Early Risers.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Grey sky here but it should become sunny in the next couple of hours and temperatures up to 26°C are forecast.

My decoders turned up about 4.30 yesterday afternoon so today I will be fitting one of them to Tornado and hoping that I don't mess that up.  My point has been dispatched to that could possibly arrive today and then I can get on with fixing the track problem.  

Spoke to the garage about my car's orange warning light. They said it's probably battery level as I haven't been using the car but need to check it out.  It's also due for an annual service so I booked it in for Thursday.  I timed it just right phoning as up until now they've only been dealing with emergency breakdowns but are just about to email customers saying that normal servicing etc is being resumed.  They expect a massive rush of bookings.  My only problem then was to figure out the best way to get back from the garage (which is 5 miles away) and then return later to pick it up.   Didn't fancy a bus ride or minicab so spoke to a friend round the corner (husband and wife are both Black Cab drivers and there's more distancing and a glass partition in them) and although they're not working through the lockdown he will oblige.  What's more he says that he won't charge me but we'll see about that.  There will certainly be some some sort of reward.

Yesterday's aches and pains have subsided so will probably go for a walk before it gets too hot.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by grandadbob

[polybear]

 

20 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Going for a walk is a lot easier now, I don't have to make way for people, they make way for me!

 

You will find a lot of people treat you like you have the plague, shield their children from you, cross the road or simply jump into bushes to avoid you.

 

 

I have a delivery of Landscaping materials being delivered tomorrow from a company in Crews Hill, Enfield; locals will know this place as an area to be avoided "like the plague" during Bank Holiday weekends (and weekends in general, for that matter) as it is a fairly long road with Garden Centres all literally next to one another.  When I asked the nice lady (who's company is on telephone orders only, and plan to stay that way) what it's like in the area, she informed me that it's "absolutely manic".  Seems that Garden Centres are immune from the dreaded Big V....

Incidentally, I've got 550kg of chippings and a Railway Sleeper to shift tomorrow.  Fortunately "one of" the Supermarket Food delivery drivers "forgot" (how the hell) his sack barrow some years ago when delivering to a neighbour.  Neighbour did phone supermarket to mention this, but they never collected......and now neighbour has moved and I've inherited it All supermarket branding labels "fell off" the barrow years ago, strangely.....

 

15 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

If I were to conjure up names for the very nice lady and her two daughters (in their early 20s) who live next door I'd probably be arrested for something or other should the names escape my lips.

 

Photos please....

 

10 hours ago, Barry O said:

I am amused by people on RMWeb who should know better expounding on how things (which have been in use for 30 years or so) won't work...

 

Baz

 

Wouldn't happen to have anything to do with certain methods of Compensation, by any chance....?

[Barry O]

Claim your prize..polybear!

Baz

[Kingzance]

Morningorl,

 

Weekly weigh-in yesterday was a little disappointing as it confirmed a change in direction. I am sure being incarcerated isn’t helping as it is diminishing the amount of exercise I get. The fridge being reasonably well stocked is another factor, as are the readily available choices of various alcoholic tinctures and an urge to indulge in calories morning, noon and night. Henceforth the noon intake will be blocked but the morning one may occur a little later and evening’s intake a little earlier. You and the UK’s beach users will be relieved to know that I have no intention of getting into a pair of lurid budgie-smugglers but I do need to be friendly to my legs if I expect to use them for any sustained length of time.

 

Plans indicated for yesterday were generally concluded satisfactorily and the grass looks much better for its drink. With the weather forecasted for this week, I may repeat that at the weekend. Today being Tuesday means I shall stroll to Ian The Fish this afternoon to purchase an underside fillet of plaice for her (being unwilling to try much else) and whatever he has that takes my fancy. I shall resist buying another crab even if he has one as I regard this as an occasional treat rather than the regular diet. On a related matter, as we were walking from the pharmacy to the Marcus & Spencius (and Up Pompeii to you too) Food Emporium, we passed the town’s Fish & Chip shop which has seemingly re-opened to telephoned orders. SWMBO has decreed that we shall avail ourselves of their service - in direct competition to my plans for an intake of very reduced carbohydrate quantity. 
 

Tasks to complete today include ordering the gifts for eldest granddaughter’s birthday two weeks hence, leaving time for a last minute panic when my wife and daughter discover duplication and granddaughter changes her mind - she is, after all and foremost - a woman in the making and, in my opinion, one who may well challenge The Stationmaster’s neighbours in the looks department (not that I have any detailed knowledge of his neighbours I would have you know) - but I would say that, wouldn’t I!

 

Must go, it is time I produced a breakfast suitable for a dieting lert, possibly to the warm sounds of a well liked LP. The breakfast will not be fried over a massive valve amplifier, I use silicon / germanium interfaces these days. Be good, be careful and become a lert!

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Yet another dull start to the day here in the northwest of England. Now that breakfast has been consumed I will head down to the bottom of the garden and make a start on sanding down the arbour. The reason I’m doing this near the shed and workshop is to keep the dust away from the house etc. Hopefully this task will be done today and will then be ready for painting. Spearfish which, I still haven’t had a delivery or been given a date for delivery yet, I can see a number of phone calls may be needed. 

 

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

[AndrewC]

Moaning all from the “Not the Chelsea Flower Show” boring borough. The plan is to spend as much of the day in the garden as practical. Break-B-Q consumed. Lattes being enjoyed in the sun. Currently a sunny 17c with a predicted 26c for a high. 

 

In the early days of the CD there was a lot of care and effort put into making them the best possible sound. The past few years with the advent of downloads and cheap crappy phone speakers the quality of the recordings has suffered. This is reflected in the quality of what gets blasted onto CDs. The bit rate of the master flac files on some is down to around 330khz no better than an average mp3. Compared to the CDs bit rate of 1411khz/16bit the remaining sound is very poor. The latest 180g vinyl actually contains more of the music than many poorly mastered CDs. Some of my CDs from the late 80s sound a hell of a lot better than more recent purchases. Some of my latest remastered vinyl sounds better than some of my newer CDs. Hopefully the H-R audio will continue to grow in popularity. Basically it is 7 times the resolution of CD. The fan bois are calling it HDTV of sound. 

 

@iL Dottore I still have a quad pink vinyl of Dark Side of the Moon. My amp has an SQ decoder built in but sadly the stylus on my turntable can’t handle it properly. Still sounds bloody amazing though.  I see the latest re-release of Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth has a bonus blu-ray in 5.1 sound that is mastered to sound like the original quad release. 

 

Time to wander the garden and smell the roses. 

Enjoy the day. 

[Shedman5]

Morning, rain overnight (welcome) just grey outside at the moment with a promise of sunshine later this afternoon.

 

As we went into lockdown I received a recall notice for my car re a software update, now the garage service side is open I am booked in for 11am this morning for this to take place. Should take about an hour apparently. So shortly I will be venturing out for this which means I am excused the shopping trip with other half.

 

I will be back later

 

Enjoy your day!

[grandadbob]

The promised sunshine has appeared and we've been for a walk.  Glad I remembered to wear a hat as my head is till sore from the other day.  Once again I managed a mile and a half before various joints decided that that was probably enough for one day.  

Muggacoffeetime now and I will then proceed in an orderly manner to The Shed.  Once there I will try very hard not to swear.

 

[southern42]

' morning all from red dragon land.

 

Wet yesterday, but some progress made on the workbench...errrrm...dining table.

 

I sorted the fife music into 3 self seal wallets left over from my art & design days - I knew they would come in handy, one day!  They will do until I am ready to progress onto more music - I have loads of the stuff!  Plenty to keep me going for a while, anyway.

 

I eventually remembered to sort the recycling for its collection which will be sometime today.  If it is not put out the night before, the chances are they will arrive for at a silly hour in the morning and we will miss it!  Black bin day (now extended to once every 3 weeks) is typical of that.  Access via a narrow lane also means our rubbish goes into a small caged lorry.

 

A bit of  glueing to do, today on a 10mm wide headboard and, maybe, a bike ride on the spot - I am keeping my eye on the weather: low cloud and windy, brightening up later with some increase in wind speed, nextdoor's hedge should give some shelter.

 

A good amount of rain, yesterday, and lack of sunshine, now, means watering the plants will not be needed to be done, today.  

 

Fitt   and   Elfie working out as usual.  

 

Have a productive/restful (delete as desired) day.

Take care and play safe.

_________

Best wishes

Polly

 

 

[Chris116]

Breakfast eaten (fried bacon, fried egg and toast), tea drunk, about to get a mugacoffee. Yesterday was scrambled egg on toast and the day before porridge so I don't have too much fried stuff! 

 

Living in a fifth floor flat I have some great views across London but thankfully no garden as I hate gardening with a passion. Probably go for an exercise walk via one of the local shops to collect some milk. 

 

I really need to get my bedroom tidied so a start can be made on the layout. I have had goodness knows how long and have failed miserably to make even a start to the job that was going to be done as soon as I retired (that would have been 13th May 2016)!

 

I blame too much time spent on RMweb and doing jobs SWMBO thinks are more important. 

 

Stay safe, be alert (most of those who need be alert don't seem to know what it means). 

 

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

have a delivery of Landscaping materials being delivered tomorrow from a company in Crews Hill, Enfield; locals will know this place as an area to be avoided "like the plague" during Bank Holiday weekends (and weekends in general, for that matter) as it is a fairly long road with Garden Centres all literally next to one another.

When visiting MiL the sat nav sends us through Crews Hill if the traffic on the A10 is bad. I commented that there seem to be a lot of garden centres. Aditi once visited most of them over a two day period when she was “Mummy sitting”. Her Mum wanted to visit one to buy a present but couldn’t remember which one she wanted. The second day was to return to look for her Mum’s missing earring.

Tony

[Chris116]

11 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

To use a rather old fashioned expression i think it can be said that all three are rather comely examples of the female gender.

Naughty, naughty. 

[southern42]

   11 hours ago,  The Stationmaster said: 

To use a rather old fashioned expression i think it can be said that all three are rather comely examples of the female gender.

3 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

Naughty, naughty. 

 

  

 

Polly

[Rugd1022]

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I assumed that the band all had swampy origins but I eventually learned they were all Californian. 

 

In a similar vein a lot of people assume The Eagles are all Californians, but their origins are actually from Detroit. In a slightly related vein, on their first American tour The Jesus & Mary Chain were booked into a bible belt venue in some backwater town on the assumption that they were a gospel group, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at that gig...!

 

Of late I've been rediscovering some old favourites from across the briny, mostly early stuff by The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Moby Grape, Jefferson Airplane, Love, The Doors and The Byrds etc, it really is refreshing to hear those evocative sounds again....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chris116]

18 minutes ago, southern42 said:

 

  

 

So that's the two daughters but where is mum? 

[Tony_S]

Good morning.

Sunny with pleasant breezes here. It is very quiet here today. I think someone in nearby road was cleaning cement mixers  by tumbling rubble yesterday. Just the sound of birds tweeting and cooing today. 
I have been tracking a parcel. Milan, Rome, Bologna, Milan, Stanford le Hope (since Sunday), now out for delivery. 
I was mildly amused that some of the valve preamps available  quite cheaply don’t actually appear to use any of the valve circuitry apart from the heater producing a nice glow. I have a useable turntable and play LPs we don’t have cd or digital copies of. If I want to play with surround sound my Yamaha amp has all kinds of digital processing effects.

Tony

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Still a fair bit lot to do in the garden, removal of the grass revealed two or three ant-hills, a couple of them were used to fill a hole where a tree stump had been and the other will follow shortly. Also there was the remains of a slow worm that had been caught in the mower blades, that had gone this morning curtesy of Mr. fox who also left his calling card,

1 hour ago, Chris116 said:

So that's the two daughters but where is mum? 

I found this when looking for something else on Google.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp0rL5h4ikM

Thats it for now, be back later.

Edited May 19, 2020 by PhilJ W

[PhilJ W]

Oops nearly forgot, many happy returns to Sherry.

[Kingzance]

15 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Oops nearly forgot, many happy returns to Sherry.

May I echo that and hope you can soon enjoy some married company.

[grandadbob]

2 hours ago, grandadbob said:

I will then proceed in an orderly manner to The Shed.  Once there I will try very hard not to swear.

 

Pah, that went well  -- not!  ! Drat, damn, buggrit and other sweary type words.  I thought that before fitting (frying) another decoder I would give Tornado a final test on DC.  Good job I did.  It trundled around happily for about  4 laps and then there was an 'orrible smell and it came to a halt.  Took it all apart but couldn't find any signs of anything burnt but it is dead, deceased and kaput.  It is now beyond my limited capabilities to fix so will have to try and find a medic for it once we come out of lockdown.

Now having a cuppa and hoping the postman will bring me something else to mess up. 

 

Many Happy Returns Sherry!

Edited May 19, 2020 by grandadbob

[southern42]

 

Wishing a Happy Birthday, Sherry.  Have a great day.

Polly

[Gwiwer]

Greetings one and all.  A Happy Birthday to Sherry.  

 

It is warm.  It is sunny.  The fiasco of the one-way system and crowd controllers for no-one's benefit is left behind for another day.  The grass requires my attention with a chair, picnic table, muggercoffee and some sort of lunch.  I shall require a beer later if things continue as they are now.  

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Chris116 said:

Naughty, naughty. 

Hence no photo (and they haven't signed a model release form either)

[MichaelE]

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Very nicely done. I thought that it was a factory finish!

Actually, I think it’s quite a useful approach to take: to buy an inexpensive guitar that has a great neck and plays well and then upgrade the hardware. Thus ending up with a guitar of a much, much better quality than the sum of the cost of the parts would suggest.  With CNC and other computer-based or computer aided manufacturing processes, cheaply made guitars now are very, very playable (although at the cheap end of the market the electronics and hardware tend to be fairly poor, as is - sometimes - the finishing). Nonetheless, still much better than the cheap guitars available when I was a lad.
The house brand of Thomman, Harley Benton, gets rave reviews and there is a Harley Benton “PRS inspired“ guitar that I’m tempted to get as a “modding” project (although with cash flow being a bit of a problem at the moment it will be a toss up between buying the Harley Benton now, for instant gratification, or saving up my pennies for the HIWATT Little D rig)

I note your comment about the Epiphone Les Paul, currently the electric guitar I am reaching for the most is my Gibson Les Paul Gold Top (which is a second hand, recently produced, “70s tribute” model and not an original 50s gold top, alas). Mind you, the song I’m working on at the moment demands that PAF growl.

 

 

Thanks. A labor of love to be sure.

 

The 1960 Tribute has all of the Gibson hardware and electronics, but the body and neck of course are Chinese made. This is (or was, I don't see it in the catalog anymore) Epi's top of the line guitar several years ago. I've actually had two, but I didn't like it in blue so I sold it and bought another one in wine. I've had a lot of Gibsons in the past and I can't tell the difference in the two guitars.

 

Several years back I had a Turner Model 1LB, but traded it for a Gibson '57 VOS Custom in faded wine. 

 

I miss my Turner.

[Happy Hippo]

5 hours ago, polybear said:

Photos please....

 

 

 

The only three I could think of that would fit the description:

 

The one on the right is particularly cute.