PhilJ W

Goodnight all.

I wonder what he was using for bait?

It refers to both sides of the estuary, there has always been a lot of cross river commuting. In doing my family research I found that my dads family were watermen based at Gravesend covering several generations as far back as the 16th century, from the records many of my ancestors spent time living on either side of the river, as did many other families.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Cold and frosty start this morning but by the time I go out there should be no need to de-ice the car. Tried out the stroller yesterday, useful but a bit cumbersome especially when it comes to getting on to buses. It should come into its own though at exhibitions etc. which was the main reason for its purchase. Nice to hear from Debs but we will have to refrain from mentioning model railways. GDB I sympathise with your other half's dislike of needles, I put mine down to the injections we used to receive at school. My surname begins with a W and as they went by the class register I was amongst the last to be injected. This was in the days before disposable needles and they used only two or three needles for what often was a class of 30 to 40 kids, rotating the needles through a kidney dish of surgical spirit. By the time they got to the end of the queue those needles were pretty blunt, ouch! One kid almost looked forward to injections but then his name was Abbot, the one named Young used to disappear when it was announced that injections were in the offing.

Goodnight all.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Eastonite according to Google is a type of reconstituted stone such as marble but back in the day IIRC it was a type of hardboard with a laminated 'wood effect'. Bright and sunny but cold today so a venture into town today and the first chance to give the stroller a proper test. So long for now, be back later.

Goodnight all.

Congratulations Ed.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Popped down to Tesco's this lunchtime and there was a bit of a fuss when I came out. A woman had returned to her car, loaded her shopping and gone to return the trolley to the bay. She had left the tailgate of her car open and whilst she was away a pidgeon had got into the car. She eventually managed to shoo the pidgeon out but not before it had left a couple of deposits on the upholstery. Fortunately for her there is a car valeting service in the car park.

Post arrived about half an hour ago with a pleasant surprise. Just before Christmas I ordered a couple of pairs of jeans from J D Williams as recommended by another ER. The pleasant surprise was a voucher for £6.50 which as I intend to make further purchases from them is very welcome. Also I have started using the tea from the Wee Tea Company as recomended by Mal and that is pretty good stuff as well. No worries about the catering size pack as it is re-sealable. Loose tea comes in two sizes, large leaf and fine leaf. The fine leaf is what you normally find on the supermarket shelves and is suitable for normal teapots but the filter teapots such as I have are better using large leaf as it does not clog the filter.

The bottle visible in the clip didn't have any effect on it then?

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Gordon, very sorry to hear of your troubles. Like us humans dogs seem to go for food that is bad for them. We've all heard that chocolate is bad for dogs but grapes in any shape or form is far worse, but at least you have reacted in time by the looks of it. Rather dismal and wet here this morning but forecast to clear up later. Bye for now, be back soon.

Goodnight all.

The traffic police do have their favourite spots for setting up radar speed traps. One such place is Winkletye Lane in Hornchurch near to where it has a junction with the A127. There is a steepish down grade before the junction followed by a straight stretch of about 200 metres. On the straight stretch there is a wide pavement with a couple of overhanging trees where the police wait as they can't be seen until you are almost on them. One morning when travelling in the opposite direction I espied the police waiting there and as I was going up the hill a woman in a sports car at about 50 mph (in a 30mph zone) came over the hill in the opposite direction. I flashed a warning but her reply was to give me the finger as she flashed by, silly girl.

Have just taken delivery of the stroller, it will fit in the car, just. Problem is there is nowhere indoors to park it at present until the building work is completed. Now off to do some shopping, be back later.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Cold and frosty this morning but the sun beginning to shine through. I've got to wait in anyway as I'm expecting a delivery. The delivery I'm expecting is a stroller as my legs can no longer stand going around exhibitions and swap meets any more without taking a rest. I've chosen one with a seat and a small 'saddlebag' that when folded will fit in the car. The 'after' pic was taken at a slightly different angle, the silo is only just out of shot, look at the round evergreen shrub on the right. I'm dead jealous as well, I was considering an overseas property but one of the conditions of the equity release was that you couldn't use the money raised to purchase another property.

Goodnight all.

I notice from the photos above and other pics that the road/rail crane is lifted completely from the tracks.

The 'blood and custard' livery was replaced from 1961 with a grey-cream colour described as 'light stone' which was replaced by yellow about 1968. The Commer Walk-Thru van was introduced in 1962 so its highly unlikely that any had the crimson/cream livery.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Weather is as reported by Tony, though I haven't checked for frost which the forecast says will be with us with a vengance tomorrow morning. Glad to hear Neil's sorted out his smells, I was going to suggest, as a last resort using a high pressure air line to clear it. I know of someone who did successfully clear an obstruction in that way, problem was that he didn't warn the rest of the household and someone was using the downstairs loo.

Goodnight all.

Could it be some blockage of the overflow such as stale soap? and have you tried putting the drain cleaner directly into the overflow.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Isn't opening a book on GDB's next accident tempting fate? an accident is no laughing matter. Ventured out to the shops this afternoon, hardly any traffic and no crowds. I can only assume that a lot of the c*ckwombles were at home nursing sore heads. I noticed though several people wheeling out trolleys laden with reduced 'bargains', what they are going to do with a dozen boxes of battered prawns with todays 'use by' date I don't know. I did find a bargain myself though in Asdas, a bottle of wine, a couple of cheeses and a jar of pickle all for a fiver, and in a wooden presentation box. (And the use by date, applying just to the cheeses, is a week away.)

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Now suitably recovered, I didn't sleep to well last night due to the arthritus playing up as usual when the weather changes but it seems OK now. I was once plagued by a similar problem to Neil accompanied by a gurgling sound from the basin waste whenever the bath was emptied. It turned out that the pressure of the water leaving the bath forced air in the downpipe from the basin through the U-bend. The basin was close to but 'downstream' from the bath followed by 2 metres of horizontal pipe to the sewer. When I had the bathroom suite replaced I mentioned it to the plumber and he sorted the problem by the downpipe from the wash basin into the horizontal pipe via a Y junction instead of a T junction. Originally the bath and wash basin had their own outlets into the sewer but a previous owner had combined the two when he had the bathroom re-modelled. The plumber had a few choice words about the previous instalation, obviously a DIY job but what do you expect from someone who chose 'ox-blood' as a colour for the bathroom suite.