Early Risers.

[TheQ]

4 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

There was a choice of beers, either Red Barrel or Double Diamond, which apparently worked wonders.

Probably with the waterworks...

 

Luckily I was a scrumpy Drinker, which could be good or bad you soon realised which scrumpy farm to get a gallon from..

[grandadbob]

A'noon,

I remember trying and not liking Red Barrel in the late 60's.  I then moved to a different workplace (in Epsom) near a couple of Young's pubs and after that all was well in my little boozy world!  😀

I have to go to the hospital this afternoon to have my dressing changed,  that was only sprung on me late yesterday afternoon.  Luckily it's at our local hospital and not Epsom although I may have to go back there next week.

Wine unpacked and put in "cellar"  and this one made me smile, didn't realise our sailing friend had a vineyard.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by grandadbob

[AndrewC]

Watney's was around well into the late 70s with the brand name still hanging on into the 90s. (Brewed in Canada sadly) Bloody awful and only marginally less vomit inducing that Double Diamond. The Watney name lives on, now owned by a brand management company. At one point it was brewed by Sambrooks but not sure if that is still the case. Thankfully the modern beers are nothing like the original. Sort of like today's Mini being nothing like a Leyland Metro or Austin Marina. 

 

The one (originally) positive thing to come out of the sh*t beers of the 60s and 70s was the formation of CAMRA. 

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

Were Watneys behind the Party 7 ?

Both the Party Four and its larger partner the Party Seven.  Either of which might have contained Red Barrel but were also available with other equally gut-disrupting contents.  

[Gwiwer]

47 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Double Diamond, which apparently worked wonders.

As claimed, but no-one ever claimed they were wonders of the good sort 🤣

 

I seem to remember that substance being responsible for the premature regurgitation of many a meal back in the day.  Seldom mine though it must be said.  

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

could anyone tell me what exactly was so terrible about Watneys Red Barrel?

As I recall (from a single pint many years ago) it was foamy, slimy and tasted simply disgusting.  It gave rise to far more eructations than a single pint should and was voided at the earliest opportunity by the usual means - a process which it seemed to stimulate mercifully quickly 🤣

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

 

 

@New Haven Neil family legend has it that one of My Great Grandads on my Dad's side had a leg amputated he kept trying to scratch an itch on it 

One of my great friends lostva leg in a motorbike accident over 60 years ago.  We were often roomates at shows and he still gets phantom pains from the missing leg.

 

Jamie

[BoD]

1 hour ago, grandadbob said:

Wine unpacked and put in "cellar" 

 

It lasts long enough to be stored?

[Ian Abel]

HUMP day... and next week is a short week due to the "Independence Day" falling on Monday and everyone celebrating something 🤣

 

Yesterday quiet, seems to be a continuing pattern at present, works for me.

In the evening we walked the Japanese garden by one of the lakes, Whitneys favourite, but since Jemma is home and Whitney is not with us, the pace was far more predictable and had none of the darting into the undergrowth after chipmunks that is the usual scenario with Whitney towing us around. Weather was very pleasant and a lovely stroll.

 

Today, sounds like I've been conscripted to take the Mrs on a comestibles run over my lunch hour. Location in downtown Minneapolis, only decent place around to by "bangers", a very well known Polish bakers and butchers (how those two combine I DON'T KNOW!!) so we may be in for bangers and mash for din-dins!

 

Weather is pleasant and near perfect, 13 and sunny first thing, light breeze, no chance of rain, and low humidity. high of 32 forecast.

 

Later.

[grandadbob]

Returned from hospital I am.  Went by cab which was early collecting me so I got there 25 minutes before the appointed time and was than told they were running at least 30 minutes behind.  Settled down for long wait but was then surprised by being called on time.  Luckily for me a couple of people hadn't turned up for their appointments.  Dressing changed and wound cleaned by a lovely young lady named Sam who has invited me back next week for the same and to have sutures removed.  Picture before cleaning and it looked a lot better after but I forgot to take one! 

 

 

 

Decided to walk back so clocked up 1.6 miles which together with a walk to Asda this morning means I've totalled 2.75 miles today with no protests from The Hip or The Knee.  Things are looking up!

 London  Pride time now (drink - not march) and then tonight's meal is cottage pie with an assortment of vegetables and will be accompanied by some of that bottle of Malbec pictured earlier. 

Cheers.  🍻 🍷🍷

Edited June 29, 2022 by grandadbob

[Coombe Barton]

... There are more than twice the number of people in hospital with Covid as there were at the beginning of the month ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/06/29/nearly-5-of-people-have-it-evidence-of-the-wave/

[grandadbob]

Forgot to mention above that my middle finger has now been released from captivity so I can now order 2 pints, signal "V" for victory and make other gestures !  🤪🤣

 

[TheQ]

But can you do "live long and prosper"?

 

Someone's just moved a long way, I saw this today with a full size trailer just a couple of miles from home  here.

I dread to think how much that cost in diesel, I just filled the tank of the Landrover 3/4 of a tank needed.. £125... Ouch...

Edited June 29, 2022 by TheQ

[New Haven Neil]

Oh dear, beer.

 

As a Geordie, it was McEwans Best Scotch, Newcastle Exhibition or occasionally McEwans Export.  All frothy chemicals and foul, but we knew no different.  If we went south to Sunderland, Vaux beers were a little better. A little.

 

Then a mate who was worldly wise (he was a railwayman, in civils/PW - designed KX new track plan in the 80's?) introduced us to CAMRA and actual beers. At Kollege of Nolledge in Liverpool, it was Greenalls and Higsons, with a smattering of Tetleys, better, but not world shattering.

 

Beer here is OK, as by law it has to be brewed traditionally, so Okells is the 'big' corporate (Heron & Brearley) and Bushy's (Martin Brunnchweiller SP?) the young pretender.  There are a couple of micros too, but they disappear with monotonous regularity.

 

Nice strong pills now in possession, for occasional use.  Opiate addition doesn't appeal.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. 

7 hours ago, petethemole said:

 Gray's beers (of Chelmsford) were in The Cricketers, which had music on Friday nights, often top class acts of the time, incuding John Mayall, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac and Arthur Brown.

I remember Gray's beer, not a bad drop of beer. Unfortunately the brewery had to be sold off to cover death duties and the decision was made to keep the pubs and to sell Green King beers, which at the time was a pretty good brew. My favourite Gray's pub was the Bricklayers Arms at Stondon Massey where they served the beer straight from the barrels which were on a rack behind the bar.

Edited June 29, 2022 by PhilJ W

[BoD]

53 minutes ago, TheQ said:

But can you do "live long and prosper"?

 

Someone's just moved a long way, I saw this today with a full size trailer just a couple of miles from home  here.

I dread to think how much that cost in diesel, I just filled the tank of the Landrover 3/4 of a tank needed.. £125... Ouch...

We are heading up to the Orkney Islands on a coach tour in just over a months time. I’m guessing that the cost of the holiday was set at the start of the year, if not last year.  I didn’t read the small print* and so don’t know the legality but I have been half expecting a request for a surcharge for a few weeks now.

 

* I have read the terms and conditions.    A statement that makes a liar out of the most honest of men. Go on, admit it, you’ve all lied. 

[Ozexpatriate]

19 hours ago, brianusa said:

Two more annoying ads have appeared, one at the bottom left of the screen and the other on the right. 

AndyY seems to be twiddling the knobs again. In addition to the ad with the disturbing "stoned Dachshund(?)" (below) at the bottom of each thread page and inserted after the first listed item in a 'contents' page, there's now a (mostly) blank* panel permanently obscuring the bottom of the browser. It's about 3cm high on my laptop screen and does not scroll away.

 

* Except for the fine print "ADVERTISEMENT".

 

I don't object to advertising. I appreciate that there is now a less expensive ad-free option. Wasting screen real estate with blanked space is futile.

 

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

…Nice strong pills now in possession, for occasional use.  Opiate addition doesn't appeal.…

 

Given that I have had five knee operations (possibly to be six) - including bilateral knee protheses- I have, of course, had my fair share of narcotics. So if I may offer a tip from one who has had almost as much familiarity with narcotics as a South American drugs cartel, the secret to effective pain relief (and general avoidance of addiction) is to take the medication immediately as the pain starts to ramp up. If you wait until you can’t tolerate the pain any longer, the drug is somewhat less effective (ergo a higher dose is needed).

 

After all my operations I was allowed narcotics as needed (obviously, with safeguards in place to prevent overdose) and I was able to taper off narcotics quite quickly and by the time of discharge, I was back down to basic diclofenac.

 

There have been numerous studies on the management of post-operative pain and what they found out is letting a patient take a narcotic as soon as they feel they needed it actually resulted in patients using less narcotics than patients on a fixed schedule (some of these studies were slightly different to the medical practice I encountered in as much as patients were allowed to self administer the narcotic by pushing a button on an infusion pump – again with safeguards against overdose).

 

As for being addicted: I can safely say apart from whisky, meat pies, sausages, pasta and roasted meats, I have no addictions to speak of!

[BoD]

3 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

As for being addicted: I can safely say apart from whisky, meat pies, sausages, pasta and roasted meats, I have no addictions to speak of!

Guitars?

[The White Rabbit]

Evening,

 

A rather changeable day here. We had a night of heavy rain though I opened the curtains (at a rather non-ER sorta time) to blue sky. The clerk of the weather soon fixed that and it's been alternating between cloudy, fine and sunny and chuckinitdarn with great alacrity. So much of the day was spent giving myself a headache trying to deal with paperwork and clear it before some more arrives. Ten minutes was had outside in the garden at lunchtime (boy, was that sun hot, I wouldn't have wanted to touch it) in very pleasant conditions but we got back to pelting down fairly quickly. The garden needs it though, the soil had absorbed much of the night's rain already and some plants are starting to wilt. The beech is going brown around the edges through lack of water. 

 

The day before I wondered if I had come across Simon on an outing. A DDSF and Director were out on patrol. The four legged ones said hello and gave me the once-over, the Director was busy with a phone... 

 

I have astonished many people by not drinking beer. A Yorkshireman not drinking beer? They found it more surprising than any revelations from Jerry Springer or such shows. Though it's not due to any bad experiences with Watneys or Double Diamond, they were a bit early for me. The closest I got was Diamond White - and swiftly moved on. (Incidentally, I've just checked whether this is still available (it is) and the Amazon listing inviting me to buy it has a sub-title suggesting I might also want to buy mouthwash from them. Reminds me of a couple of years ago when a search for steam engine calendars gave a promoted listing for a certain North Korean leader)!  

 

A quiet day from the birds for once. The rain meant I didn't have to top baths up. I did see the blackbirds scoffing strawberries though, the first time I've seen them eat those. The sparrows have a nibble but there's plenty to go round. I did get cross with the blackbird yesterday, caught her digging up some transplanted seedlings, behaving like a terrier with the smell of a rat in its nostrils. After the swearing had stopped, some chicken wire was installed. I wonder if they have a nest in the clump of bushes at the bottom of the garden, near the sparrows. It's noisy enough to think we're running a hotel for several species at the moment and I'm seeing more variety than I did this time in previous years. 

 

And a thought for a debating subject: "ERs have passions, not addictions. Discuss...". 

[New Haven Neil]

@iL Dottore yes I agree that is sound advice not to 'chase the pain' - I was given that after the initial injury (Lisfranc fracture - 9 broken bones, all the metatarsals, cuboid and the three cuboids) and boy did I need it.  Tramadol did the trick once whatever I was given post-op but I did take them for about three months in reducing doses, luckily I didn't have any issues stopping them.  I wasn't allowed NSAIDs as they considered they could delay healing of the damaged bones.  After the partial hardware removal I only needed them for three weeks or so.  Until now.....  :-(

 

As for addiction - locomotives.

[simontaylor484]

@The White Rabbit no it wasn't me being taken for a walk by the DDSF. If folk are interested in the DDSF I do stop and talk to them. More often than not you would spend more time stopped than walking.

 

I would have let @Andy Y use pictures of either of our Dachshund Security Force operatives for a small consideration of royalties in the form of doggy treats.(please pm our slave for our address if you want to supply treats in exchange for use of our images love from Rolo and Pebbles the dachshunds) Instead of the stoned looking doggy we can melt hearts.

Edited June 29, 2022 by simontaylor484
Fat finger syndrome

[PhilJ W]

One happy sheepdog.

Edited June 29, 2022 by PhilJ W

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Nearly forgot, BIN day tomorrow so I have to get the bin bags ready by 07:30 tomorrow. Trying to clean up some of the fox cubs 'toys' I found half of a coconut shell with a hole drilled in it so thats going into the bee hotel. Now for a cold drink and back to Farcebook.

[Winslow Boy]

Well I'm back. Yes I know but don't all run screaming for the hills.

 

Managed to survive walking DD and to honest it was quite pleasant. The rain kept off, well most of the time and when it did it was more mizzle than rain. Plus it helped that where we were was a wood.

 

Anyway this afternoon I rather let the side down by falling asleep. My only excuse is that I had rather disturbed night due to DD deciding that she would rather sleep on my head rather than the floor.

 

So I'm off to bed now in the hope that it isn't repeated, but before I go here's some of the gardens produce.