Early Risers.

[iL Dottore]

8 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

…The plastic it is made from seems really cheap and nasty.

Not only that, but often the plastic is of such a type that it cannot be repaired without resorting to either two-part epoxy resin type glues (which of course you cannot put on invisibly or thinly with any ease) and/or are impervious to anything but the sort of industrial solvent that requires a hazmat suit to use.

 

as we are professing to be concerned about the environment, a good first step would be to make consumer goods repairable – and that includes the materials they are made out of.

[New Haven Neil]

Observe the pile of dust - which is from AFTER the 'filter'.  Some filter.....

 

Puppers will be please to note the dust catching paper is 'Old Bike Mart'.  

 

[simontaylor484]

I did read somewhere that they believe one of these fires was caused by spontaneous combustion of a compost heap. Now I know this is possible but what a way to lose everything 

[Phil Parker]

45 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

That’s a very serious reply to what was simply a flippant, throwaway remark written with a touch of hyperbole for comic effect.

 

I do post things that are not meant to be taken either seriously or at face value.

 

And that's a very patronising response to what was partly meant to be a helpful reply.

[Phil Parker]

45 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

That’s a very serious reply to what was simply a flippant, throwaway remark written with a touch of hyperbole for comic effect.

 

I do post things that are not meant to be taken either seriously or at face value.

 

And that's a very patronising response to what was partly meant to be a helpful reply.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

And another vote for Henry. Not only is he made in Wales, works brilliantly, he's surprisingly fixable with basic hand tools too.

 

Not so sure that Henry was expecting this sort of abuse though.....

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/naughty-vicar-caught-wearing-stockings-24497033

 

In other news.....

Timber sanded - now for the Danish Oil.  Not so sure that today is significantly cooler than yesterday somehow - whilst the Met Office Website claims that Bear Towers is 12C cooler than yesterday it certainly doesn't feel that way to this Bear.  And Charlie Conservatory is currently sitting quietly at 30.7C (yesterday was 33C).

I received my first Covid home test kit for the ONS Survey - instead of a monthly visit from Nurse Covid it's now a DIY jobbie following by a walk to the Post Box on the same day.  Seems do-able to this Bear.

[The Lurker]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

.

 

as we are professing to be concerned about the environment, a good first step would be to make consumer goods repairable – and that includes the materials they are made out of.

I think that is well on the way to becoming law in the UK and the EU but I might have got my wires crossed (never was good at DIY).

 

We had a Dyson that worked pretty well but eventually the seals where you took it apart to empty it stopped working properly so it became eardrum-burstingly loud and far less efficient. It got replaced with a Shark, mainly because some people on here seem to find them good. The shark works well although I have noticed that Mrs Lurker has avoided using it at all, which probably means that I am expected to always do the hoovering.

 

Greeting from LBG. The day is cooler, the journey in was not too hot and there is a nice breeze by the Shard. Oh and the aircon in the office is good too! 

[AndrewC]

Greetings from the boring borough. Late today as work interfered early. We had rain last night. Well that is what the weather app said. I think the sum total was around what a gnat could wee out. Warm again but nothing like yesterday. Burned through £8 of electrons to power the air con in the house and shed. Power outage in the night for about half an hour. Moved the chiropractor appt as I didn't feel like sitting on a Southeastern 376 with its total lack of ventilation and their usual turn the heat on full when the temp is over 20c. 

 

We dumped the dyson on to the offspring. After the house renovations we decided no fecking carpet. We have a Shark which is more than adequate for cleaning up the dust and cat air. Anything major cleaning wise and I bring in the Karcher shop vac from the shed. Rugs just get the Shark for every day cleaning and a bath when needed. 

 

Back to work. <sigh> 

Edited July 20, 2022 by AndrewC

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Not only that, but often the plastic is of such a type that it cannot be repaired without resorting to either two-part epoxy resin type glues (which of course you cannot put on invisibly or thinly with any ease) and/or are impervious to anything but the sort of industrial solvent that requires a hazmat suit to use.

 

as we are professing to be concerned about the environment, a good first step would be to make consumer goods repairable – and that includes the materials they are made out of.

There is still planned obsolescence to contend with, and not always with the cheapest items.

[PhilJ W]

Dyson vacuum cleaners do suck, but not in the way expected of them.

[simontaylor484]

The Shark went to electrical recycling bin because there was a problem with the hose on the base where the beater bar is the only spares they had were to replace the whole base £70 ish even to replace the hose for the wand was £40 so Henry was bought. A box of Hepa bags were a tenner for 5 on Amazon 

[simontaylor484]

Sat outside with the doggies I am having a mug of decaf the DDSF are enjoying goat milk.

I have been catching up with the dead heading from yesterday. It looks like the sweet peas are toast.

I would love it to rain then I can carry on with reseeding grass on the top section.

The bottom section of the lawn is brown/yellow I don't water it 

A bit of a raindance 

 

[Barry O]

Ey up! back in Leeds after a few days in cooler Cleethorpes.

 

We had a relaxing day yetserday  so had an opportunity to get some Applebeys' Ice Cream

 

 

Lots of flavours to choose from.

 

Last night we had a meal at the hotel..

 

 

a bit of smoked salmon to start  followed by

 

 

a small steak... I was OK with that so herself had

 

 

Pimms Summer  Jelly with fruits and  sorbet.. Eaten with a nice drop of red!

 

As it is the temperature has dropped a bit on our return to Leeds. A gentle breeze is keeping the house cool and it looks like we will be having a Thunderstorm later! 

 

Baz

 

 

 

[Barry O]

As for Mr Dyson.. he thinks he is an engineer - which he isn't  and his designs do leave a lot to be desired.  The quality has gone through the floor ( we had 3 then gave up with them) but others still buy them.

 

Personal choice .. 

 

Baz

[New Haven Neil]

Won't be buying another that's for sure.  But what alternatives there are remains to be seen.  

 

My Naval language did put it back together, and more surprisingly it still worked and the house is marginally cleaner as a result.  The boost button still results in an immediate shut-down however, no change there. Given that up as a bad job.  It'll have to soldier on as we can't really justify something new until it finally croaks.

 

OK, off to test ride a bike that is going to a new owner tomorrow if all goes well.  Yes Bear, that one.

[southern42]

52 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Sat outside with the doggies I am having a mug of decaf the DDSF are enjoying goat milk.

I have been catching up with the dead heading from yesterday. It looks like the sweet peas are toast.

I would love it to rain then I can carry on with reseeding grass on the top section.

The bottom section of the lawn is brown/yellow I don't water it 

A bit of a raindance 

 

 

This reminded me of one of my favourite Wouter Kellerman recordings and one of a few classical pieces I play on flute but do not wish too hard for this season, it will, all too soon, be upon us and we will be singing another tune!

 

 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by southern42
typo

[simontaylor484]

Well it's the last school run of the academic year it seems 2 minutes since September.

 

[TheQ]

Lazy lot... they be makin 'em work till Friday hare..

[The Lurker]

Younger Lurker finished this lunchtime.

 

But Mrs Lurker and Elder Lurker's work does not finish until Friday.

 

And both schools are in the boring borough!

[iL Dottore]

59 minutes ago, Barry O said:

....followed by

 

a small steak...

"a small steak" - definitely! Presumably from dwarf cows??? 🤣

Those chips look very nice indeed.

 

[southern42]

And singing talking of rain, a rain raga.

 

 

 

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

All posts read - will wonders never cease?  Greetings to all fellow ERs.

 

Trip to Shrewsbury has been postponed until Friday, to give 30747 a little more time to to recover from this non covid cold.  Instead we went to Leominster to visit some of the antique centres - and have a chat with Ben Cooper, who is a TV expert on Bargain Hunt, and whom I have known for years - he's never averse to sharing his knowledge with us, and is a really nice guy.  BUT - we also wanted to visit Barclays to pick up a statement for the weekly bookwork.  It is CLOSED on a Wednesday - drat - so we'll have to pick up the statement on Friday in Shrewsbury.

 

New builder has been approached, been and estimated, and his estimate is received and is really reasonable, so we'll now cut ties with our previous builder (reluctantly) as he doesn't seem to be able to fit us into his schedule between Lancashire and London.

 

Some things I never did before 30747 retired.

 

- Watch Homes Under The Hammer

- Get up every morning at 07.10/07.15

- Listen to the repeats of the Archers at lunch time.

- Do the shopping together,  It seems to cost more when we do that (or is it just prices going up?)

- Eat our main meal at lunch time,

- Not listen to YouTube during the day.

 

Urgent phone call tomorrow from our equity release provider - not quite sure what they want, but will find out.  Probably want to offer us more as that was mooted by them before the move.

 

Tomorrow evening I will be joining the Ludlow Writers' group, and have dug up one of my better efforts for their delectation.

 

So between those two, I may well be absent tomorrow.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

 

 

 

 

[polybear]

2 hours ago, The Lurker said:

I think that is well on the way to becoming law in the UK and the EU but I might have got my wires crossed (never was good at DIY).

 

 

Call Bear a cynic but I've a sneaky felling that "home repairable" may well be interpreted somewhat differently by manufacturers - I've a sneaky suspicion that they may well cane the ar5e out of spares prices as they do now, for example.

 

2 hours ago, AndrewC said:

Burned through £8 of electrons to power the air con in the house and shed. Power outage in the night for about half an hour.  

 

Is that eight quid for 23.5 hours usage then?  Ouch.

 

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

We had a relaxing day yetserday  so had an opportunity to get some Applebeys' Ice Cream

 

 

 

One of Bear's favourites is Turkish Delight flavour - sadly not seen very often; I first encountered it in Whitby.

 

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

OK, off to test ride a bike that is going to a new owner tomorrow if all goes well.  Yes Bear, that one.

 

Not the XL?  😭

 

In other news.....

The first coat of Danish Oil has been applied - it's changed the colour of the timber somewhat - the jury's out as to whether or not that's A Good Thing or not yet...nottalot I can do about it though.

The catch on the front gate no longer does what it's supposed to do - i.e. "catch", cos' the posts have shifted in the dry weather (but are still very solid).  The gate and posts have been there all my life and a good few years before that too; the post to which the gate is hung is very corroded close to the ground (but has been like that for 12+ years that I'm aware of) so at some point in the future I expect it'll give up the ghost and need replacement, meaning a certain Bear will have the job of diggin' it out of the ground and concreting a new post in.  Hopefully that's a good few years away yet though.

Oh yes, the catch....it looks like I'll be firing up the arc welder soon and adding an extension to the existing catch so that it, er, catches once more.

 

And finally.....

Ladies & Gentlemen, Bozo has left the building.....

But not before this little nugget:

Mr Johnson hit back describing Sir Keir as a "pointless human bollard"

Seems a little harsh on bollards if you ask this Bear....🤣

[Ian Abel]

HUMP day...

 

Yesterday, slow and quiet working, followed by an excellent evening dinner with friends.

Weather was hot and humid, too miserable to be outside on our patio. At this rate we won't have many opportunities to fully use it before the snow flies!! PAH!!

 

Today nothing planned except a trip to <shudder> Costco.

This weekend sees us heading north two hours plus, for the Mrs family reunion, and we're charged with bringing the non-alcoholic beverages for 35+ people  🤯🤯 so Costco is the designated place to obtain large volumes of comestibles and lowest prices.

Headed up there Friday afternoon, two nights in a VRBO, Saturday at 11am is the witching hour. Means yours truly gets to twiddle his thumbs (I know "vaguely" about 4-5 people going and there are at least twice that many I have no clue about and have never even heard of!!) for several hours. Worse still, I'm informed this is possible little or NO internet service in this wild northern part of Minnesota <sigh>

 

Weather not really letting up, 21 first thing, partly sunny, becoming zero clouds later and a high of 31 again.

 

Onward...

 

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Is that eight quid for 23.5 hours usage then?  Ouch.

We did some sums for running a couple of aircon thingies. Assuming we only use them on sunny days we could probably power them from our solar panels and still have enough electricity to run our other usual devices. Might possibly need to choose what to run at night from our storage batteries, though an extra battery would deal with that. The house hasn’t been too uncomfortable over recent nights  anyway, for instance we haven’t needed the fans we used to use in the bedrooms in previous hot spells, probably due to the improved loft insulation. 
Tony

Edited July 20, 2022 by Tony_S