Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

31 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

A fine evening. 
 

 

11 minutes ago, BoD said:

Goodness the blackberries are ripening. It must be Autumn.

 

8 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Wow, those berries are well developed. With our cool damp Spring, the wild (and invasive) Himalayan Blackberries here are still in bloom. Ripened berries are a long way off.

 

The solstice has brought with it warm weather as forecast. Today is delightful. After weeks under 20°C some time around 25°C would be nice, but we are forecast to shoot right into the mid-30°Cs by the weekend.

Yet the British Isles are further north than most of the continental USA (New England and Alaska excepted).

[brianusa]

12 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

My Dad died at one o'clock this morning in hospital. I was called at a quarter to one to tell me that he was deteriorating but by the time I got there he had gone.

 

Dave

I had a similar experience when my Dad died,  When told of his condition, it was drop everything and go!  A bit difficult when you're a few thousand miles away so I got home just in time to see him breathe his last!  Wasn't really worth it as he didn't realise it was me!  I'm not one for funerals anyway.

   Brian.

[New Haven Neil]

7 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Yes, unfortunately I know the type all too well. Most consultants I have worked with around the world  in various health systems have been  been pretty reasonable. But you do have a few “opinion leaders” who are downright bloody pain-in-the-arse “prima donnas”. Neil, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the consultant you wrote about  was one of those.

 

Indeed I'm sure he was!

 

They aren't all like that to be fair, I spent some time as the medical staffing officer in a previous role in HR, and recruited three consultants in that time.  Two were fairly routine (bar the nightmare of arranging the statutory members of the panel for such appointments) but the third was a real character.  Whenever he was having a bad day, if he saw me he would point and say 'this is all your fault' before bursting out laughing.  We got on well.  We had to sort of head-hunt him as another Trust was in a race with us to get him (young and good) so I really had to pull the stops out to interview him first!  I actually got a written thank-you from the lead Consultant for my work on that, it has pride of place in my record of achievement folder!

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

Happen he is in the Co-op searching for invisible oven chips or managed to fasten himself to the wall in a bizarre dado rail accident 

 

All joking aside I do hope he is ok

His last post was congratulating himself on killing a "massive" spider. But spiders are masters at playing possum, curling up their legs and pretending to be dead until the danger passes. Funnel webs for instance can be lying at the bottom of your pool for a week, you fish it out thinking it's shuffled off it's perch and it springs to life and goes you.

 

I reckon in the bears case, it lay in the bin until dark then went for payback.

Bears probably wrapped up like a mummy in a web under his stairs by now.

Edited June 21, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[iL Dottore]

This may sound callous, but when my father died two years ago and my sisters eventually informed me (he lived in the US with them) my reaction was “finally“.

Not because I was cold-heartedly waiting for him to kick the bucket so I could inherit millions, but because I was well aware how miserable the last few days of his life must’ve been. Unfortunately, one of my two sisters refused to let him go.

 

Furthermore, and something I will never forgive my sister for, she refused to let me talk to my Father’s doctors. So I had no input whatsoever in to the management of my father’s final illness and demise (except to act as “The Bank of iD”). I truly believe it was because my sister feared that I would work out with his doctors a caring and compassionate end of life path for my father – which would mean I would have interfered with her “look at me I am such a saintly, dutiful daughter“ ego trip.

 

I there are very few things I will not forgive, this is one of them.

[PhilJ W]

11 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

His last post was congratulating himself on killing a "massive" spider. But spiders are masters at playing possum, curling up their legs and pretending to be dead until the danger passes. Funnel webs for instance can be lying at the bottom of your pool for a week, you fish it out thinking it's shuffled off it's perch and it springs to life and goes you.

 

I reckon in the bears case, it lay in the bin until dark then went for payback.

Bears probably wrapped up like a mummy in a web under his stairs by now.

[simontaylor484]

4 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Did Peter Parker visit the spider farm?

[iL Dottore]

WHAT HAPPENED TO POLYBEAR?

 

1) He had a fatal encounter with a monstrous, irradiated, poisonous spider?

 

2) He was reaching for the 50% off cake at the bottom of a heavily laden supermarket shelf and it fell on him?

 

3) He was mercilessly cut down by Russian machine gun fire whilst trying to protect Ukrainian LDC?

 

4) He ordered two portions of Tom Kerridge’s triple cooked chips and had a stroke when the bill came?

 

5) An oven full of oven-cooked chips exploded as he was taking them out?

 

But whatever has happened to @polybear IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CAPTAIN CYNICAL!

CC wants PB alive! An ex-Bear is no fun whatsoever

Edited June 21, 2022 by iL Dottore

[J. S. Bach]

I wonder if BEAR went on a trip and for security reasons (like his previous trip) has not said anything yet?

[Tony_S]

The road pins (as recommended in this thread) have been deployed. William Shakespeare is no longer sprawling over the grass and the peony. I didn’t do anything creative with an angle grinder, I just whacked them with a sledge hammer into our lovely clay. Aditi was impressed “ you can’t see them at all”.

[Erichill16]

On 18/06/2022 at 18:54, polybear said:

 

 

In other news.....

Bear switched to Eeyore Mode this afternoon.  Dunno why, but Tigger Bounce has cleared off and the gloom set in.  Turdycurses.

Surely this  explains he absence.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Erichill16
Typo

[pH]

The sticker on the car from its last service in December 2021 said the next service was due at 29000km or June 23 2022. With the car still under warranty, I’m going to the dealer for servicing, so I booked a service for this afternoon and turned up at the dealership at the appointed time. The guy at reception went out to check the mileage for his records, came back in and said “You’ve only done about 2000km since the last service, you don’t actually need to do one now. Doing such low mileage, you only need a service about once a year. Unless you really want it serviced, I can book you provisionally for one about October.” So I agreed to that, thanked him and left. 
 

Having saved the cost of a service, I stopped in at Central Hobbies on the way home😀.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well I’ve managed to do all that I wanted to get done in the garden. The ladders were deployed and the weeds removed from the outrigger’s guttering. As I suspect, there were a lot of sycamore seeds that had gathered behind a small piece of rubble, no doubt from when next doors roof was done last year. These had given a handful of weeds a chance to grow, which the did with seemingly great ease! I then planted out the 6 scabious plants we bought last week. These have been dotted randomly amongst the other plants, a effect that Sheila is very happy with. I then spent the afternoon in the workshop, as I deemed it too hot to be doing any working outside. 

 

JSB. I’ll post an edited version example of my wiring schedule sheets tomorrow. This will show one line from each of the 4 sheets, so the operating process for one point, complete with feed back. Doin*bit this way should make it much easier to follow, as I think 4 full sheets, each with 32 lines might be a bit too much. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Running a bit late tonight so I'll be giving Farcebook a miss.

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

... the British Isles are further north than most of the continental USA (New England and Alaska excepted).

Not even New England. The latitude of Pohenegamook, (at the very top end of) Maine is 47.46°N, whereas the Lizard is 49.96°N.

 

The western half(?) of the US / Canada border is at 49°N.

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

Rick's ( @Gwiwer )'s berries (by screen grab) at 51.4°N:

 

The Himalayan Blackberries here at ~45°N in the bright afternoon solstice sunshine:

(They were swarmed with bumble bees, which is nice to see.)

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

I still find myself impressed with the cameras on mobile telephones, and mine is several years old.

 

A rose growing through my neighbour's fence:

Edited June 22, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[monkeysarefun]

...and for wildlife photography, though it helps a lot if the wildlife comes to you!

 

[Ozexpatriate]

6 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

it helps a lot if the wildlife comes to you

I imagine the free mince/ground beef helps!

[pH]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The western half(?) of the US / Canada border is at 49°N.

The distance west from Lake of the Woods, along the 49th parallel to the Strait of Georgia is almost exactly the same as the distance east from the Lake of the Woods to Grand Manan. However, the border in the west extends further, through the Gulf Islands and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In the Strait, it dips as far south as 48 degrees 22 minutes.

[Ozexpatriate]

50 minutes ago, pH said:

The distance west from Lake of the Woods, along the 49th parallel to the Strait of Georgia is almost exactly the same as the distance east from the Lake of the Woods to Grand Manan.

That felt about right. (I was guessing.)

 

50 minutes ago, pH said:

However, the border in the west extends further, through the Gulf Islands and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

I wasn't counting the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Vancouver Island (aka La Isla de Quadra y Vancouver).

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

Sunset on the solstice: