Early Risers.

[Rich_F]

Completed another section of the North Downs Way today. 

 

Reigate Hill - Stepping Stones in Dorking. 

 

Passed by the old Betchworth & Brockham quarries & limeworks. 

 

 

 

Edited March 25 by Rich_F

[polybear]

11 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

I had that with dad in his last days, I gave a lift to one of my mum's distant friends when picking mum up from visiting the hospice, and she thought I was my older brother, and gave chapter and verse as to how I was doing nothing to help and brother was doing it all, according to sis in law who she knew. (Big bro only arrived on the scene when dad was in his last days).  I waited until she was about to get out and told her who I was, and what I thought of her and my brother who had done precisely nothing to help!

 

Which, incidentally was what he got in the will, when both dad and mum had passed on.  Precisely nothing, with an explanation why.

 

I know the feeling.....

When Momma Bear was diagnosed with The Big C (and a particularly spiteful variant at that) it took Bruvver Bear THREE MONTHS to come and see her - despite living just over an hour away.  How many times did he phone in that 3 months?  NOT F. ONCE - and that includes on her Birthday and Chrimbo too.  F. B'STERD.

His SWMBO did ask if I was Ok for the Funeral Costs - no way did I want their money, so instead I suggested they made "A decent donation" to the Hospice instead (they're not short of a few quid).  And how much did they donate?  TWENTY FIVE F. QUID....🤬🤬🤬

I now wish I'd sent them half the Funeral Bill and forwarded that money direct to the Hospice.

 

A few months later he did ask if Momma Bear had made a Will.  Oh yes.....

.....he did add that "he wasn't fishing...."  Oh yes you were, you B'sterd - otherwise you wouldn't have asked......

 

And what does his SWMBO do?  She's a Nurse.....

[roundhouse]

10 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

I had that with dad in his last days, I gave a lift to one of my mum's distant friends when picking mum up from visiting the hospice, and she thought I was my older brother, and gave chapter and verse as to how I was doing nothing to help and brother was doing it all, according to sis in law who she knew. (Big bro only arrived on the scene when dad was in his last days).  I waited until she was about to get out and told her who I was, and what I thought of her and my brother who had done precisely nothing to help!

 

Which, incidentally was what he got in the will, when both dad and mum had passed on.  Precisely nothing, with an explanation why.

The problem is that they both live some distance away with one in HK and the other quite a bit closer in Devon. Admittedly the brother in HK did come back a couple of times when Mum moved house 6 years ago whilst I was still working. Other brother did deal with Dads passing 10 years ago when we were in the USA.  I hope Mum has her will split three ways equally but since last Summer something is amiss between us brothers as haven't seen them since as they don't tell me when they are visiting Mum any more. I don't know what caused it. I only have contact from them if they want me to deal with Mum.

[polybear]

And Bear's challenge to our resident Chef @iL Dottore....serves 16 people - or one Bear.....

 

https://www.aldi.co.uk/ombré-easter-cake/p/000000149874900?utm_source=Aldi&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=EasterCakeRecipe&utm_campaign=TWAA25032024&utm_cid=DM538808&utm_hid=%40Mgi93plxTw4hNOYur5OsR%2BeaOey2bM0u%2BauAIPCOcZmfMpgfFojinPsBrFmjr2fZ&cid=DM538808&bid=1692058127

[roundhouse]

19 minutes ago, Rich_F said:

Completed anktber section of the North Downs Way today. 

 

Reigate Hill - Stepping Stones in Dorking. 

 

Passed by the old Betchworth & Brockham quarries & limeworks. 

 

 

We are only a few miles from that spot. Lived here for 30 years but only found it on our post lockdown walks back in 2020. Lovely spot.

[tigerburnie]

[polybear]

2 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

 

 

Bear'll see you - and raise you.....(can you see what I did there - twice....)

 

[Hroth]

41 minutes ago, Grizz said:

Doc, is it only Anglo-Saxon genes that have fat-saving characteristics? Or could Viking genes be predisposed to ‘a touch of the tubby’ as well? 
 

……asking for a friend. 

 

We're all descended from Labradors....

🤪

 

[Grizz]

Any street UK…

 

 

Unintended consequences…..
 

Two of the UK’s worst infrastructure maintainers, Road Menders and Water Companies have got together to provide leisure facilities. 

[zarniwhoop]

On 22/03/2024 at 00:23, zarniwhoop said:

Tried it, eventually zoomed in and looked at the next 2 weeks. Nothing new on this road. Some more work on the Eastbound carriageway (local authority ducts, signage) but nothing Westbound until almost at the roundabout for Tesco - and that part is not new.

 

Will keep the tab open, maybe something will show up next week, or perhaps I'll have been able to read the signs before then (the last lot of advance notices were for overnight work).

 

Thanx

There are so many individual items that clicking on each "multiple items in this location" to get details is problematic (look at one of the multiple item lists, click on first item, close that, place is lost). But I think I've now got a reasonable idea of what is going to be  going on:

 

An LED sign at the roundabout by Saint's buries - road closed daytime from 2nd to 4th April (I think that is gas, towards the Holmbush roundabout where Tesco is). Short-distance lane closure after getting onto A270 (gas) continues. At next crossroads, where you could normally turn down to get to the coast road, closure from 29th until somewhen - electrics, I think they are putting in more car chargers on a road parallel to the railway, and need to  dig it up for reinforcing the supply. On the way back I had time to get details from the sign after the same crossroads - closure from 29th until (I've forgotten) - that's the council, for power cable conduit and signs where they've resurfaced and perhaps altered the pedestrian crossing.

 

Meanwhile, massive road closures in Southwick south of the A270 - nominally around the village green, but in practice widespread (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3g4l0zlw2ko), little chance of turnng down there to get to the coast road. I started down there, took what would be the route to get to the road leading up from the coast to the A270 just before Holmbush, but could not get through (and no sign, from the way I was coming, that anything was closed until I got to the first closure).

 

Which seems to mean that the alternatives after Easter are to go down Boundary Rd, Hove (aka Station Road, Portslade) which is always backed up during the day because of the level crossing), or to go out to the bypass, travel to the Shoreham exit and then head back, taking the exit to Holmbush.  Sounds like fun!

[Coombe Barton]

2 hours ago, pH said:

I can’t see why there’s any confusion - “Wales” and “whales” are pronounced differently.

Not in the UK, well, England at least.  They both have the same phonetic structure  -  weɪlz - that's according the the OED.

[pH]

18 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Not in the UK, well, England at least.  

The qualification is important. I grew up in the west of Scotland and always pronounced those words differently - I still do. 
 

My sister-in-law taught primary school kids in Scotland. There were names for some different letter combination to help with pronunciation. For example:

 

- ‘wh’ were the ‘whistling boys’ or the ‘blowing boys’ - you expel some air through the lips as if blowing/whistling. It’s almost as if there’s a “trace” of an ‘h’ before  the ‘w’.

 

- ‘ch’ were the ‘sneezing boys’

 

- ‘sh’ were the ‘quiet boys’ (as in “shh!”)

 

A couple of (genuine) questions:

- how is ‘what’ pronounced? Always “wot”?

- how is ‘where’ pronounced? I can’t remember hearing “ware” or “were” when I lived in several places in England.

Edited March 25 by pH

[zarniwhoop]

More background on this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_〈wh〉

 

As with all changes in how things are pronounced, I find it fascinating and could easily waste hours following all the links.

[pH]

26 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

More background on this at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_〈wh〉

 

As with all changes in how things are pronounced, I find it fascinating and could easily waste hours following all the links.

Fascinating indeed! Thank you very much for that.

 

I see that that article also mentions the “Mary–marry–merry merger”. I was amazed to come across that when talking to a Canadian friend here. Not only could she not pronounce the three different vowel sounds I can hear in those words (‘ay’, ‘ah’ and ‘eh’) she couldn’t even hear my pronunciation of them as different sounds.

Edited March 25 by pH
Added info

[Coombe Barton]

33 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

As with all changes in how things are pronounced, I find it fascinating and could easily waste hours following all the links.

Try iron (the element) for regional differences

[zarniwhoop]

26 minutes ago, pH said:

I see that that article also mentions the “Mary–marry–merry merger”. I was amazed to come across that when talking to a Canadian friend here. Not only could she not pronounce the three different vowel sounds I can hear in those words (‘ay’, ‘ah’ and ‘eh’) she couldn’t even hear my pronunciation of them as different sounds.

I think that is common when listening to sounds you are not familar with. In the past I've listened to various wikipedia sound files in their phonetic examples, and often almost all the variations for any specific letter sounded alike to me

[pH]

4 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

I think that is common when listening to sounds you are not familar with.

Well, possibly, but ‘Mary’, ‘marry’ and ‘merry’ are not exactly exotic words. The thought that the pronunciation of those three words could be confused had not even begun to start to cross my mind till that conversation.

[monkeysarefun]

8 hours ago, skipepsi said:

More likely returned to their unit...

 

 

With a likely promotion to the  116th MAGA Liaison Battalion. 

Edited March 25 by monkeysarefun

[zarniwhoop]

3 minutes ago, pH said:

Well, possibly, but ‘Mary’, ‘marry’ and ‘merry’ are not exactly exotic words. The thought that the pronunciation of those three words could be confused had not even begun to start to cross my mind till that conversation.

I warn you, it's easy to get sucked in to this ;-)

 

https://www.quora.com/How-are-Mary-marry-and-merry-pronounced-in-different-parts-of-the-English-speaking-world

 

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

... among other things, found A business card with the address of grandad’s sweetshop and tobacconist shop thereon. He had it post WWI to WWII. I still have some of the dishes used to display sweets and a postcard greeting sent to all serving men at Christmas 1914 from King George V and Queen Mary. amid several hundred photos and postcards. Am now making plans to get all this into an archive ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/03/25/respiratory-infection-rates-finding-artefacts-of-family-history-lady-day/

IIRC the greetings card came with a quantity of tobacco or cigarettes.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Just watched a program on BBC4 about the Darjeeling Railway, very interesting. There's three more programs to come this week at 7 pm Tues-Weds-Thur, you can pick up tonights program on I-player.

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

When I was stationed at RAF Tengah in the late 1960s, the met forecast was the average of the reported conditions for the same day in the previous 20-odd years. It was remarkably accurate.

 

Dave

 

 

 

Which at the end of the day is basically what that Google Deepmind Graphcast AI forecasting model  is doing, using 40 years of previous data   - and significantly beats current weather systems on 90% of 1,380 metrics.

 

 

 

29 forecast for the top today, not a cloud in the sky. Only the overnight low of a chilly 11 indicates that Autumn is here so far!

Edited March 25 by monkeysarefun

[Hroth]

49 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

IIRC the greetings card came with a quantity of tobacco or cigarettes.

 

The greetings card came in a special tin and was organised by Princess Mary

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Mary_Christmas_gift_box

 

I have an example which was issued to my great-grand-parents  at the end of WW1 in commemoration of my grand-uncle who died in 1915*.

 

It contains a card and a "bullet pencil". They kept his war medals in it.  I also have his "death penny", a bronze commemorative medallion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Plaque_(medallion)

 

* He is named on the Thiepval Memorial.

 

Edited March 25 by Hroth
a bit more

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, Grizz said:

Any street UK…

Even in our humble and remotely-sited town of just 4800 souls there are more non-white faces than appear in that image 😉

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, Grizz said:

Any street UK…

 

 

Unintended consequences…..
 

Two of the UK’s worst infrastructure maintainers, Road Menders and Water Companies have got together to provide leisure facilities. 

 

 

Looks like the streetlight salesfolk are doing alright but!