Early Risers.

[AndrewC]

As useless as my GP's surgery is they do offer phleb Fridays for the elderly and disabled that can't always get to the QE or QM.

 

I still can't get over the fact that I have to go to a hospital for a simple blood test or x-Ray in this country. In Alberta most GPs and specialists are in bespoke centres. These have multiple practices, labs, and radiology labs. I could go to the quack, walk down the hall for the vampire or X-ray and the results would be back with the GP before I left the building. Chances are any referral would be to someone in the same centre. All private businesses but covered under healthcare.

[Barry O]

Had a busy day.

 

Moreasons shopping - no problem.

collected tickets for ODI cricket on 1st September

Parcel arrived from Client but the bits to add sound to it haven't.. b&gger!

Herself decides we need to prepare the youngest herbert's  spare bedroom. This involves moving a bed and assembling a bed in our bedroom.. job done...

 

Reprogrammed a Bachmann Deltic so that the sound and lights work again..hurrah!

 

Then various bits of catching up done, watched some cricket/olympics.  Gold medals - oh yes!

 

Next up tea followed by uploading the game information for the live computer scoring tomorrow.

 

Sunday sees me at Gildersome umpiring Bradford Ladies.

 

Ian A - I was on a flight from Heathrow to Leeds Bradford one friday evening. As usual chaos at Heathrow and the British Midland pilot (who I happened to know) came on the blower " no take off time or push back time so I am shutting the doors - please serve drinks!  " 10 minutes after take off time he came back and said " right, push back time now , we will take off and fly via Cardiff"... which we did and it was a record.. 31 minutes wheels up to wheels down!  happy days!

 

 

Baz

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone.

 

POETS day was achieved, getting home for just after 12:30 having been to the bank AND the butchers too! So we had pasties for lunch, a nice surprise for Mrs W. I even had a phone call from my manager this afternoon thanking me for my efforts over the last 2 weeks getting all my work done, 35 sites visited in total.

 

After lunch I emptied the car boot or all my work equipment and then refilled it with bits of the old shed, which I then deposited it at the tip, one more trip on Monday afternoon should clear the lot away.

 

Both Mrs W and myself would rather have our blood tests done at the hospital, it's nearer to our house than our and the nurse at the surgery is bl00dy useless, last time she tried she gave up after 2 attempts on each of my arms!

 

I'd have to agree with Stewart about M6 J34, it has been quite good this week. I've used/passed it 3 times this week and it's been fine, although I don't know what it's like at weekends.

 

Back later.

[roundhouse]

Our train to Exeter came in late but they turned it around and it left much on time. On time departure form reading aswell.

 

Unlike Southern at the moment. Many trains cancelled or delayed due to train crew shortage plus signal failure at Arundel and earlier train failures. all back to the normal farce now the strike is over.

 

ANyway, looking forward ot a few beers in Exeter in just over an hour and a half after we check into the hotel.

Edited August 12, 2016 by roundhouse

[laurenceb]

Rudely awoken at 6 am, not by a jackhammer but by a bloomin great bull moose chomping and snorting ten feet from the bedroom window. Might be the same one as last year but he's grown a lot if it is.

They show up at this time of year to hoover the fruit off the wild apple trees.

Do they get drunk?

[edcayton]

Car colours. When we were looking at new cars lately, in most cases you can only get one colour included in the price. The other colours seem to cost £500-£1000 extra. I was also disappointed by the range of colours available being a bit like carpets, namely 50 shades of beige.

 

Ed

[lightengine]

Our train to Exeter came in late but they turned it around and it left much on time. On time departure form reading aswell.

 

Unlike Southern at the moment. Many trains cancelled or delayed due to train crew shortage plus signal failure at Arundel and earlier train failures. all back to the normal farce now the strike is over.

 

ANyway, looking forward ot a few beers in Exeter in just over an hour and a half after we check into the hotel.

Drinking down the Quay?

[Happy Hippo]

I finally got to Greystoke (near Penrith) from the hippodrome in just under 6 hours. This was a combination of a traffic jam that stretched from Stoke on Trent (J15 is my join pointonto the M6) all the way to the flyover the Mersey and the ship canal.

 

I was grateful to leave at Preston, and followed the route reccomended on this forum.

 

Unfortunately all the lurkers on the RMWeb c*ckwombling badger bungling I failed the driving test thread were all going the same way in a combination of buses, lgvs, farm tractors and trailers, effing caravans and elderly out for a drive Skoda pointers.This last must be the modern equivalent of the Rover on a Sunday afternoon taking Clarence and Gladys to a picknick in a lay by.

 

I have no desire to exceed the speed limit, or drive in a careless or aggressive manner, but I do like to drive in a brisk manner and make good progress safely.

 

I am now enjoying watching the dressage having eaten sausage.

 

Perhaps I should now be considering a massage

[lightengine]

Good to see that the bad sportswomanship by the USA ladies goalkeeper, changing gloves before the last penalty, did not deny Sweden ladies from winning.

[emt_911]

The day definitely hasn't gone to plan.

 

I spent most of the afternoon dealing with engineers that had been sent to call outs that were exceedingly technical. This was followed by a phone call from the garage asking me to go down to look at a problem. Lets just say that it is safe and legal but will fail the next MOT. Technically it's BER so the boss now has to source a new one for me.

 

With all of this going on, I'm now behind with my normal work so I can see me working at least part of the weekend to catch up.

 

I need a beer

[Simon G]

Simon,

Try growing a few bamboo plants. They grow thick and tall and are not unattractive. 

The MiL's neighbour has some and after about 2 years they seem to be about 16-18 feet in height. 

N.B. I don't think he planted them as a result of my MiL moving in.  

 

Driving down to Cumbria tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the advice - and thanks to others who have posted about bamboo. I hadn't considered bamboo, but will certainly look into it. The main problem we have with planting anything is our proximity to the sea, so anything I plant needs to be wind and salt tolerant.

 

Enjoy your trip to Cumbria. At least it should be dry(ish) tomorrow.

 

I had a good day on the Ratty as usual, with one hiccup when a ticket clipper fell out of my pocket and off the train, without me noticing. Fortunately one of the passengers noticed and told me and a colleague, so we were able to recover the clippers on our return trip. I then recovered another guard's hat after he lost that en-route, and was able to get it back to him.

[Donw]

My labours are normally punctuated by the sound of trains particularly as they climb the bank from Watchet to Washford (cannot see them but the audio is good), however they are busy gathering the corn harvest. When doing the fields at the top of the garden the sound of the harvester drowns the train and to add insult to injury we were covered in Chaff as well. Still they have been lucky with the weather, whether it is a good crop I have no idea although it looked good when walking the footpath through it.

 

Don

[Purley Oaks]

Buying from the UK personally is fraught with getting a through the Manx test then if over 3 years old (this one is just over 3 years, so the dealer had to test it), a much more strict thing than an MOT. They like to fail cars from across so money is spent in local garages, it's a penance for not buying local.  But once passed we don't have an annual test.  Skint now, so no Blue Pullman for me.    

Hi Neil

 

Does this mean that Manx drivers can bring their untested-for-donkeys-years old bangers to drive on UK roads?

 

Cripes!

 

Mal

[roundhouse]

N

 

Drinking down the Quay?

No

 

WIll go into the Imperial then the Great Western. Loads of pubs planned for tomorrow though.

[Simon G]

 

Incidentally for view blocking trees the following aren't bad at all - sycamore (although they go bare in winter of course but they grow fast and prolifically) or holly (not so wide and tall as sycamore but they grow fairly quickly and they're green all year round).  The pic below shows the sycamores at the bottom of our garden - they were cutback about three years ago and are almost at the bottom of a bank about 25feet high (which is on our land), there is a house behind them on the next property but we can of course see it when the trees are bare.  The muntjac hide in the area at extreme left.

 

DSCF9386.jpg

Next door have a sycamore, and it doesn't tolerate the salt too well, and also ends up being shaped by the prevailing south-westerly winds. We had considered one ourselves, but ruled it out having seen how the one next door has fared. Thanks for the idea, though!

[pH]

Do they get drunk?

 

I'll let Andy answer that specific question. However, animals do get drunk on fermented fruits and grain. CN and CP have become much more diligent about cleaning up after grain train derailments in western Canada. Bears were eating the spilled grain and, if it had been on the ground for a while and had started to ferment, were getting high. Encountering a bear is scary enough, but a genuine bear with a sore head?

 

Also, the Okanagan valley in BC is a great fruit-growing area, both hard and soft fruit. Soft fruit, like peaches, has to be picked a couple of days before it's absolutely ripe, to allow time for it to be transported to stores. Fruit that was harvested too late used to be taken out into the hills and dumped. The cattle that range free in the hills found the dumping spot and were getting literally legless on fermenting peaches. Barbed wire was put up round the site, but the cattle were so hooked that they would plow through the wire, cutting themselves pretty badly in the process. Of course, fruit is disposed of in different ways today.

[grandadbob]

Good evening all,

Started off with seeing the doctor earlier and as I suspected I need blood tests (various) but also an ECG. Don't have to book as both are done at local hospital so just turn up and queue. The blood clinic opens at 7.30 weekday mornings and by then there are usually about 40 people waiting but they've normally got at least 6 bloodletters there so the wait isn't to bad. Apparently ECGs are done pretty quickly as well so it shouldn't take too long but I won't be able to go until Tuesday. The Boss must be worried about me as she's suggested I treat myself to something railway related.  

We had a smashing day and really enjoyable picnic with Nicki & grandkids + Abbie's boyfriend (really nice lad) at Box Hill in the sunshine. I got my legs out  for once and although applying some factor 30 missed a bit so am slightly burnt but nothing serious. I was invited to play football by the kids but declined on the grounds of medical advice. ​  Total lie but they believed me.   It was just nice sitting there in the sun with a lovely breeze and watching them enjoy themselves.

Now relaxing with a couple of cold beers and will catch up with some Olympic stuff shortly.

 

One (mobile phone) photo of the view towards Dorking especially for Ian & Sherry:

 

Edited August 12, 2016 by grandadbob

[New Haven Neil]

Fifty shades of fawn/beige cars - ours is dark beige then!  It's still DSB to me, I'm sure it's the same colour as a Renault 12 I had in 1980.  (Edit - Debs is colour blind, so it might be green for all she knows!)

 

Mal - yes!  However, our cars are far from the bangers of old, the way the system works is that any cars involved in an incident or just stopped on spec are taken to the test centre and gone over with a fine toothed spanner.  The idea is that in fear of this you maintain your car all year, rather than only when it fails an MOT - which is what most motorists do in the UK, lets face it.  The statistics pan out that our system works slightly better than an annual MOT.

 

Most cars here now are pretty good, don't forget we haven't had recession here, merely a slow down, so there is still plenty spend available.  There are so many Ferraris, Lambos and McLarens around they have become common.  Don't forget we are still a low tax environment, although not a tax haven now, you can't hide money here now but you do pay less tax - and there is a maximum amount of tax the super-rich have to pay, so it is very attractive to them.

Edited August 12, 2016 by New Haven Neil

[New Haven Neil]

Regie 12

 

 

B Max

 

 

Renault must have had the paint left over.....

[JohnDMJ]

Good Evening all,

 

Another POTS day completed and good to see that Southern Failways are back to their usual run of cancellations, delays and lack of staff!

 

Morning

Trains back to normal this morning except that there are still numerous spare seats around me even at Purley. Also the normal few minutes late.
 

 

Definition of normality required!

 

When we had our old water meter replaced with one that the meter reader didn't need to lie on the ground and shine a torch down a hole, it seemed to be a very uneventful event. Though our infrastructure is only 25 years old.
 

 Glad that Robbie is on the mend and being Robbie! Intrigued by your new water meter; is it similar to the, so called, smart gas and electricity meters which have their own SIM cards and are called periodically to report?

 

<Back on topic>

 

 How can you be back on topic on a thread which has no topic?

[newbryford]

I finally got to Greystoke (near Penrith) from the hippodrome in just under 6 hours. This was a combination of a traffic jam that stretched from Stoke on Trent (J15 is my join pointonto the M6) all the way to the flyover the Mersey and the ship canal.

 

I was grateful to leave at Preston, and followed the route reccomended on this forum.

 

Unfortunately all the lurkers on the RMWeb c*ckwombling badger bungling I failed the driving test thread were all going the same way in a combination of buses, lgvs, farm tractors and trailers, effing caravans and elderly out for a drive Skoda pointers.This last must be the modern equivalent of the Rover on a Sunday afternoon taking Clarence and Gladys to a picknick in a lay by.

 

 

 

 

It's a Friday. Everybody who can't (and can) drive comes out on a Friday.

 

You didn't wave as you passed within eyeball view of newbryford towers..........

 

 

Cheers,

Mick

[laurenceb]

I'll let Andy answer that specific question. However, animals do get drunk on fermented fruits and grain. CN and CP have become much more diligent about cleaning up after grain train derailments in western Canada. Bears were eating the spilled grain and, if it had been on the ground for a while and had started to ferment, were getting high. Encountering a bear is scary enough, but a genuine bear with a sore head?

 

Also, the Okanagan valley in BC is a great fruit-growing area, both hard and soft fruit. Soft fruit, like peaches, has to be picked a couple of days before it's absolutely ripe, to allow time for it to be transported to stores. Fruit that was harvested too late used to be taken out into the hills and dumped. The cattle that range free in the hills found the dumping spot and were getting literally legless on fermenting peaches. Barbed wire was put up round the site, but the cattle were so hooked that they would plow through the wire, cutting themselves pretty badly in the process. Of course, fruit is disposed of in different ways today.

A bovine is basically a walking fermenting device, I have seen numerous cows "under the influence" after eating windfall apples and would think that a wild animal that is somewhat larger would be scary.

[roundhouse]

John

 

Sounds a bit mercenary but at least you back up that it's not just me who suffers Southerns best attempt to scupper the train service.

 

A very pleasant journey down apart from the bloke sitting on the bay of four seats who was kicking my other half on the seats behind those seats! I kicked his feet a few times and he moved but soon locked my other half back. Luckily he got off at Taunton.

 

Some rather nice beers in The Imperial (the best looking Wetherspoons in the country). Now in our favourite place, the Great Western Hotel. Great ales and pub but the rest of the hotel has seen better days. Hopefully the scaffolding being erected is a good sign. I have been visiting their land since the mid 80s watching it decline so would be good to see it rejuvenated

[Donw]

A bovine is basically a walking fermenting device, I have seen numerous cows "under the influence" after eating windfall apples and would think that a wild animal that is somewhat larger would be scary.

 

Even worse if it is a bull rather than a cow

[roundhouse]

Just to prove the point of a very relaxing not too busy bar but pleasant conversation here is my nearly empty glass of Skinners (Truro) Hops N Honey ale and a fresh pint of Datrmoor (Princetown) Jail Ale, a very nice malty ale.