TheSignalEngineer

When my mother needed them in Birmingham they were virtually non-existant.

Can also be used as a soup base. We tend to freeze some of it for winter use. Plenty of recipes online like this one. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/italianstylezucchini_9833

Sadly days long since passed. Now you are lucky if you can get past Sister Drac to see a locum or work experience GP, whose diagnostic skills totally depend on the ability to work a keyboard and view the NHS website

https://www.google.com/amp/s/therewillbenutmeg.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/floras-famous-courgette-cake/amp/ It's included in Nigella's 'Domestic Goddess' book. You can also make it as a chocolate cake.

Tends to be a bit hit and miss depending on the time of day. Since Brexit the peaks have changed as we don't get the same number of lorries on the Ireland to Europe dash between boats. School run times are the worst through Glossop and Dinting. If you know the back ways you can avoid most of the traffic lights through Glossop. You can always do the circular tour I do on my E-Bike which is Glossop, Ladybower, Bamford, Hope, Edale and Mam Nick or Castleton and Wynatts Pass to the old Mam Tor road landslips, then Chinley and Hayfield

After a busy week of painting the ceiling and walls in the hall and landing a decorating free day was declared today. Between the showers after breakfast some carrots were harvested for the coming week. I prepared a round metal receptacle to take the mixture for the festive fruit cake and it was baked in my absence watching Baz and Co. playing with their toys in Leeds. Said cake has now been placed in a @polybear-proof container and hidden away. It will be infused with alcoholic liquids for the next six weekends before I put the festive decorations on it. @polybear will be pleased to note that the last courgettes of the season have now been used for more cake. When filling and topping have been added tomorrow it will be for immediate consumption as I need to demolish it within seven days of production. tomorrow looks as if it could be fine to the south and east of us so subject to a review when I wake it could be a good day for a bike ride, possibly down the former C&HPR route.

Not bad for a man who appeared for the defence for Ronnie Biggs at the Great Train Robbery trial although he did reportedly send a donation to the Jack Mills fund as well

Woodhead was a bit busier than I expected which was probably down to the M62 problems, a breakdown J25-J24 and accident J23-J22 westbound apparently. The A628 has a problem at the moment because it looks as if someone has clouted the Armco and parapet at Salters Brook. The road is down to one lane over the bridge. I turn off at the Crowden junction and over the Woodhead Dam to get across to home. Usually I find the worst part is further on between the A628/A57 junction at the Gun traffic lights in Hollingworth and the Mottram crossroads but fortunately don't go that way often now.

First time I've been to Leeds show. Excellent layouts, it would be difficult to pick the best. A few glitches as stuff hasn't been pressed under show conditions but the standard of the modelling made up for that. It didn't matter if there were a few gaps in running as there was so much to take in. Thanks to Baz and his friends for arranging a fine show, and to all the layout operators for coming to perform for us.. It was great to be back at the barriers watching. As I hadn't driven through Leeds for about 15 years I avoided the centre and went up the M1 to the Ring Road. Found my way quite easily although I haven't used it for five years, just followed the Ring Road signs and turned right at the Harrogate sign. Bit of a jam at Crossgates but otherwise OK. Coming back got a clear run right through to the temporary traffic lights above Woodhead. I thought of coming back via the M62 and Holme Moss but hadn't checked the details so stuck to the way I knew.

The infamous Judge Michael Argyle, he of the Oz trial, was all for that. Just after he was elevated to the Bench, possibly as Stipendiary Magistrate or Recorder, there was a serious outbreak of phone box vandalism in Birmingham. One of the culprits was caught and came up before him. Guilty - Three Months imprisonment-Take him down! Problem solved until he got promoted.

In addition to today's usual antivirus spam email I have apparently won a £1000 gift voucher for Amazon and secondly my details are required to confirm my winning entry in the Tesco Prize draw.

Surely a bit of black cinder residue on top of the boiler would cut down on the amount of weathering needed You could still smell the soot in the tunnel between Farringdon and Blackfriars 20 years after it closed.

Good to see everything running smoothly this afternoon. Eric

I get lots of spam messages about parcel deliveries, although in the last three weeks they seem to have been overtaken by the daily collection of emails telling me my antivirus subscription has run out. I'm tempted to tell them I have been vaccinated so no problem.

I was looking for some old coronavirus items on the Government website and came up with this. If you own a ferret You should isolate your ferret for 21 days if: you or your household are self-isolating you’ve brought your ferret to England from outside the Common Travel Area (UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) Isolation means you should prevent contact between your ferret and ferrets or people from other households.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a sparrow hawk sitting on the shed roof in our daughter's garden. It was studying activity around the bird feeder a few yards away. It returned the following morning, not for the small birds on the feeder but took out a feral pigeon picking up the bits that they had dropped on the lawn.

Get BoZo to go on TV and tell everyone there is no shortage of dogs and no need for panic buying. There will be a queue round the block by dawn tomorrow.

I was up at the real thing a couple of weeks ago. The track is easy to ride now some small diversions have been done at the head of the valley. I remember the first time I rode it having to carry my bike round flooded cuttings and over landslips.

In time we have lived in our present house our town has lost two banks, two building society branches and two agencies. The last to go was the Barclays we used. The letter gave two alternatives, the first of which takes 1 hour 20 minutes by public transport, by car not much better and little parking nearby. Public transport to the second is a flask and sandwiches job involving two trains or a 40 minute drive each way. You can tell how much the company knows about the area as the change of trains is about 300 yards from the largest branch for 30 miles around and that takes only 55 minutes to reach. My wife worked for Barclays many years ago and five of the seven branches she was at have now gone along with two of the three nearest branches to our old house.

Most of it seems to just be a brownish liquid chemically synthesized in Northampton with a percentage of alcohol added.

We had plenty of them a couple of weeks ago when the Snake Pass was on its two week annual closure for roadworks. Past the sign saying Snake Pass closed one mile ahead, past the matrix sign with flashing lights saying Snake Pass Closed, then past the big red sign saying Road Ahead Closed. Finally arriving at a big red sign saying Road Closed and a line of cones. The contractors got fed up of motorists moving the cones and going through so after a couple of days parked a Transit pickup blocking half of the road to turn back anyone who wasn't connected with the three buildings between the signs and the blockage point. We saw four turned back in five minutes during our morning walk last Friday.

It's more than free. Since the end of the VAT holiday the mandating of mask wearing would in fact make money for the Treasury.

A big factor at the time of the ordering of the Standards was that we were ***** broke as a nation. We had no financial reserves and couldn't afford to buy imports like oil. We didn't have much of a domestic oil industry or experience of building large diesel locomotives. What we did have was enough proven reserves of coal to last for at least 300 years, lots of miners, a large number of railway workshops which had been building steam for 125 years and a domestic steel industry. Lack of progress on electrification was a political matter. In 1969 I had on my desk a copy of the BR major projects programme. Headquarters prorities 1,2 and 3 were to electrify Weaver Jn to Glasgow, Kings Cross to Edinburgh and Swansea - Birmingham - YorK. If the wires had been started from Euston would the WCML have ever been finished? It was a smart move from BR to do Manchester to Crewe first as if the job didn't continue it would have been a political embarrassment that even thick skinned Tories could have probably not have lived down.

Sadly I cannot post my views of that eejit here as the profanity police will have me in the Tower. Suffice it to say I am not impressed by him.

Probably the signalman from Walsall No.3 box which was under Park Street bridge immediately behind the cameraman. Because there was little or no warning of the culvert under the station overflowing and causing a flash flood there used to be a boat kept there tied to the box steps. Without it the signalman could be trapped by rising fast flowing dirty floodwater. Around 1968 I was working on the telecomms section at the divisional office. The phone rang and the voice at the other end said "Is that the coastguard?" No, it's the S&T office. "Hello, it's Ron, I'm in Walsall exchange. I've just opened the door to go to lunch and the water is up round the doorstep." Walsall exchange was on the platform to the left hand edge of the pictute.