Early Risers.

[J. S. Bach]

4 hours ago, AndrewC said:

Moaning all. Off on a jolly up the A1 today. Finally get to visit the offspring. First time in nearly 6 months. 

 

I'm sure I've told this story before about the neighbour when I was around 14. He was a retired geologist. His son and boa came to live with them for a while. I had a basement bedroom with a ground level window. He had the opposite window with no fence to separate. More than once on a hot night the snake would escape and I'd find him coiled up either on the end of my bed or somewhere in the bedroom. First time was a bit of a fright, after that it became rather fun. 

 

No snakes to be seen in the boring borough unless you count the local politicians. Back in Calgary you'd get garter snakes along the railway lines for some reason. Rattlers were rare but still present further south towards the Montana border. I don't think there has ever been a rattler sighting north of Milk River. Then again with climate change, I wouldn't be surprised to see them migrate further north. The micro climate of the bad lands around Drumheller means that some things like scorpions can still survive and have done for millions of years. Never go fossil hunting without gloves.  

 

Enjoy the day. 

I am not sure, but I think that you just insulted snakes.

[J. S. Bach]

58 minutes ago, leopardml2341 said:

 ...snip... Time to hang out laundry - cue rain, despite what the forecast says . ...snip... 

That reminds me a few weeks ago I got a remote-reading rain gauge from a thrift shop. We just had several days with endless rain showers; now I could keep track of what was dropped. Right? No, we then entered a drawn-out period with NO rain! I did test it out by using the sink sprayer to create "rain"; the gauge worked fine. We have since gotten a few rainy days.

[pH]

4 hours ago, AndrewC said:

Back in Calgary you'd get garter snakes along the railway lines for some reason. Rattlers were rare but still present further south towards the Montana border. I don't think there has ever been a rattler sighting north of Milk River. Then again with climate change, I wouldn't be surprised to see them migrate further north. The micro climate of the bad lands around Drumheller means that some things like scorpions can still survive and have done for millions of years. Never go fossil hunting without gloves.  

I don’t know about rattlers, but I’ve seen a large snake in the badlands around Drumheller. We were driving through the hoodoos on a gravel road, and I swerved to avoid a thick branch lying in the road. Looking in the rear view mirror, I saw the branch starting to move off the road!

[tigerburnie]

As a wildlife photographer and hill walker I often come into sight of our only venomous (and indeed Scotland's only resident) snake, the Adder, I know they are there and dress accordingly with some good quality gaiters to give protection, despite it being unlikely that a bite would be fatal I have been told on more than one occasion, the bite is very painful, not unlike being hit with a hammer. As an aside I was also told there is some investigation taking place into the effects of the venom on Arthritis, apparently some people who suffer from the disease have been bitten and for a couple of years after being bitten, the symptoms have vanished!! So...............................

BM1K7067 

[jonny777]

4 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

Moving office buildings;

On 2nd April 1990 I was sitting on a desk on the top - second floor - of the then new Powys County Council buildings in Llandrindod Wells when the Bishop's Castle earthquake struck. The desk swayed and there was a rumbling.

We were conducting a Wide Area Network test at the time across the whole of Powys. That ended.

My thoughts at the time

1. Hey, it's an earthquake
2. Hope this building stays up

Just across from where I was sat the architect who designed the building, so I knew who to blame if it didn't.

 

 

 

When we experienced the last earthquake here (epicentre somewhere below Swansea) a few years ago, the walls shook and there was a strange creaking noise from the window frames. However, the one thing that I experienced was a severe sense of foreboding for 5 minutes or so, as if something dreadful was about to happen. 

 

I can only remember this feeling twice before:- in June 2006 after lightning struck so close that there was no thunder - just a loud 'crack' like a gun going off multiplied 100 times louder. 

And the second was in August 1999 as I sat outside in M-i-l's back garden (Sth Kent coast) and the moon obscured the sun enough to drop the temperature, the wind, and all the birds went quiet.

 

  

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

I seem to have entered a spate of editorial cleansing but only in ERs and always the same post despite what I've posted since that one.  Presumably such quirks of the 'puting world are in reality sent to keep us on our toes rather than anything else - possibly?  sorry to hear of Flavio's problems - i trust the numerous invetsiagtions will resolve things ina satisfactory manner (other than in respect of Mrs. iD's search for life insurance policies.

 

Nice hotel by the look of it Chris - always looks quite nice from the road when strolling past and at least round the back you will avoid traffic noise plus you will at least have the exercise of walking to those festival venues you succeeded in booking.  I note the first place we ever stayed in Sidmouth is now called 'Dukes' and has 5 stars - I doubt if Mrs Stationmaster would even give it 5 minutes of her time as it is still in the same place and unless it has been triple glazed it will be no more peaceful than it was in its previous guise.  Hope your visit will go.

 

I have minimal involvement elsewhere on things pertaining to any sort of social or antisocial whatsit on the 'net although others here do know of my poorly disguised presence on Farcebook - not that I post anything other than replies to some of their posts.  But I'm sure RMweb cannot be alone in the 'social meedja wurld' of attracting ignoramuses who while managing to sound fairly convincing  post unadulterated nonsense which succeeds in doing little more than profusely demonstrating their ignorance, their ability to check facts before posting what they suggest are facts, and their total failure of any sort of logical thought process.  However the worrying thing is that some other people actually appear to believe some of the nonsense these harbingers of a brain dead society bother to post.  At times I find it very easy to sympathise with Marvin the paranoid android.

 

ah well back to whatever - no G word today as it's rather cloudy but sunny Sunday might see the lawn trimmed (at long last).  Have a good day one and all and stay safe.

[simontaylor484]

Good Afternoon all from a snake free zone.

 

Earthquakes 

First one was in Dominican republic on our honeymoon it was on a night time it was a big rumble and the sound of breaking glass as pictures fell off walls etc. We got up swiftly dressed and went outside and spent the rest of the night at the 24 hour bar. At least the Mrs can say the earth moved for her on honeymoon.

 

The second earthquake was here must be 12 years ago there was a noise the house shook doors were banging. At first we thought a train had derailed and come of the embankment. I opened the curtains expecting to see a load of wreckage and spilt nutty slack.

[simontaylor484]

Last night I caught up with a programme on channel 5 about Broadmoor Hospital and some of its residents. 

There was Peter Sutcliffe they showed letters sent and recieved by women penfriends and they played phone calls between him and his brother Carl it just sounded like normal family conversation.

Fred Dineage was on as a prison visitor.

The most amusing was the Kray twin that was incarcerated there. He seemed to cut a Mr Bridger type figure Italian suits shirt and tie immaculately dressed. Record player in his room decorated to his taste

He even had another lag as h is butler. He served tea to his visitors.

A friend who visited with Charlie Kray was on about a visit when Sutcliffe also had a visit. He reputedly said he didn't want that sl@g anywhere near him and made his visitor move out of Sutcliffe s eyeline.

 

The friend also told of a visit when Charles Bronson was on the rooftop chucking slates off. He saw Charlie Kray and stopped chucking the tiles off waved them across the yard then continued.

 

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I think we will need to be worried if there are reports of Mrs ID suddenly  wanting to find and check life insurance policies.

 

Jamie

I wondered why I had an awful lot of paperwork to sign last week......

[The Lurker]

The only time I experienced an earthquake was when I was a teenager. I thought my Dad had run downstairs.

 

It was only later that evening when they reported a minor earthquake in the Liverpool area that it occurred to me that my Dad was not in the house at the time and what I had felt must have been the earthquake. We were in Kent.

 

EDIT; looking at wikipedia, probably the Llyn peninsula earthquake;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Llŷn_Peninsula_earthquake

 so not quite Liverpool, but that's where the damage was

Edited May 28, 2021 by The Lurker

[polybear]

Bear has only experienced one earthquake - and that was when I was in a hotel room on the 12th floor of a Hotel in Mumbai.  An Indian built hotel.....

Worried?  Moi......

 

In other news:

Decorative corner posts completed and one hidden side panel refitted to one of the corner units.  I was in the process on refitting the second panel to the other corner unit; a couple of notches were about to be machined in one edge to clear a couple of brackets - so back out into the garden to discover it had just started raining on my sawbench/workmate .  I'd only just double-checked the local weather (buddy next door had reported the threat of rain earlier whilst hanging out his washing) via the Met Office website, which assured me that the chance of rain was diddly squat.  Seems that buddy next door is more reliable than Michael Fish's replacements.  Turdycurses.

Mr TNT has delivered Bear's replacement cabinet doors sent to replace those that were sent with no provision for hinges already machined in place.  S'pose I'd better unpack them to see if they're ok....

 

[TheQ]

I cannot recall being in an earthquake, I have however woken up at stupid o'clock, thinking what was that? To find out in the morning there'd been an quaking event.

 

Went to Tes and co for meat... Its a bank holiday weekend and the forecast is mildly warm... Very little meat available, vast swathes of Burgers, sausages and pre made kebabs.

 

Huge traffic jams in wroxham, a drain cover has collapsed, so what do the do?  Dig a hole on the other side of the road a few feet up the hill...

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Despite this afternoons eyelid inspection I'm still feeling tired. Si Attica has gone quiet for a while though.

4 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

 

 As an aside I was also told there is some investigation taking place into the effects of the venom on Arthritis, apparently some people who suffer from the disease have been bitten and for a couple of years after being bitten, the symptoms have vanished!! So...............................

BM1K7067 

Thats interesting, I wonder if any research is being done?

As to earthquakes, this is the last fifty days in the UK.

http://earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/recent_uk_events.html

Edited May 28, 2021 by PhilJ W

[Barry O]

Cut the grass .. it has chuckeditdarn ever since.. Pah!  We only started in the garden after our return from our voluntary blood collection.. Never felt the nurse put the blood letting device into my arm.. very good but she drained loads of blood out!

 

I have a game on Saturday and Sunday this weekend so the weather had better improve.. sharpish!

 

been in two earthquake sin New Zealand near Fox Glacier. I was laid on the bed while her indoors was having a shower. I ended up on the floor.. she didn't notice the quake at all.. then the second one hit.. her turn to be on the floor!

 

I believe it is curry night.. followed by rhubarb and ginger crumble.. this may be an explosive evening! 

 

TTFN

 

Baz

[southern42]

44 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Despite this afternoons eyelid inspection I'm still feeling tired. Si Attica has gone quiet for a while though.

Thats interesting, I wonder if any research is being done?

As to earthquakes, this is the last fifty days in the UK.

http://earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/recent_uk_events.html

 

The top lefthand corner of Wales has a bit of a reputation, though I only really remember the one of 1984, when I thought it was either a rather noisy lorry nearby or blasting in one of the quarries.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/may/29/llyn-peninsula-uk-earthquake-hotspot

 

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by southern42
2 typos and forgot to add link

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well today didn’t quite go as expected, but in a good way. Whilst I was at the Trafford Centre I had a message from my local bookshop informing me that the 3rd book that I’d ordered a few weeks ago was in and ready for collection. So after I’d put away all the shopping, I had a quick muggertea and then walked to the bookshop to collect it. Whilst I was out the hole saw required for the cellar ceiling lights arrived. Sheila was ironing at the time and had to answer the door, she wasn’t too pleased about that! Ho hum! The hole saw wasn’t due until next week so I was as surprised as she was, but this does mean I can get the lights back up and pack away the temporary ones, hopefully I’ll get this done on Sunday. There’s no chance tomorrow as we’re a little busy, it’s Mike and Sarah’s wedding, so we’ll be out until early evening. 

 

After dinner, I watered the plants, then finished off making the fruit tea loaf and then sat down and spent the rest of the afternoon reading my latest book acquisition. 

 

The only earthquake I was in was sometime in the mid 80’s, only I didn’t feel it. It was just after 8 o’clock in the morning, I was at work, which at the time was British Steel Trafford Park. The wheel forge was in full production at the time and if a wheel got itself stuck in the one of the top dies on the main press, they would move the press up and down very quickly to shake it free. When this happened the whole factory shook and I assume I mistook the earthquake for a stuck wheel. Whilst I’m talking about the steel works. On a quite night shift in summer, a colleague and I would often climb one of the annealing plant chimneys to watch the sunrise. The chimney would sway constantly from side to side, even on a day when there was very little or even no wind and at a 120 ft up, the sunrise was quite spectacular. It was quite tricky to climb, as the bottom 7ft of the ladder was missing, so we had to jump, grab the bottom rung and haul ourselves up until we could put our feet on the rung. Of course we had no harnesses, but it did have a cage round it and you could stop and lean against it and take a breather if necessary. This practice would be frowned upon now of course, probably resulting in some sort of disciplinary action. 

[Tony_S]

I haven’t experienced an earthquake. There was one people in this region of Essex said they felt but I slept through it. I have been in a couple of earthquake simulators in museums. 
My trip to Canvey was uneventful. The phlebotomist had no problem removing blood today. There was quite a lot of traffic and even a couple of delays, all caused by supplies to various building projects along the route. I didn’t mind the delay, it gave enough time for my sat nav to load its map update. 
The new coffee machine arrived. It looks very nice. Aditi can test it later. The manual is awful. There were diagrams for everything except the water filter, but it was I suppose obvious once I had fitted it. Among the accessories is a tray for making coffee bean shaped  ice. Not sure what they are for, I suspect the coffee based cocktails mentioned on the advert for the machine. 
All our food arrived, nothing missing, a few minor substitutions.

Tony

[Gwiwer]

For the attention of Mr @polybear

 

[polybear]

Amazingly lucky escape, though the Tesla will need a T-Cut.  The Trucker seems to be tanking it a bit round the corner - I hope he got nicked for an unsafe load if nothing else:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-norfolk-57284221

 

It seems that Bozo's SWMBO reportedly spent £90K on decorating - what did she use, Gold Leaf and a mural on the ceiling??

 

In other news:

Bear's replacement doors unpacked and are fine, though they've forgot the small touch up paint yet again (one is supposedly supplied with every order) - that's three times now, despite it being listed on the despatch paperwork each time.  I did buy a 1 Litre can of touch up paint for possible future use in the event of serious mishap (though my growing collection of spare doors may make that purchase unnecessary in retrospect) but I'm averse to opening that until I really, really have to.

Polite snottogram message has been sent.....

 

And finally, today's Friday - which meant....chip shop day**  ..... - so that's Bear's dose of ultra processed food scoffed....

(** Sometimes Saturday is chip shop day, depending on how the mop flops)

[Pacific231G]

Evening all

There are of course earth tremors in the UK very frequently but the only earthquakes I remember feeling were the magnitude 4.7-4.8 Dudley quake in September 2002 and the  5.2 Market Rasen quake in February 2008. For both of them the tremors reached here in W. London a little after 1AM  and on both occasions I was sitting at my desk where I am now, working late. In 2002 I thought something had hit the building but the shaking went on for a couple of minutes and was obviously an earth tremor. By the second one in 2008  I knew exactly what it was. 

 

In December 2005 I was woken by something but went back to sleep but a friend who had been sleepng on my sofa downstairs came upstairs and told me that she thought a bomb had gone off. She'd both  both felt and heard it and it was Buncefield explosion. It was twenty miles away from here but all that day and several more you could see the smoke  plume dominating the sky north of here and it looked like it was only a mile or so away.

 

There was no smoke to be seen from the top of the local hill this morning but getting up there is  good cardio. exercise. It was nice and warm this morning and I lunched in the garden. It got cooler this afternoon though and rained just enough to get me out of mowing the lawn.  

 

Today's major achievement was sorting out the kitchen cupboard. A tin of condensed milk and a jar of instant coffee both best before 2008 were duly recycled along with the "runny" honey that had been totally solid for at least a year and several rather tired looking jars of herbs and spices. What annoys me about those are the ones that say on the label that the best before date is on the cap but it's printed using an ink that rubs off after a couple of weeks. For products with a shelf life of a year or two that is a bit daft.

 

Fish and chips this evening but I forgot to buy mushy peas at Tesco this week so will have to make do with frozen peas.

Question. If you mix mushy peas with an equal (?) quantity of grated cheese -preferably from Yorkshire- and boil them up together in a saucepan does that give you authentic Cheezypeaz and can you eat it without throwing up? . 

 

(Note: Having assumed that cheesy peas was just a Fastshow meme I was surprised to find umpteen recipes for it including one from Jamie Oliver. The posh version seems to involve fresh garden peas and Parmesan. I must try it sometime, possibly in a different life)

 

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Pacific231G

[polybear]

11 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

For the attention of Mr @polybear

 

 

Many thanks - Bear has indeed had the pleasure of testing these when I saw them lurking in the local Co-op (or was it Home Bargains?) on special offer.  They seem to be an occasional line, which is probably a good thing cos' they don't seem to last long in Bear Towers...

[Ian Abel]

Re: Snakes and the avoiding thereof...

Rest area on I-94 east of Billings Montana. Returning with Jemma when she lived out there - I decided AGAINST using the facilities  

[simontaylor484]

The pack of slabs that destroyed the Tesla didn't look to be secured in any way never mind the speed the driver was doing. It could have very nearly been fatal.

there was the paramedic a few weeks ago killed by something thrown up by something on the road.  An unsecured loans is a serious offence for both the driver and operator i can see Vosa or whatever they call themselves these days crawling all over the firm's premises and records and before them finding anything else awry.

[New Haven Neil]

Evening orl. Apols for absence.

 

As I said the other day, my life is not my own currently, Mrs NHN being off for a few days!  Mad day today as usual around her, she lives life at speed.  

 

Having a few friends around tomorrow to run hot water vapour powered devices, so tidied the railway up a bit this evening, and did likewise with the vapour devices, to test you understand.  Fun.

 

I felt several earthquakes on our visits to New Zealand, like Baz.  Mostly in the Blenheim area where the out-laws lived at the time.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. The drowsiness has departed, I felt sleepy for no apparent reason this afternoon but was OK after some eyelid inspection. Either Si Attica keeping me awake or the after effects of the jab. Tea has brewed and now to tackle Farcebook.