Early Risers.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Lots of rain overnight but it has stopped for now. More showers to come with some sunny spells followed by more rain later.

Feeling rather light headed as The Boss gave me a haircut yesterday. Hers needs cutting too but no hairdressers allowed to open and she won't let me do it.  I wonder why? 

Spent a pleasant couple of hours zooming with offspring and grandchildren but it's not the same as seeing them in person.

I won another £30 on the lottery last night.  

Thursday means 3 bin lorries and Sainsburys all arriving in the next hour or two.  Apart from that no firm plans apart from an attempt at walking further than yesterday.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by grandadbob

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Her indoors is off to moreasons.. doesn't time fly when you are having fun?

Chuckinitdarn here and guess what? The front swimming pool has returned buggritt!

I have an item to post so may take the car to avoid getting soaked.

 

My sister, bless her gats her jab today. Woooopppiiidddooo!

 

Now, time to beat Thursday into submission.. Carpe Diem!

Try and enjoy your day today!

Baz

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare,

4 hours plus an intermittent 3 hours sleep, not very good.

 

Every time I woke up it was raining and still is now.. Not surprisingly my forepaws  are complaining, not good as the next two days include measuring a couple of dozen current shunts, each requiring in the region of 200 characters typed.

 

Ben the I want out Collie was on duty this morning, but after depressurising turned  and went back to the house, no snuffling around in this weather...

 

The road outside our house is now gravel, when I came home yesterday it was mud.. but the rain has washed the mud away leaving the stones.. The lane we take Ben down is now extremely churned up...

 

They appear to have machinery in, raising the quayside in Wroxham alongside the flooded carpark.. that won't make any difference to the flooding.. The drains go into the river it will just flow back up when the tides high..

 

When we moved into our current house the phone was very  old with a dial, and said "village name" followed by a 3 digit number...

 

The ceiling people don't seem to do a lot, they've been doing a little cable tray fitting in the loft space, but most of the time seem to wander about looking at their phones..

 

I might have to get the pump out and drop it into the well, I think the water table is so high the sceptic tanks are back filling.., I then run the hose down the side of the house and the water runs off down the slope.. Ever wondered why I don't fancy our well water to drink..?

 

Zeroing of various instruments has finished..

 

Time to type some numbers..

 

 

 

[Tony_S]

58 minutes ago, TheQ said:

the sceptic tanks

Is that where all the anti vaxxers  and Covid deniers come from?

 

[jonny777]

Another overcast, damp and breezy morning in North Zomerzet. 10.5mm of rain since midnight, but I wasn't planning on going out anyway. 

 

We had a note through our letterbox offering local free range eggs at £1 per half dozen, so I rang the number and the first trial delivery is coming sometime today. I'm all for local produce. If Covid and Brexit result in anything positive, it maybe to cut our reliance on imported food; especially that which is out of season in winter. 

 

I enjoy local asparagus in May/June. I can cope without it for the rest of the year. Similarly, I don't need Egyptian raspberries in January. British apples and pears will be satisfactory. 

 

I see the EU are getting their knickers in a twist because we ordered vaccines three months before they did and they are at the back of the delivery queue. Apparently, they reject the principle of first come first served. Well, tough. Up yours Delors, or whatever the current equivalent is. 

 

 

[Andrew P]

Belated Happy Birthday to Mrs Lurker and also H/B to Mrs NHN.

 

Hope you both had / have a good day.

[Andrew P]

No food or drink since 10pm last night, I have a fasting Blood draining session at 10am. I hope I don't become part of the flooring, as is often the case. I used to be really bad in the build up and would get the shakes and nervous bouts a day before but this time I haven't even worried about it, so I'm feeling more confident. I think all the recent Hospital trips and needles may have helped me get a little used to it. I still don't want to see the needle. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Andrew P

[leopardml2341]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

The tablets seem to be working .......

Are they prochlorperazine?

 

Didn't work for me

 

[The Lurker]

15 hours ago, Tony_S said:

There was going to be a theme park (can’t remember which megacorporation)  near Rainham in Essex. Near enough to London to get London in its name. However it was too radioactive due to all the trimphones dumped there.  The glow in the dark feature was responsible.  

I believe that is the site where a certain rice supplier stored (in the 2000's, they may still do so) rice. That site had been part of the empire of the German group that purchased my previous employer. I don't recall the radiation being caused by dumped trimphones but by the waste product of chemical production of something as innocuous as the paint used on the hands of alarm clocks - which is radioactive. But maybe there was more to the tale than I recall. The info re the rice supplier was passed on by one of the estates team who had visited the site. The chemical industry owns a lot of derelict and polluted sites, which are gradually being cleared and remediated. One of the biggest issues we had with certain sites was having to evict travellers. This was done rapidly and without any thought as to whether they had anywhere else to go - and it was done this way because of the contamination in many of these sites (mainly not radioactive), which could have caused the travellers issues down the road....

[leopardml2341]

(Late) morning all.

 

Very wet overnight, I suspect the Trent will be overflowing in some style again soon.

 

Not much else to report, just that in a work sense it never ceases to amaze me that no matter how much one lowers one's expectations of others, based on previous experiences,  that they can always seem to achieve even less.

 

Bye for now. 

[leopardml2341]

3 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

..................... and it was done this way because of the contamination in many of these sites (mainly not radioactive), which could have caused the travellers issues down the road....

Of course then any 'injury' would have been the fault of the landowner and not the trespasser(s).

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from Sidcup

 

The day is grey with the sun trying to breakthrough. Overnight rain had cleared away in time for Mrs Lurker to walk to school.

 

A little help was provided to Younger Lurker in his work on dichotomous keys.

 

The main highlight of the day will be the weekly expedition to try to purchase his LDC and Autosport. Last week's Autosport was not in the shop at its normal time and he didn't get a copy until Monday, when all became well with the world again!

 

[polybear]

Bear reporting for duty...

Plasterer is skimming the last wall this morning - he brought a picture book for Bear to look at.  It's called "Covenant With Death" and with published in 1934 by the Daily Express, and contains loads of photos taken during the first world war.  Grim?  Oh yes, and some.  There's a section at the end that has text beforehand to forewarn the reader that it contains photos which may upset sensitive readers etc. etc.and should on no account be shown to children.  No warning to Bears though, and boy was it grim.  Why on earth the likes of Hitler (who fought in WW1) wanted to send men into that again is a bl00dy mystery to me.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

It’s been raining all night and it still is, it’s very wet out there, I don’t think I’ll be going outside at all today. Breakfast is now but a thing of the past and I’ll soon head to the dining room and sit at the table. I set my table top easel up last night and put my drawing board on it, the plan is to carry on with redrawing the layout plans. I’m hoping that now the drawing board is at about 80 degrees that it won’t cause my back to ache, as it did last week. 

 

Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. 

 

Brian 

[polybear]

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Ours works in recirculating mode. I don’t know if it is different now but a lot of the hoods looked similar. The filters for ours also fit a few other makes. There is quite a lot of badge engineering going on. We bought an Elica who seem to make them for a lot of other manufacturers. Ours fits into the unit above the hob.  We chose it as you could mount the controls remotely. Aditi wouldn’t be able to reach the switches otherwise. Being able to wash the grease filters in the dishwasher is nice. 

 

Hi Tony,

Bear has just found this on the Which? Magazine website - HTH

 

Bear

 

Zanussi and Elica have issued a safety notice for some of their cooker hoods, as a risk of electric shock has been identified. If you have an affected cooker hood, Elica and Zannusi say you should stop using it and contact their customer service lines to organise a free repair.
 

Zannusi and Elica cooker hoods Not all Zanussi and Elica cooker hoods are affected by this potential problem – only models with the following numbers are: Zanussi ZHC60136X Elica CH 60 SS CH 60 BL CH 90 SS CH 90 BL To check whether your cooker hood may be affected, take a look at the rating plate, which is located on the left hand side of the inner wall, behind the metal glass filters. Make sure you unplug it before checking. Zanussi serial and product number Find the model, product and serial numbers of your Zanussi cooker hood For Zanussi cooker hoods, if it has the product number 942122680, and a serial number between 32100001 and 34299999, call Zanussi’s customer service team on 0800 707 6258 to get a repair. For Elica cooker hoods, if it has a serial number between 132100001 to 134299999, call Elica’s helpline – 0125 235 1111 – to get a repair. Don’t use the appliance until it’s repaired. Only cooker hoods manufactured between 20 May 2013 and the week ending 20 October 2013 are affected. No other Zanussi appliances have a problem.

 

[Andrew P]

1 hour ago, Andrew P said:

No food or drink since 10pm last night, I have a fasting Blood draining session at 10am. I hope I don't become part of the flooring, as is often the case. I used to be really bad in the build up and would get the shakes and nervous bouts a day before but this time I haven't even worried about it, so I'm feeling more confident. I think all the recent Hospital trips and needles may have helped me get a little used to it. I still don't want to see the needle. 

Well that went a WHOLE LOT BETTER than expected. The Nurse was nothing short of brilliant, but apparently I should have been drinking a lot of water, despite being on Blood thinners. She got into the vein in the left arm but it would not give her any red stuff, so she asked if she could try the other arm, and as she hadn't really hurt me so far I said yes. That was successful and it didn't even make me feel bad. After she had finished I said, those 4 tubes aren't all mine are they, to which she replied YES, I was amazed, but disappointed it wasn't blue.

Back home indoors for a cup of tea and a toasted tea cake before the allotted 10am, RESULT.

[New Haven Neil]

Morning.  A bit of a slow start, had a rough sleepless night.  Plenty rain coming down overnight too,  40mm in the gauge, I feel like I heard just about every drop hit the window. 8c now, it's like summer.....

 

I'm off for a walk around the village soon to try to shake some life into myself. 

 

Mrs H been told to plan returning to proper work location on Tuesday, she's off on Monday when our lockdown ends, she has her second jab that day and it is of course in the Big City so would take a half day anyway to do so, might as well take the opportunity to enjoy a day off together in freedom. 

 

Looks like the new job won't now start until 8th March, and she's not allowed to take any leave now until then, which is an issue as she has a lot left,  the new boss won't like her carrying that leave into the new job - bad management, she actually had leave before then cancelled, presumably for sour grapes.  She's not sorry to be leaving that department.  The ongoing total re-organisation for health care on Fraggle Rock is going to cause some trouble there, and Debs is very glad to be out of it!  The senior manager is about to get a big shock from what we hear on the jungle telegraph.  As the saying goes, Debs heart pumps purple custard.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Usual weather but currently no precipitation (that'll be early tomorrow for the next round) and there's some sunlight visible through the high cloud,   Various seeds were gathered in from the garden centre yesterday but far more importantly the stock of kindling wood was reconstituted - that could be classed as essential in winter I think.  The place was fairly empty.   Followed by a Tesco visit which unfortunately clashed with a programme I like on R4 ('The Interrogation') so no exercise perambulation around the car park took place.

 

Talking of car commonality when I moved from the Citroen ZX to the contemporaneous Peugeot 30X you couldn't tell one from the other viewed from underneath when they were up on a hoist - 100% common floorpan.  And incidentally the Mustang 2 probably had little to commend it because it was 'built' on the Ford Pinto running gear.

 

As far as the competence of people at work was concerned I always had a very simple measure of them - it depended on the way they did their job and their ability to do it plus thei personality and overall knowledge of what was involved.  Two current RMweb members (not ERs) were on teams I was involved with over the years and both displayed considerable competence (which also shows in their RMweb posts and what they are doing today. In my final few posts on the big railway I generally had folk who varied between good and top notch on the teams.   I had one useless chap on WR freight planning but we got shot of him (nicely) on an ill health pension which was undoubtedly what he was angling for all along and which was very fairly awarded in my view.  I was gifted a near useless character in my SR area control office who we couldn't get shot of but I'm told he found his feet elsewhere some years after privatisation.  

 

In my final job I will admit to making a somewhat ill-judged selection although I was very much guided by the chap's previous boss who I knew very well and respected.   The bloke concerned was very good at most of his job so I couldn't really complain too much but he couldn't string together a written sentence in halfway decent English which was a problem and couldn't grasp 4 digit numbers in spoken French which didn't help.  The rest of that (small) team were superb and we could get through a lot of often very tricky train planning at a rate of knots and always prepared to stay at work until we'd done the job.  The only really off-putting thing was that on a 'team  building/work experience' day out in Lille it turned out that one of them was inordinately fond of snails as part of his lunch - that did not go down at all well with the rest of us.

 

ah well back to today's world and i shall seek out some amusement on RMweb for a while.  The  cooker 'servicing engineer' is expected this afternoon - I trust he is 'gas safe' in order to deal with the recalcitrant burner.   Have a good day one and all and stay safe.

[Tony_S]

19 minutes ago, polybear said:

Don’t use the appliance until it’s repaired

Thanks for the information. Ours isn’t one of the affected models. 

[TheQ]

Still raining...

 

I've come across characters like Gwiwer  is lumbered with.. Normally some senior managers son, hence getting through selection, who has been given everything on a plate,  and has no idea that work involves ... Working..

 

Found a lever arm calculator on line.. 

 length of trailer 3.7M

Weight of boat 400Kg

Max loading for Landrover tow bar 150Kg..

means I could have the boat 4 foot forward of the axle..

Change the 150Kg tow bar loading to 75 Kg for most cars and it's still 2ft forward of the axle..

Keel is 3 ft long, centre therefore is 18inches in... So placing the back edge of the keel on the axel will be about right if you include the weight of the trailer to it's maximum all up weight 750kg it's still got a balance point 1 foot forward of the axle..

 

Happy I am with that result..

Edited January 28, 2021 by TheQ

[Barry O]

walked to the post office.. the mizzle doesn't look that heavy but it does a good job of getting you wet!

 

Off for a mugadecaff..

 

Baz

[jonny777]

35 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Hi Tony,

Bear has just found this on the Which? Magazine website - HTH

 

Bear

 

Zanussi and Elica have issued a safety notice for some of their cooker hoods, as a risk of electric shock has been identified. If you have an affected cooker hood, Elica and Zannusi say you should stop using it and contact their customer service lines to organise a free repair.
 

Zannusi and Elica cooker hoods Not all Zanussi and Elica cooker hoods are affected by this potential problem – only models with the following numbers are: Zanussi ZHC60136X Elica CH 60 SS CH 60 BL CH 90 SS CH 90 BL To check whether your cooker hood may be affected, take a look at the rating plate, which is located on the left hand side of the inner wall, behind the metal glass filters. Make sure you unplug it before checking. Zanussi serial and product number Find the model, product and serial numbers of your Zanussi cooker hood For Zanussi cooker hoods, if it has the product number 942122680, and a serial number between 32100001 and 34299999, call Zanussi’s customer service team on 0800 707 6258 to get a repair. For Elica cooker hoods, if it has a serial number between 132100001 to 134299999, call Elica’s helpline – 0125 235 1111 – to get a repair. Don’t use the appliance until it’s repaired. Only cooker hoods manufactured between 20 May 2013 and the week ending 20 October 2013 are affected. No other Zanussi appliances have a problem.

 

 

Phew! My cooker hood is a Zanussi, but a ZHT611N. 

 

Saints be praised. 

 

[Tony_S]

17 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

but apparently I should have been drinking a lot of water, despite being on Blood thinners.

Until about a year ago nurses or phlebotomists had no difficulty at all getting blood out of me. Since starting all the the heart medication it hasn’t been so simple. Plenty of water and keep warm before the test is the advice I was given. 
Glad it went well.

Tony

[laurenceb]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Bear reporting for duty...

Plasterer is skimming the last wall this morning - he brought a picture book for Bear to look at.  It's called "Covenant With Death" and with published in 1934 by the Daily Express, and contains loads of photos taken during the first world war.  Grim?  Oh yes, and some.  There's a section at the end that has text beforehand to forewarn the reader that it contains photos which may upset sensitive readers etc. etc.and should on no account be shown to children.  No warning to Bears though, and boy was it grim.  Why on earth the likes of Hitler (who fought in WW1) wanted to send men into that again is a bl00dy mystery to me.

I have a book called The Western Front then & now showing the towns & villages as they were in 1918 and after they were rebuilt, The book was published in 1938. Two years later all the good work had been undone thanks to a certain Austrian hose painter

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, The Lurker said:

his work on dichotomous keys.

I had to Google that. However I then felt silly as I had taught such things but I really didn’t recall the term “dichotomous”. The use of such things occurred in science and computing., both of which I taught at various times.