BoD

The coach company that Mrs BoD and daughter are travelling with decided to cancel the 'shopping in London' part of the trip and head straight off home. After a few hours they are not much further North and are snarled up in traffic and snow. It doesn't look that good. I don't think that it is necessarily the snow per se that is to blame, just lack of many people's experience of or practice driving in it. I remember when I was learning to drive we had a heavy snowfall. Today my lesson would undoubtedly have been cancelled but back then my instructor took me out onto quiet country roads and let me 'play' in the snow for the hour's lesson.

Morning all No snow here, nor any forecast. It was frosty earlier but it soon disappeared and seems quite mild at the moment. Mrs BoD and daughter are In London after watching 'Les Mis' last night and sometime today will be travelling by coach back to the North East. We will have to see how that one pans out. I wonder how DD and his hill in Wales are. Have a good day and look after yourselves.

That all sounds rather sad, Tony. I do hope it is just down to him being unwell.

Hi James. Great to hear from you again. Yes, I finally retired and have started 'the big one'. Whether or not I ever finish it..... who can tell... but I'm certainly enjoying doing it. If ever I get near finished you will have to pay another visit.

Enjoy.

Is this that rare? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bachmann-00-Gauge-South-West-Trains-Class-159-DMU-31-514/282752428715?_trkparms=aid%3D777003%26algo%3DDISCL.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D49138%26meid%3D270dfec01c4449cfa207cfaf04c89edb%26pid%3D100012%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D253287377229&_trksid=p2047675.c100012.m1985

Seconded.

Apparently one of the rail blockages thus morning was caused by a trampoline.

I think you failed under 8.07.a

Evening all. I have spent a lot of today fixing toys from the nursery where my daughter works. These toys are for the very youngest and they all have lots of flashing lights and make sounds when the various buttons are pressed. Some just needed their batteries changed. I don't think that there is anyone at the nursery particularly technologically minded. Others had, as you might expect, when being used day in day out by the very young taken a bit of hammering, Some simply needed speaker or battery leads re-soldering but a few had actual breaks on the PCB tracks. I managed to get them all working but I suspect if they had to pay me for my time it would have been cheaper to throw them away and buy new, such is the way of the world today. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Some people still haven't worked out that if they use a phone it negates the need to shout to the other person.

When two teams finish equal on points they look at their record in the two games against each other rather than goal difference. If I remember correctly Chelsea lost away and drew at home against Roma and so Roma finished above them. The actual fine detail of the results might not be totally correct (I can't remember for certain) but you get the general gist of it.

As long as you keep him off the Doom Bar before he starts. For a free/donate-if-you-like piece of software Rocrail is very impressive and is continually under development. For example, Suzie, of this parish, created symbols for British style semaphore signals and they were included in an update. I suspect I will use each of the three modes at one time or another.

As Neil says almost all of the physical evidence of the mining heritage has gone. There is very little left of pit heads and associated buildings themselves. Don't forget the Stadium of Light is built on the site of Monkwearmouth Colliery, one of the last to close. If anything is left it is mostly the pit wheels which have been made into memorials in many pit villages. Old shafts have been sealed and all that is left are small chimney like structures which, I understand, are part of environmental monitoring systems. Unless, of course, the strategic reserve is down there rather than in Box tunnel.

Touché. From the master, well have I learnt.

It was exactly the same in teaching, Neil. i like to think (hope) that my experience was valuable but that I was always part of the team and open to the new ways. As the first computer/IT teacher in the school, all those years ago, I was at one point 'the new way'. I hope I didn't stagnate.

I see what you mean.

Here we go again. Hope those skips are still there.

It may please you to know that, whilst the collieries have all gone, Whitley Bay and Hawthorn haven't.

To put the prescription saga to bed. Today I was dealt with by four friendly, proficient NHS people and one totally incompetent jobsworth. The later wasted most of my morning and a good deal of a pharmacist's valuable time. She went 'off duty' at lunchtime and then the others sorted out the issue pleasantly and efficiently. As a result, tomorrow morning my consultant will be faxing my GP his instructions for an alternative to the medication that is unavailable and the surgery will ring me when the prescription is ready. It is interesting to note that the polite efficient ones were all part of today's 'yoof' whilst the incompetent jobsworth may well have started out as Hippocrates' receptionist.

Thanks Mick. I quite like some of the newer DCC concepts products but, as I said earlier, I have been building up the stock and equipment ready for this layout over a few years now and much wasn't available back then. It all seems to still do its job though so I have no need or plans to upgrade anything yet. The newer solenoid decoders with the 'last state' memory are tempting though.

There must be a guy in Nigeria sitting on thousands upon thousands of millions of dollars because nobody ever takes up his kind offers.

GP receptionist (on my third visit) What's the problem now? Me: Wind GP's dragon: Is it discomforting? Me: No. I'm p###ing against it.

This tail chasing regarding the precription is proving far more frustrating than I could ever have imagined. And having worked with teenagers for nigh on 40 years I know what frustration can be like.