Early Risers.

[pH]

Son has just sent some pictures from around the mine he’s visiting, north of the Arctic Circle. Current temperature there is minus 35C, going down to minus 38C tonight. That even beats Ian Abel’s numbers!

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. This popped up on Farcebook:-

The mind boggles! cheese and Marmite hot cross buns.

[newbryford]

4 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

I have a 14-day pause period with the new car as insurance renews in 14 days (Valentines Day!).  I'm a bit tight so didn't want to pay the £60 or whatever it was to change existing insurance to cover that car so It can sit on the drive for a couple of weeks.  Free tax so not worried about renewing that early.

 

Ironically the insurance renewal is with the same insurance company that covered my old car (only £20 more).

 

But get this!
Confused.com offers a free £20 "gift" when buying insurance so went through them when buying cover for old car for the year.  Now I've cancelled that (as I won't need it for the old car) but Confused.com has already given me the code for the gift I chose (£20 at Dominos!).

I may have inadvertently scammed them as I'll be able to claim a new £20 gift for setting up a new policy for new car, with old insurer!

And both of those come with £32 cashback!  That'll pay off a little of what I put on the credit card at least.

 

/ Day over!

 

I've always found that giving as much notice as possible before changing a car or starting a new policy has a beneficial effect on the premium.

If you need it in a hurry, then the insurance companies know that they have you by the short and curlies and charge accordingly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[Coombe Barton]

26 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I think most of the pebbles in our garden came from the garden centre.

 

Yes, you're estuarine. We're tundral lacustrine.

 

[newbryford]

2 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

I once wrote a paper back in my NHS management days, about a year long project I had undertaken with a senior nurse, myself as admin. manager but as equal partners.  She distributed the paper with my name removed from it.

 

It was a mistake to do so, as many of the senior managers and the Nursing Director knew of my role, and it was obvious to those I had worked with over the years it was written very much in my style.  It backfired very badly for the nurse, quite ruined her promotional prospects in fact, but did mine a lot of good!  Rankled for a very long time though.

 

 

I once had a foreman who claimed to the boss that "he'd done this and he'd done that" when we both attended a customer's site on an emergency repair job. I knew who had really done virtually all of the work. Over the next few months, he continued to take all the glory on such jobs and it wasn't long before all under him were thoroughly p*ssed off with his claims. I later moved onto a better workplace.

About 18 months later, he rings me up and asks me to be a character witness for him in his unfair dismissal claim. I refused. I later learnt that he hadn't won his case.

[pH]

18 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Evening all from Estuary-Land. This popped up on Farcebook:-

The mind boggles! cheese and Marmite hot cross buns.

Do they have currants in them?

[PhilJ W]

38 minutes ago, pH said:

Do they have currants in them?

I have no intention of finding out.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

The weather today has been dry, but quite cold, it got as high as 4C this afternoon, but it’s been very windy (the weather outside that is) all day.

 

Today I’ve had quite a successful day in the workshop. The homemade decals worked really well, (see photo below), so a full set will be printed off sometime over the next few days. The one I used today will be removed, as the decal itself isn’t perfect, I’ve also changed the font as well, but I used this font as I wanted to see how easy they were to produce and use. The whole process is quite long winded though, print out the design on the decal paper, leave this to dry thoroughly, this one took a couple of days! Spray a coat with varnish, this can be Matt, Satin or Gloss, but it does need to be waterproof varnish. Leave to dry and then apply a second coat of varnish and leave to dry again, once the second coat is dry, they are ready to use. Actually applying them is no different to proprietary decals and the finish is just as good. So, on the whole, I’m really pleased with how they’ve all turned out. I can now give some serious consideration to producing decals for locomotives, trucks and coaches in the future. The lettering is about 5mm tall, but looks bigger in the photo, which is being rather cruel. 

 

 

I then turned my attention to the turntable and the 4 exit/entry roads. 1 was fitted last weekend, today I cut the last remaining 3 to size. The last 2 sleepers at the ends, where they cross over the board join were removed and replaced with copper-clad strips soldered to the rails. Using 15A fuse wire, I then fitted droppers to each of the rails. I’ve used fuse wire because for a few reasons;

1/  I have a couple of reels of it, 

2/  it only requires a 1mm small hole drilling through the baseboard, so ballast won’t fall through the hole. 

3/  the wire is thin enough to be almost invisible, but large enough to carry the layout current. 

Finally 2 of the rails were glued into place and left clamped in place until fully set. The last piece of rail crosses the board joint at an angle and will need more work than the other two, which cross the join oat 90 degrees. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Walk, football,tea, two films, bedtime,

Goodnight

Robert

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Evening all from Estuary-Land. This popped up on Farcebook:-

The mind boggles! cheese and Marmite hot cross buns.

Couldn't be much worse than this..

[pH]

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Evening all from Estuary-Land. This popped up on Farcebook:-

The mind boggles! cheese and Marmite hot cross buns.

 

40 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Couldn't be much worse than this..

This is a gelato shop in Vancouver. Look  at the number of flavours they offer now, and the total number of flavours they have ever offered:

http://lacasagelato.com/

 

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a list of flavours online, but if you thought this “Two Ronnies” sketch

 

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9vjx5

 

was fiction, you’ve seen nothing!

 

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

Heaven be praised, a miracle, or at least a pleasant surprise.  Yesterday the letter inviting me to have a Covid jab finally arrived – one small step towards the return of life as we used to be able to enjoy it.  The letter was dated 25th January, which is a possible indication of the importance and urgency attached to the vaccination programme.  Users are offered a choice of venues, several having been added quite recently: I chose a gym.  I used the website to book both jabs.  It kept telling me that there was a problem with one of the dates that I had chosen without being specific as to which one – surely an avoidable fault, I feel.  Eventually all was sorted.  My first injection will be on Thursday 11th February at 9.55 am with the second on Sunday 2nd May at 10.05 am.  To misquote Fred Flintstone, jabba dabba doo.  Many thanks to fellow ERs for encouragement and patience!

 

Some unwitting entertainment was provided yesterday lunchtime by a cold caller.  She: “I’m calling from Domestic and General about the warranty on your washing machine”.  Me: “Madam, I have neither.  P!ss off!”  Have you no shame, Chris?  Absolutely not.

 

Today’s lunch will be the other lamb shank in red wine sauce, preceded and followed by unspecified pottering.  I suppose I had better do the ironing too.  Oh joy.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare,

5 hours plus 1 hour sleep so far.. I'll try for more shortly.

 

Ben the demanding Collie dragged me from my place of repose, to go on patrol. There is something wrong with the weather, the footpath is dry, there is no precipitation, the wind has eased a bit, though it's still cool.

 

Some years ago when working for GEC, SWMBO saved the company many tens of thousands of pounds on on paper purchasing. Her boss took all the credit and got a personal letter of thanks from head office.

After that SWMBO  embedded  "produced by"  "name " into all documents when she went on to review other purchase contracts. Her  boss was  effectively computer  illiterate and never removed all  SWMBOs embedded names, and of course couldn't ask how to do it, as that would expose what she was up to.

 

Tesco, had many vegetarian packets of haggis on their sell off shelves, I bought a couple to try... Well it's not haggis, the flavour is not there, it's milder, but not unpleasant, it doesn't  quite get the texture right either.

Cooking wise the traditional boiling in its wrapper would work ok. But because it's just me that eats it , it was sliced it for freezing in portions. The first was directly fried with yesterday's breakfast, it doesn't hold together as well and falls apart. 

 

I won't be buying more for two reasons..

A, it's not as good.

B , having read the full label , it's 36% carbohydrate , not good for a diabetic, so future consumption till it's used up will be one small slice at a time..

 

Of dietary considerations, SWMBO has obviously got bored with researching art stuff online.. she's researching diet.. diabetes.. etc..   Help!!!!

 

Today's plans, make the next sections of shelving, sand the keel weight spreading board.

Also more measuring of trailer bits, this time working out exactly where to cut the old flat bed to produce parts for the rebuild.

 

Time to hit the snooze button.

[Barry O]

Ey up! 

 

Flipping freezing up here in the North West Leeds Highlands  this morning. 

 

Today will involve a lot of reading no muddling today.

 

I believe I may be placing some small lumps of beef, some shallots and some red wine into the slow cooker to ensure we yave someting to eat for tea tonight..

 

@chrisf all ggod things come to those that weight. I may be waiting a while as there are a lot of second jabs (about 7 million and counting) to be done shortly.

 

A mugatea has arrived so..

 

TTFN.

 

Baz

[jamie92208]

Good moaning, it's getting light here.  A fly has just been defeated by chemical warfare. We seem to get the odd one every couple of days. We think they come in with the logs. Anyway today's one got into the lampshade where I couldn't swzt it so a spray was succeffully deployed. Such passes fot amusement here at the moment.

 

Not a great deal got done yesterday but the room stayed anchored.  Much reading got done. I'm reading an autobiographical  book called Untold Stories by Alan Bennett and thoroughly enjoying it. He was a great friend of Russell Harty, who attempted to teach me English and once dropped me from playing Brutus in Julius Caesar because I chose to go to the model railway club rather than his rehearsal.  

 

We are off out for lunch at a friends later but another quiet day was decreed last night, whether or not that changes has yet to be seen.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

Edited January 31, 2021 by jamie92208

[5 C]

11 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

I once wrote a paper back in my NHS management days, about a year long project I had undertaken with a senior nurse, myself as admin. manager but as equal partners.  She distributed the paper with my name removed from it.

 

It was a mistake to do so, as many of the senior managers and the Nursing Director knew of my role, and it was obvious to those I had worked with over the years it was written very much in my style.  It backfired very badly for the nurse, quite ruined her promotional prospects in fact, but did mine a lot of good!  Rankled for a very long time though.

 

I once worked for someone whose approach was to rubbish any good idea that you proposed, telling you why it wouldn't work or would be too costly etc. Two or three weeks later, I'd suddenly find myself implementing my own idea, full approved and sanctioned by senior management with no acknowledgement of my involvement.

 

It was when a someone joined the department and confided that a similar thing had happened to them, I realised what was going on. I also understood why another colleague would always discuss their ideas in front of witnesses. 

 

In spite of being caught out at least once to my knowledge, it didn't seem to hamper this particular individual's career.

[jonny777]

Cold and frosty here in North Somerset, but at least it is dry and bright. 

 

I remember reading Untold Stories many years ago. Wasn't that where the original Lady In The Van materialised? 

 

I've finished all the 9-a-side photos into their sleeves, and find that the postcard sized ones will need 4-a-side ones. I don't have any of those and so an online visit to my Ebay supplier is imminent. 

 

The sausages are in the pan, and Sunday fry-up is taking shape.   

[jamie92208]

9 hours ago, jonny777 said:

I remember reading Untold Stories many years ago. Wasn't that where the original Lady In The Van materialised? 

 

 

I'm not sure, she was mentioned briefly some pages back so she may well appear later. It appeals to me on many levels, particularly as it deals with many places that I know well.  I've identified that his parents moved to Clapham from Leeds. I did live in Clapham for 9 months in 58 and 59. Similarly his Leeds childhood deals with many places that I know well. Reading seems to be better than screen time at the moment.

 

Jamie

Edited January 31, 2021 by jamie92208

[leopardml2341]

Mornin'

 

Cuppa being drunk, breakfast and then wrap up for a visit to the summershed to continue with the doors. All is coming together quite well (that's blown it) and I should by the end of today be able to bring them indoors for painting.

 

Doggo is resolutely sleeping, and I must admit to needing a bit more myself - he will however become immediately fully awake if his favourite toy was to be thrown

 

How do they do that?

 

Last night's sleep was a bit patchy. It was interspersed with some weird dreams which involved Class 03 Shunters part buried in a post apocalyptic mixture of a nuclear winter and a desert observed from the bridge across the Trent in Willington.

 

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. I hope the day brings lots of what you hope for, relief for those ill or hurting and happiness for those who might be feeling a bit sad. 'bye for now.

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by leopardml2341
A couple of speeling erras

[polybear]

 

12 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

Just hope that nothing happens to it in that period.

 

Bear would be pulling a critical relay or two to prevent theft, though a tile coming off the house roof could be more problematic...

 

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Couldn't be much worse than this..

 

Now that is very, very, wierd. Oh, hang on, it's Oz we're talking about.  Normal then.....

 

32 minutes ago, 5 C said:

I once worked for someone whose approach was to rubbish any good idea that you proposed, telling you why it wouldn't work or would be too costly etc. Two or three weeks later, I'd suddenly find myself implementing my own idea, full approved and sanctioned by senior management with no acknowledgement of my involvement.

 

It was when a someone joined the department and confided that a similar thing had happened to them, I realised what was going on. I also understood why another colleague would always discuss their ideas in front of witnesses. 

 

In spite of being caught out at least once to my knowledge, it didn't seem to hamper this particular individual's career.

 

Be worth feeding in an idea that looks good on paper, but all except the guilty party knows will back fire big time a little way down the line......