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Early Risers.


Mr.S.corn78
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I've just heard that A.R. has sent a posse after me.

Apparently it consists of several middle-aged women in flouncy dresses with floral decorations attached - none of the dresses are the same colour. I've been told to watch out for the flutes.

 

Best, Pete.

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Right, now that's three disasters to come out of Maastricht.

 

  1. The Maastrictian Epoch is the 5 million year period at the end of the Cretaceous which ended with the mass extinction event, and did for all the dinosaurs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastrichtian
  2. The Maastrict Treaty of 1992 set up the Euro - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty
  3. Andre Rieu comes from Maastricht - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Rieu
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 Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe seem to be the only African countries taking the Vienna New Year concert  according to Wikipedia so Don may not see it. 

We saw it  except for the first 10 minutes. I'm not sure what Aditi did to the Sky handset but it seems OK now .

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 Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe seem to be the only African countries taking the Vienna New Year concert  according to Wikipedia so Don may not see it. 

We saw it  except for the first 10 minutes. I'm not sure what Aditi did to the Sky handset but it seems OK now .

You can get the rest and bits of the first half on BBC4 tonight, though you didn't miss that much right at the beginning it was two of Josef Strauss offerings - Music of the Spheres, and the Spinstress Polka. 

The first half has

Josef Strauss: The Soubrette, Fast Polka, op. 109

Johann Strauss, Jr.: Kiss Waltz, op. 400

Josef Strauss: Theater Quadrille, op. 213

Johann Strauss, Jr.: From the Mountains, Waltz, op. 292

Franz von Suppé: Overture to the Operetta "Light Cavalry"

And normally the highlights mean that two of these pieces are omitted.

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Evening all, Happy New Year. I'm on call out this week, so most of it passed me by.

 

Talking about New Year  sounds that I miss (I will NEVER miss the sound of s*dding fireworks going off) I remember in my early yoof listening to the sounds of steam loco whistles tied down in Eastleigh shed at midnight, together with in the background the deeper notes of the ships in Southampton Docks letting rip. A cacophony to be sure, but to my ears much more acceptable than WW3 going off outside my window.

 

I'm currently wading through some 2,800 SR & BR Bulleid Pacific drawings which I have acquired through my contacts in the preservation world to find those which might be useful for my 5" gauge MN. Thankfully they are on my computer!

 

Have a good one.

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I have dismantled the indoor  Christmas decorations and returned them to the loft. I shall do the outside lights (won't take long) tomorrow, Aditi is going out tomorrow to see some ballet in London. I am providing transport to the railway station. We will be away this weekend and I didn't really want to come home to a Christmassy looking house that needed sorting when we returned so it has been done. 

Tony

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Well-as I reported earlier I was summoned into action and the net result is that here too Christmas has been packed away into the loft.

 

The good news is that management is happy that things have returned to normal

.

The bad news is that my back is killing me!

 

Never mind-regardless of all the dire warnings in the media about giving my liver a rest I am going to open a bottle of Messrs Fullers Liquid Anaesthetic-if that doesn't work I may increase the dose!

 

Cheers  :drinks:

 

Bob

 

 

 

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Ditto decorations.

 

It's amazing how something that can take a whole afternoon, sometimes longer, to carefully and artistically create can be dismantled and boxed in about ten minutes. It's only next year when you have to untangle things that you wish you had been a bit more careful.

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I must be unusual but I miss the sounds as the New Year breaks, when I was in Merseyside I was pretty close to the (Mersey) water and at 12:00 any boats would sound their horns, a fantastic sound which get quieter as the years went by but there were always some going off

I agree. I grew up on the Clyde when there was still significant shipping coming and going, and remember the ships' sirens at 'the bells'. Some years, we get a siren sounding here, if there's a ship in loading sulphur, but there wasn't one last night. 

 

Dinner today will be a traditional Scottish dish for New Year's Day - a steak pie which has been cooking in the crockpot for hours, so should be very tender, and scrummy once the pastry lid's on it - but I'm cheating there, as I'm using bought puff pastry. as I can't make it myself.

An 'ashet pie', Stuart? - another name from the Auld Alliance. My wife remembers their local butcher used to make dozens of them in preparation for the New Year, each of them in their own ashet, which would be returned to the shop after the pie had been eaten. I wonder how much money all those dishes represented, tied up for the rest of the year, and how much storage space they took up.

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So, where is it, then? Of course, we’ll need to know what type it is and what mine it came from; where it went, on which train, what loco pulled it and when, of course.

 

Actually it's just visible behind my right ear in my avatar - but you need to look very closely to see it (both the ear and the coal lump).  And as that's on a mainline steam job it is probably Manvers Main if it was still available as that was quite a nice coal for a 'Castle' even if it didn't come from Wales.

 

post-6859-0-08718000-1357066129.jpg

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I must be unusual but I miss the sounds as the New Year breaks, when I was in Merseyside I was pretty close to the (Mersey) water and at 12:00 any boats would sound their horns, a fantastic sound which get quieter as the years went by but there were always some going off, the people of the street out celebrating and fireworks, all part of living amongst people. We went outside the house last night and it was dead, not a sound, even the owls had got bored and were quiet. The peace is lovely but occasionally noise is good - and I do miss those boats.

 

There were a couple of Mersey vessels sounding their horns at midnight; but the sound of the industrial fireworks/mortars tended to drown them out!.......Terrifying my dear-dogs in the process.

 

I maintain a listening-watch on marine radio when at home here at Collie Towers, and heard several polite and friendly New-Year goodwill messages pass `twixt vessels underway, those at the Mersey Bar anchorage, and to/from the shore departments (Mersey VTS/Liverpool Coastguard etc,).....a continuing camaraderie; doubtlessly born out of decades of maritime adversity. :friends:

Edited by Debs.
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Happy New Year!

 

I'm having a wee break from RMweb this week while I'm down at Mum and Dad's, but have logged on tonight.  I'll be back on more regularly from next week.  

 

Hope everyone's enjoyed the festivities, we had a fairly quiet night last night with an old schoolfriend over for the evening for food and a couple of drinks, but nothing wild.

 

Dad and I have been trying to clear out the last of the stuff from the old house.  There's about 2 car loads still to go to the tip.  We've also tried to repair the outside security lights at their "new" house today. 1 done, 1 part done when the daylight went, and 1 as yet untouched.

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It's the 2nd already! I have not yet had to write 2013.

Fairly full dining room for both lunch and supper yesterday, so most residents did not go out for the day though many were out for the morning or afternoon.

 

Perfectly clear, cloudless, windless day so far, but fortunately not too hot. Only 25C forecast, but rain tomorrow!

 

I hope it proves a happy day for all ERs and bodes well for the rest of the year.

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Good morning Don & everyone else when you get here,

 

Dry fresh start today 3oC but rain is forecast.  

 

Now back to normal & Chris delivered to work. The roads were nice & quiet this morning which is how I like it. I dare say the usual mayhem will resume before long as more people return to work & the kids return to school on Monday.

 

Regards

 

Bob

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Morning all...

 

Just below 2°C outside, but too dark to see much of anything. However, listening outside revealed that the world appears to be awakening from its New Year slumber. I'm having the first cup of coffee for the morning and am wondering what else to do to get rid of that sniffle, which is annoying...

 

Enjoy your day!

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"am wondering what else to do to get rid of that sniffle"

Give it to someone else.

 

Made a start on processing the huge number of railway slides to prints.

Many rubbish pictures but some gems - but I've only done 55 so far.

Sent one to a lab for comparison but it turned out worse than my effort.

Difficult to overcome the over saturation common with slides even with full PShop.

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Morning All,

 

I am back in the office this morning.  The weather is still leaving a lot to be desired - although it is colder than it was over Christmas and New Year, which isn't a bad thing.  Christmas doesn't seem the same when the temperature is over 10°C!

 

I seem to have returned to semi-chaos...

 

Have a good day everyone.

Edited by Robert
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Don: My cunning plan is to go straight to B&W.

This cuts out all the colour problems and just leaves corrections to brightness and contract after cropping.

 

For example (this picture was totally useless and it's not great now but shows what I mean):

 

post-7041-0-91626900-1357110173.jpg

 

Anything below the skirt of the loco was virtually invisible in colour.

Edited by DDolfelin
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Good morning, one and all!

 

Sounds of traffic for the past hour indicate that the workers are returning! Always pleasant to be able to be snuggled in bed at such times. Especially on a Monday. (Yes, I know it's Wednesday!)

 

About 30 folk called in for drinks, etc yesterday. Pleasing to see how contacts from different areas of our life mix and mingle. Our daughter and SiL enjoyed meeting our 'new' friends (we've only lived here for 16 months) and there was much admiring of William (2) and Alice (8wks).

 

A break from catering duties today as we're out for lunch at the wonderfully named "Devon Dumpling"!

 

Wishing you all an enjoyable day.

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