’ve a couple of appointments and there’ll probably be some last minute shopping to do, so I doubt I’ll get much time to really get stuck in anyway. So the plan is to have a good tidy up and give the floor and old computer desk a good cleaning to remove the fine layer of dust that is now everywhere. Hopefully this will mean I don’t leave dusty footprints everywhere, which I’m apparently doing at the moment. 

 

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

 

Brian

[jonny777]

Wet and windy here in North Somerset, but the tree is up and so are the lights. 

 

Visits from family members for Christmas are in the balance due to Covid uncertainties of cutting the three households to two, and cutting the 5 days of relaxed restrictions to 3. 

 

Things may become clearer through today. 

 

Present wrapping is likely to be the occupation for today, although I might be able to get the slide scanner operating at high efficiency using the more mundane activities. 

[PhilJ W]

A bit more information about  the Gotto Plan mentioned above. There is only one copy and that is in poor condition but has had conservation. Fortunately the whole 14 sheets are online (but I can't find the link at the moment).

[pH]

Growing up, none of our kids liked Christmas cake. After a gap of a few years, my wife decided to make Christmas cake again this year.  We asked our sons if they thought any of their kids would like it. One said his definitely would not.  The other said he didn’t know about his two year old, since he’s not really been ‘exposed’ to that kind of food - they’re more into savoury cooking than sweet. On the other hand, he said his four year old would love it. The actual quote was “He’d probably want to eat it for breakfast!”. So a small cake went off to them.

 

They ‘FaceTimed’ us last night as they brought the cake out for dessert after their dinner. Both the kids hoovered up their piece of the cake, followed by a small piece of my wife’s shortbread which had also been in the parcel. My wife is greatly gratified!

[tigerburnie]

Morning, wild wet and windy here again after yesterdays more pleasant weather, the ashes are out, the coal and peat are in and the fires lit, I may do some serious eyelid inspection later as nothing is planned for the day. Stay safe and sane all.

ps we were offered in the waiting room at the doc's when we went for a flu jab, but preferred to wait outside, being a fisherman up here, I'm used to being out in the rain.

Edited December 16, 2020 by tigerburnie

[Simon G]

Morning all, to continue the theme it is very wild here today.  Wind is about 50mph at a guess, but at least the rain has stopped for now.  I have done a couple of outside jobs, and returned inside to warm up again!  There is one more job outside to do, then I plan to stay inside and keep warm!

[AndyB]

Morning all.

Had my blood test results back and my salt content was deemed "tip top". That was the original intention of the test. They also took the chance to do a cholesterol test on the sample. 

Does anyone know - possibly Peter BB - if this test still requires a fast beforehand? As I wasn't told the test was being done I'd not bothered. 

 

I'm also trying to understand if the "total" number that is quoted is just HDL+LDL? Or are triglycerides also included in that number? 

 

Unrelated to all that I've a new phone to swap over to. I've just deleted everything of my own from the old phone and the device is still showing that 89% of storage is used by 3rd party apps which I never asked for, nrver usec and every attempt to delete simply caused them to reappear. 

Whose phone was it?

[simontaylor484]

7 hours ago, pH said:

I remember being told that alcohol imbibed that way had a greater effect than the same amount drunk in the usual way. I’ve never tried to prove or disprove that. Has anyone else?

We used to put 2 straws in a bottle and call it shot gunning. We also tried snorting vodka from the base of the stem of an upturned wine glass.

[The Stationmaster]

G'day all,

 

Different world from Flavio  here at Christmas as it will be my 'have a bit of eating & drinking extra enjoyment' for a change.   So apart from the roast chicken and pork plus accompaniments for Christmas Dinner there will also be trifle to consume and I shall revise my normal rules and consume alcohol and cheese - both of which I have largely missed during this year due to the cancellation of two weeks afloat (where I normally break all my dietary rules and indulge in both cheese and quite a lot of alcohol as well as proper job breakfasts).  

 

As for the Doctors' surgery - still very much as Post Lockdown 1 and ever since that ended although all blood testing is now done in the surgery instead of using the gazebo outside. Apart from the receptionists protected by their plastic screen all the medical sorts are protected by masks, visors, and gloves and they do come out of their room to invite you in.

 

Now to maps.  I have one or two unusual ones such as a very large SNCF pictorial map of their network as in the mid 1960s - and no wall large enough to display it (if I could get permission to do so ).  Another oddity is an original poster in the form of a map and it shows the 'results' of the Allied Air Offensive against Germany - dated 1941 I think it's more an illustration of where the bombs had been meant to go rather than an indication of where they actually went.  An amusing aside concerns various Michelin maps of France I found in a junk shop - and then used when motoring in France at least 20 years after they had been published; no problems and no new roads to worry me in the area where we were.

 

I also have a fondness for plans and drawings although they are (inevitably) of railways although my large scale site plan of the Huntley & Palmer factory only shows the railway lines as incidental to the buildings and water mains etc.  Signal box diagrams are another interesting diversion although all but three of my collection are uncoloured 'office copies' (printed on paper instead of linen) which i intercepted on their journey to the salvage skip.

 

Time for a drop of soup - it would be rude not to have any.  Have a good day one and all and stay safe

[tigerburnie]

Tree was decorated yesterday, looking at the baubles, some are close to antiques, inherited from family, all glass and hand painted, many memories of Christmas past.

 

[polybear]

3 hours ago, TheQ said:

There is a map on the wall of the Avionics Test bay tea room at RAF Mount Pleasant  in the Falklands, it's painted onto metal. When a serviceman arrives they make a magnet based model of something and start it on the Falklands.. Moving it every so often If they do the 4 months standard tour, it finally reaches the UK when they leave...

 

On the tea room wall of the Tornado OEU (is it now the Typhoon OEU I wonder?) at Boscombe there are (were?) very nice paintings of the various craft out of Thunderbirds, painted by one of the ground crew; he roped me into helping him screw his latest creation to the wall - and very good it was too.

I wish I had photos, but it was back in the mid 90's and I had no camera phone in those days.  Besides, Boscombe isn't the sort of place that takes kindly to photos being taken....

[polybear]

34 minutes ago, AndyB said:

Does anyone know - possibly Peter BB - if this test still requires a fast beforehand? As I wasn't told the test was being done I'd not bothered.

 

It can be either:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/high-cholesterol/getting-tested/

[AndyB]

We didn't have a map in our old office. But each time one of us went to a conference or similar meeting we'd be required to bring back something for the "Shelf of Tat". The tackier the better. 

 

Meanwhile the team got to dust off their theatrical expertise yesterday and do a bit of virtual AmDram. A lot of fun but perhaps acting is not their strongest suit. Apart from one person who kept up a very convincing Clouseau type performance over 23 pages of script. 

[pH]

33 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

We used to put 2 straws in a bottle and call it shot gunning. We also tried snorting vodka from the base of the stem of an upturned wine glass.

Shotgunning a beer means something different here - something like a cheap ‘yard of ale’:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgunning

 

[New Haven Neil]

A'noon.  Rain now reduced to spits and spots, but it is still blowing a hoolie.  

 

Naproxen kicking in a bit now, hip settling but it seems to make me a bit (more?) wooly headed.

 

I'm in the 'north up' camp of map reading, as the appointed navigator.  When we go away Mrs NHN has to drive while I am tasked with interpreting the satnav's instructions into something that may actually get us there.   We bought a very expensive 'Campervan friendly' version, which was a waste of money.  Apparently the only ones that really work are the truck versions (height restrictions automatically routed around - our just tells you it's there!) which are even more expensive. And probably 24v now I think about it.

[Tony_S]

50 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

It can be either:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/high-cholesterol/getting-tested/

I have had a few cholesterol tests recently but none were fasting. I think they were just done “for information “. One was quite high, all the others were fine. This may of course be due to the quantity of statins I take. The hospital changed me from “rubbish” statins to “good” statins. Quotes are from consultant doing first angiogram! 

[PeterBB]

1 hour ago, AndyB said:

Morning all.

Had my blood test results back and my salt content was deemed "tip top". That was the original intention of the test. They also took the chance to do a cholesterol test on the sample. 

Does anyone know - possibly Peter BB - if this test still requires a fast beforehand? As I wasn't told the test was being done I'd not bothered. 

 

I'm also trying to understand if the "total" number that is quoted is just HDL+LDL? Or are triglycerides also included in that number? 

 

'Took the chance to do a cholesterol test'.  In line with other tests a random cholesterol that shall we say is in a 'normalist' range will be noted.  If that result is quite a way out of 'the norm' then to get the full picture they may then ask for the 'full profile' that can mean an overnight fast prior to the blood being taken for analysis.  

 

Remember the days when we, as staff, were all asked to do an extensive overnight fast in evaluating the then 'latest developments' and to see the effect the fast had on us.  The practice of comparing results from the same sample by various methods was part and parcel of evaluation and by chance a number of 'ailments' were discovered and therefore treated early as a result of the evaluation of the results as the GP would not in the general run of things have actually requested them. I remember going to my GP as the last patient in the day on a Friday evening with a set of these results expecting possibly a 'so what' response but he raised his hands in glee and said "You have made my day - it is the first thing today that I can actually do something really positive about" He was a friend and then basically told me why that was so. 

[AndyB]

38 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I have had a few cholesterol tests recently but none were fasting. I think they were just done “for information “. One was quite high, all the others were fine. This may of course be due to the quantity of statins I take. The hospital changed me from “rubbish” statins to “good” statins. Quotes are from consultant doing first angiogram! 

I've been given 6 months to get my numbers down by changes in lifestyle. If not then statins will be on the menu. I was asked what I thought about them. I've heard good and bad, but not done any research to date. But plenty of reading about cholesterol is underway!