Early Risers.

[AndrewC]

25 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Personally I'd also consider changing the locks - getting a set of keys cut is all too easy these days.

 

Best wishes to our resident Tom Cruise for a speedy return to fully serviceable once more.

In most cases a good idea. After our builder problems 2 years ago we used a locksmith that has his own custom cylinder and key shape. Only he can produce copies. Not cheap but worth it. I don't think the cat sitter has any criminal intent but is just lazy. 

[grandadbob]

Evenin' each,

Sorry to hear of Dave's misfortune and hope he gets better and out of clink soon.

"We've" been having a clear out and the shredder has been working overtime.  I must admit to being a bit of a hoarder but have decided that there is only so much paperwork that needs to be kept so I've got rid of quite a lot today. There's still a lot more though.

My sister has been doing the family tree for some time and is back to the 1500s but is having problems with Dad's side of the family who came from Alsace and it appears that (unsurprisingly) two world wars haven't helped with certain records.  The family originally had a German surname but this was changed during WW1 for fairly obvious reasons.

Managed to watch one rugby match earlier and have got two more to go.(There's another one tonight)   I'll have to wait till later as The Boss has currently claimed the big TV to watch some of her usual rubbish.

 

 

[BokStein]

ChrisF,

 

Your poor car has my sympathy.

 

On 24/08/2020 at 05:44, chrisf said:

Greetings one and all

 

As hinted yesterday, I will be out and about today.  If all goes well I will remember the way to Harpenden and Stevenage, not having visited either settlement or the friends who live there for five months or more.  I am not expecting to do any m*d*ll*ng but have put the toolbox in the boot in case anything from it is needed in the course of the day.  The car will feel a lot better after travelling about 100 miles, for since that ruddy virus took hold of our lives I have been hardly anywhere except the supermarket.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

 

On 25/08/2020 at 06:48, chrisf said:

Greetings one and all

 

It was so good to be out of the house and behind the wheel yesterday.

 

Best wishes to all, except ill-briefed TV commentators.

 

Chris

 

 

Good to hear your car is, at last, getting some exercise!

 

As an almost polar opposite, my poor car has been severely underworked in recent years and, for a 57 reg, with, until lockdown, less than 45000 miles on the clock, under use is probably an under statement! She has just been given her 6th full tank of petrol since then! (Much may, however, have been wasted in passing the increased number of cyclists on the road [including those who refuse to use the expensive, purpose-built cycle path beside one local main road] as quickly and as safely as conditions permit. 200 horses under the bonnet can have their uses when needed!)

 

In short, commuting to work by train has proved a non-starter during this period with all the restrictions and my fuel bill is less than my monthly season ticket, however, I await the maintenance costs at the next service / MOT, presuming the guys I usually use for this task will almost certainly be in a state of shock!!

[pH]

So it is now official - the last working sawmill in the town is to close at the end of October. This is because of “disproportionately high municipal property taxes” after recent increases, and “a substantial increase in lease rates on water lots used for log storage on Burrard Inlet”. It has absolutely no connection to the fact that a proposal has been approved by the city council to redevelop the site to provide some 3400 condo units in towers up to 38 storeys high - oh no, no, no! How could you think that?

[brianusa]

Progress, for want of a better world.  Sadly the lumber industry is a shadow of what it was and it was only a few years ago that the last mill left this area to be replaced by expensive waterfront homes and fancy restaurants.  In the twenty years or so we've been here trees have been cut down, housing tracts laid out, shopping centres have been built and with all the other paraphernalia of modern living has destroyed the ambiance there once was.  All this has  turned GH into a destination with all that incurs!

      Brian.

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[Coombe Barton]

... from a knackered emic ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/08/26/managing-spaces

[Barry O]

So far I have managed to get back to about 1601 for two branches of the family. I have found some relations who are still alive who none of us knew about!

 

We have also confirmed some relatives who were always sure about being relatives but not sure why - their grandad was a late edition to the family - he had a lot of older brother and sisters!

 

The search has been helped by finding some very useful birth certificates -and, unfortunately a World War 1 Medal handed out posthumously to  one of my Grandmothers brothers - a Lance Corporal in the Durham Light Infantry in 1915.  (Later his brother was killed in Dunkirk in 1940 - NCO in the Royal Artillery).

 

I have found odd bits of cash around (including a will for £109 in 1701 - the skills in the family include stone masonry, shoe manufacture, tayloring, mining, publicans and landsmanship - working for the Percy Family.

 

Baz

[newbryford]

HH - please pass on my best wishes to Dave and hope he's flying about again soon.

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

 

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I have tried to trace one branch of my family back, the family from Gravesend. One would think that as son followed father into the same trade for generations it would be easier. The trade was waterman on the lower reaches of the Thames and the estuary. Sadly the records only go back to 1666, the great fire of London when all of the records were destroyed. I have made contact with a different branch of the family that have their own group on Facebook. They are distant cousins, at least six generations from a common ancestor. A few weeks ago a photo of one of their family was posted, and he was the spitting image of my brother!

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

First hoping that Dave makes a full and speedy recovery.

Didnt get as much paperwork done today as I’d have liked or hoped for. In some respects I’m further behind now as two more ‘jobs’ have turned up in the post. 

Didnt sleep well last night due to the howling winds so as a consequence of two poor nights sleep my balance is bad and find I’m needing my stick for walking when I leave the house. I little eyelid inspection in the afternoons may be needed if the situation carries on much longer. Syd and the boys have come for sleepover and we had a pleasant afternoon.

Almost forgot, small amount of shed time!

Goodnight,

Robert

[PeterBB]

On 21/08/2020 at 12:38, Joseph_Pestell said:

Wet and windy here in North Herefordshire.

 

And very windy at 5am when I remembered that I had left all the parasols out last night!

Where are they now?

 

This above one did not post at the time, probably will now and the one following it that added to this  ... disappeared into thin air.  I will post then do another one.

 

[petethemole]

Best wishes and get well soon to Dave.

[PeterBB]

On 21/08/2020 at 12:38, Joseph_Pestell said:

Wet and windy here in North Herefordshire.

 

And very windy at 5am when I remembered that I had left all the parasols out last night!

Where are they now?

 

Not sure what is happening, the next post didn't and this one has come up again.  Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Dave H and thoughts with Tony and Aditi.

 

The items read were family trees, helicopters and tanks not forgetting the weather and the 'sights' that increase blood pressure.

 

Cannot remember the rest but will post this now ...

 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

The weather has been very mixed today, rain first thing this morning, with intermittent sunshine. After dinner was similar but this time it was dark clouds not rain and again intermittent sunshine. 

 

I eventually got started in the bathroom until after 10:30 as Sheila was in there, doing who knows what! Anyway once I finally had access I made a start and managed to give the woodwork one coat of paint before dinner. I went back after dinner and there were a few areas that looked a little patchy, so I gave it all a second coat, it’s looks a lot better now.

 

Goodnight all 

 

Brian 

Edited August 26, 2020 by BSW01

[laurenceb]

Best wishes to Dave

Night awl

[Chris116]

Best wishes to Dave. 

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[BR60103]

My father told me that some of my mother's aunts (?) had the family tree looked at . Since they were Stewarts they were hoping to put a claim in on Edinburgh Castle or something.  The search was terminated when they reached The Black Douglas and Rob Roy.

The other side of the family apparently had to flee some city in north England for union activity.

 

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Dave Hunt has been absent for a few days so I sent him an email to find out how he was.  this is an abridged version of his reply:

 

'Richard,

 

At the moment I'm closer to you than usual - specifically in Ward 16 of Telford hospital. To cut a long story short, not only do I still have the gutrot with no sign at abatement but I've also had a mini stroke....

Blimey, that’s unpleasant news. Richard, please pass on my best wishes to Dave for a speedy and uneventful recovery (what he describes is positive and points towards a good recovery).

Will you be supplying him with cake?

iD

[iL Dottore]

Good morning everyone,

Up early, due to Lucy disappearing from her basket and me having to find her to see if all was alright (and it was).

All these posts about various corporeal mishaps reminds me of how strange the human body is: it is both incredibly resilient and at the same time incredibly fragile. I think the problem is that we are not really designed by evolution to last more than 30 or so years In fully working, good nick.
When you think about it, for most of our history as a species we became sexually mature around about 14 or 15 years of age and having offspring around that age meant that by the time an individual had reached 30 years of age they would have become a grandparent and, assured that their genes would live on, thus became biologically redundant (yes, I know this is a gross oversimplification and yes, I know, that even in prehistoric times you did get very elderly individuals, albeit very rarely). Given that, in the immortal words of my professor of genetics, “a human being is a gene’s way of making new genes“, once the genes have been successfully propagated, there is no reason to hang around, ergo design flaws that emerge after 30 years of age were not “bred out” (so to speak).

As a species, we are now “lucky enough“ (if you want to put it that way) to live long enough for things like cancer or major cardiovascular incidents to kill us. For much of our history, most of us did not live long enough for these diseases to carry us away, having already been felled by disease, accident or war (or in much earlier times, predators). When my GP friend started his career he said to me that he had maybe one or two over 80 year old patients; when he retired, last year, he had a goodly number of over 80 patients - and a few over 90s - on his books. 

Some scientists believe, as medical treatments advance, that by eliminating diseases like cancer or conditions like stroke, we could reach a theoretical upper limit of 150 years of age. Imagine that, being retired for longer than you actually worked (that would upset the social applecart and make no mistake).

have a great Thursday!

iD

Edited August 27, 2020 by iL Dottore
Typo

[TheQ]

Mooring awl,  inner Temple Hare, 

5 hours sleep plus 3 hours intermittent dozing,  

Ben the unsettled Collie had a bad night,  although he went back to his old routine,  of following me up to bed spending some time on the floor at the foot of the bed,  then returning to his own bed.  When I resumed my place on the sofa he kept getting up, going to sleep In the doorway,  then getting up and going back to bed. 

 

The marquee was secured ready for the next batch of wind and rain to arrive.  My hands and the forecast agree its on its way.  On days like this I look forward to plunging my hands in the just filled sink of hot is water it brings great relief.. 

 

As for family history the direct male line was traced by Dad to 1553 but it's highly  likely that this then goes to the royal house of Stewart.  Therefore at around that point it might be  I'm related to BR60103.

There is a definite DNA test that proves a direct connection to Robert the Bruce's brother,  but it's a locos worth of money to prove it. 50% of all with the  Stewart surname have proved to have that connection. 

 

Time to get up and go to work..