Early Risers.

[leopardml2341]

(proper) Mornin' all this time.

 

Sun is out, sky is blue etc...

 

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Oh dear me, oh dearie me, oh dearie, dearie me, you have put the cat amongst the pigeons and make no mistake....

 I know,  just thought I'd start an ER version of the recent cake wars cos I don't like caterpillars!

 

Thanks for the offer of paid for protection, but I won't be taking you up on that, cos:

 

A. I'm from Yorkshire and I never pay others to do owt I can do mi Sen!

B. I'm 'ard, reetard

 

The kettle is beckoning, with perhaps a bacon butty, then I'm off to mi boat - by car this time though; have toolbox to transport.

 

Enjoy as best as possible what ever today brings.

Edited May 2, 2021 by leopardml2341
Added polite refusal of protection (racket) offer

[Barry O]

Ey up!

3.609 miles walked during cricket yesterday.. low due to fewer overs being played.

 

Back does not want to bend at all today. I may need to try and see someone about fixing it..I will arrange a seance with the Marie Celeste shortly.

 

No big plans for today so..another mugatea required.

 

Stay safe!

Baz

[Andrew P]

Been down for the paper and a small cake for 11's and its dullish but not cold so quite enjoyable.

 

Not a lot planned for today, but it will be a quiet and peaceful weekend.

 

Have a good day one and all, stay safe and well, and keep smiling.

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, small shower earlier but sunny and cold again now.  Much the same outside.

 

I have a small pedometer that goes on my belt which I have used since 'footgate', when I was using to try to get some fitness back into it.  Last year I downloaded an appy thing to the tefelone, which agrees to about 95% accuracy with the little one.  Not calibrated to Q's standards but that isn't bad for a simple device.  Riding a motorcycle on a bumpy road (plenty of those here!) triggers the phone one but not the little device.

 

I can't often do 10k paces in a day, 7/8k being about my limit currently, I did once do 13k but paid for it dearly.  Unfortunately the injury is such that it isn't going to get any better, I peaked last year i think and am now on a gradual decline and according to the scalpel wielders the next stage of surgery would probably make it worse unless it falls apart - so I'll not bother until it is unavoidable. Pah, I think the saying goes.  In the meantime I try to keep it going as best I can, as inactivity isn't the answer.

 

SWMBO's field archery day today, not sure if I will go to fetch arrows, I have a new support for said foot to try out so may give it a go.

[iL Dottore]

33 minutes ago, leopardml2341 said:

...A. I'm from Yorkshire and I never pay others to do owt I can do mi Sen!

B. I'm 'ard, reetard ...

I see!

Now that would be something to see: a face off between a Yorkshire leopard protecting the contents of his wallet and a P Bear protecting his stash of LDC. That one would certainly go to the judges.

Whilst on the subject of cake, I’ve noticed there has been a conspicuous absence of  hippo related wallowings over the past couple of weeks. I do hope HH is okay and has not been felled by the dreaded lurgi

 

The creme patisserie has been made and the hazelnut praline reduced to a very fine powder, which I will mix in with the creme patisserie and some whipped cream for lightness.

 

Time to top up the caffeine in my caffeine stream and then get back to work in the kitchen.

[Erichill16]

59 minutes ago, leopardml2341 said:

 

A. I'm from Yorkshire and I never pay others to do owt I can do mi Sen!

 

And I never do ownt for nowt unless it’s for mi sen.

[Gwiwer]

Good morning all. Welcome to Sunday. 

[Tony_S]

Good morning. 
Other than opening curtains and eating croissants there isn’t much happening here. I suspect we may go for a walk. We didn’t yesterday as Aditi did some gardening instead.  We have been tidying stuff near our next door neighbours fence. They are replacing some panels soon. One will be delayed for a while as there are baby robins in a bird box. 
Tony

[tigerburnie]

Morning, the rain has stopped for now but the sky looks full of it, so not much planned, we had hoped to go chasing a pod of Orca that were spotted at Stonehaven on Friday night, but it seems they have vanished, so waiting for reports from the coast watchers. We had a lovely day at the daughters farm house yesterday, a bit of the "G" word, I must remember not to let a 6 year old lose with a set of loppers again, some bushes were rather savagely pruned. When the rain arrived we retired to the open barn and played games with the kids until we lost feeling in our fingers and toes and headed home in a nice warm car with the heated seats on. Take care all and stay safe. 

[Coombe Barton]

Sunny but single figure temperature.

Feeling less tired - the after effects of the jab are diminishing and the arm is nowhere near as sore as the first jab. It also helps that I haven't walked it into a wall - yet.

 

Croissants consumed, mugacoffee on the way down, then up and at it.

 

Bum is being removed from sofa.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Arthur Itis and his mate were at it hammer and tongs this morning. A long soak in the bath and a a brace of Nurofen have dealt with them.

7 hours ago, pH said:

A story of today.

 

It’s our son’s birthday and his mother-in-law sent him a gift voucher for a local clothes store. He went into the store, picked a pair of jeans and took them to the checkout. When he produced the gift voucher, things got complicated. The young guy on the till consulted the young guy on the other till, but neither of them knew how to deal with it. They actually phoned the shop owner, who wasn’t in the shop - he basically told them to work it out for themselves.

 

At this point, my son remembered there had been similar problems last year and how he’d dealt with them then. So he brought up the shop’s website, intending to buy the jeans online (!!). However, they weren’t on the website. So he asked the guy at the checkout if he could put the jeans on the website. Yes, he could do that, and did. 
 

So son bought the jeans, which were lying on the counter in front of him, on the website, applied the gift voucher, confirmed with the employee that they had been paid for, picked them up and left the store!

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.....

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Whilst on the subject of cake, I’ve noticed there has been a conspicuous absence of  hippo related wallowings over the past couple of weeks. I do hope HH is okay and has not been felled by the dreaded lurgi

 

He's still around, he has started his own awl-free version of ER's called The Night Mail.

[polybear]

Bear's on a tea break - two base units unpacked, checked, placed in position and levelled.  I can't go fixing any yet until I establish what is the correct height for the units - and that will be determined by the washing machine.  And once I've got the correct level then a couple of units will need shifting out of the way again whilst I fit the wall units - I can't do that first cos' I need to establish the correct base unit position so everything lines up by eye and looks right....

And Bear forgot just how b.heavy kitchen units are, especially the (1000mm) corner units.  And of course one of the units that will need shifting again for the wall unit installation just happens to be....a corner unit (and the heaviest of the two I have)

Pass the Ibruprofen....

Bear has now decided that the Tea Break has merged into the din dins break....

[jonny777]

Dry and sunny again in North Somerset. We missed all the showers again yesterday, but cloud is developing again now and is beginning to look like giant cauliflowers (technical term). Actually the real technical term is Cumulus Congestus. 

 

Tomato logistics have been postponed until after storm 'mayday' which should have blown itself out by Tuesday afternoon, when the great troughs-filling marathon will commence. 

 

I may just slouch on the sofa in front of Murphy v Selby for the afternoon. 

[Winslow Boy]

59 minutes ago, polybear said:

Bear's on a tea break - two base units unpacked, checked, placed in position and levelled.  I can't go fixing any yet until I establish what is the correct height for the units - and that will be determined by the washing machine.  And once I've got the correct level then a couple of units will need shifting out of the way again whilst I fit the wall units - I can't do that first cos' I need to establish the correct base unit position so everything lines up by eye and looks right....

And Bear forgot just how b.heavy kitchen units are, especially the (1000mm) corner units.  And of course one of the units that will need shifting again for the wall unit installation just happens to be....a corner unit (and the heaviest of the two I have)

Pass the Ibruprofen....

Bear has now decided that the Tea Break has merged into the din dins break....

 

May I offer a piece of advice for the fixing of the height PB, from one who has cursed fluently the person who decided not to install the flooring beneath the washing machine as it was a) saved a few pennies and b) difficult to do. The advice is as follows don't be tempted to fit the washing machine without a gap between it and the d underside of the work tops as d trying to pull a washing is b.....y hell.

[TheQ]

2 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Morning, the rain has stopped for now but the sky looks full of it, so not much planned, we had hoped to go chasing a pod of Orca that were spotted at Stonehaven on Friday night, but it seems they have vanished, so waiting for reports from the coast watchers. We had a lovely day at the daughters farm house yesterday, a bit of the "G" word, I must remember not to let a 6 year old lose with a set of loppers again, some bushes were rather savagely pruned. When the rain arrived we retired to the open barn and played games with the kids until we lost feeling in our fingers and toes and headed home in a nice warm car with the heated seats on. Take care all and stay safe. 

The orange one lives in Stonehaven, his boat is normally in Gourdon harbour, but at the moment it's in Arbroath out of the water. That thing under his right arm is the rudder for his boat, which required digging a hole in the boat yard to remove it, hence he's now knackered..

He's one of the two guys who was building a boat in Saudi at the same time as me..

Edited May 2, 2021 by TheQ

[tigerburnie]

Stonehaven the other day, we often visit, has an award winning chippy and an ice cream shop off the scale, there's also an extremely expensive shop selling brownies, it's also home to the chippy who claims to have invented the deep fried Mars bar, we've not been in that one...................................

The pub in the picture is a nice place for a bite to eat too.

[BSW01]

Good afternoon everyone 

 

Very late on parade today, Sheila isn’t firing on all cylinders due to yesterday’s jab, so I treated her to breakfast in bed. Consequently we ended up getting out of bed later than planned, so I headed straight outside to get the drive pressure washed. The weather was sunny and cool, so I decided to give the front a quick weeding before cleaning it all down, seemed to make good sense to me. So I got the wheelbarrow out and put in the pressure washer, hosepipe reel, brush and shovel, and my long handled weeding tool and took the lot round to the front and started in the weeding, taking a break for a muggertea before I started the pressure washer up. As I was cleaning the drive the sky started to go grey and some very dark clouds started forming to the north. I was just packing the pressure washer away when it started to rain, so I quickened my pace and got everything into the wheelbarrow and by the time I’d got round the back it was raining properly and I was getting a little wet. The washer was wiped down and packed away along with all the other tools, just as the rain started to ease. So I washed out 3 large planters that I’m letting Ian have as they are no longer required by ourselves, I was half way through this when the rain started again, I couldn’t get much wetter, so I carried on, before finally calling it a day when the last one was finished. 

 

After dinner the plan is for a relaxing afternoon. 

 

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

 

Brian

[PhilJ W]

Hello again from Estuary-Land. The first rain for more than a month a bit earlier. After about ten minutes it disappeared as quickly as it arrived and now you wouldn't think it had rained at all.

1 hour ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

May I offer a piece of advice for the fixing of the height PB, from one who has cursed fluently the person who decided not to install the flooring beneath the washing machine as it was a) saved a few pennies and b) difficult to do. The advice is as follows don't be tempted to fit the washing machine without a gap between it and the d underside of the work tops as d trying to pull a washing is b.....y hell.

We just measured up the washing machine and left 5 cm clearance below the worktop and 10 cm either side. 

30 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The orange one lives in Stonehaven, his boat is normally in Gourdon harbour, but at the moment it's in Arbroath out of the water. That thing under his right arm is the rudder for his boat, which required digging a hole in the boat yard to remove it, hence he's now knackered..

He's one of the two guys who was building a boat in Saudi at the same time as me..

Who's nicked my car?

[Gwiwer]

Afternoon all.  I have to report that, LDC not being available, aplle and walnut cake was offered for afternoon tea.  No Bears were harmed in the making of this delight.  

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Seems very quiet here on ER's this afternoon, there must be a lot of eye lid inspection going on. Arthur Itis made a return call but didn't stay to long. No further sign of rain but the forecast is for lots of it tomorrow. Time for muggatee, be back later.

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

After dealing with sundry idiots members of the brain dead fraternity on RMweb earlier we duly took a trip in the car 'just to get out - and made our way to & from Root One where the available plants in their masses are looking very healthy and the café was dedicated to staff doing much de-lousing, sorry sanitising, between punters and all noshing was al fresco and with a very limited menu.  But no problems as a cuppa slaked our thirsts and I consumed a hot suasage roll while herself treated a scone in a similar way.

 

Genuine lack of idiots on te roads  (apart from a clown in a BMW who if he carries on like that will soon be 6 feet under driving a box) and a couple of very pedestrian 'Sunday drivers' clearly holding their end (and everybody else) up for old time's sake.  Did however see a very nice looking J Reg 'land crab' in 'Kingfisher blue' for those who remember such beasties.

 

my only measured walking takes place on visits to Tesco's car park where I have calculated the length of my normal walking circuit,  Distance can thus be readily measured by two things - miutiplying the distance by the number of circuits or knowing when the bits of bone floating around in my right knee start protesting (the latter means about 650 yards have been walked in certain weather conditions).

 

Incidentally regarding those of the brain dead fraternity elsewhere on RMweb I have given one of them what I'm reasonably sure is the correct question to what he meant to ask once he'd sorted out in which direction a train was heading.  No doubt he might well ask how I arrived at that conclusion and I shall refer him to this particular post -

 

8 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

And I never do ownt for nowt unless it’s for mi sen.

 

Enjoy the rest of teh day and stay safe.

[polybear]

4 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

May I offer a piece of advice for the fixing of the height PB, from one who has cursed fluently the person who decided not to install the flooring beneath the washing machine as it was a) saved a few pennies and b) difficult to do. The advice is as follows don't be tempted to fit the washing machine without a gap between it and the d underside of the work tops as d trying to pull a washing is b.....y hell.

 

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

We just measured up the washing machine and left 5 cm clearance below the worktop and 10 cm either side. 

Who's nicked my car?

 

Many thanks; Bear, being somewhat foolhardy with the LDC Tokens, ensured the entire kitchen floor was tiled.  The "usual" base unit height (= to underside of worktop) is 870mm, according to this Bear's kitchen manufacturer; the washing machine height is currently 855mm, though Bear has a cunning plan to drop this by 5mm to 850mm.  How?  Bear ordered some 10mm "half nuts" from Ebay this morning - these will replace the normal full nuts (used to lock the adjustment) on the adjustable feet and so allow the washer to be 5mm lower.

The washer is now currently in position between two (loose) base units; Bear had another cunning plan and has stuck two of these self-adhesive felt pads to the underside of the (degreased and cleaned with IPA) rear feet on the washer, then trimmed to fit.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114286846337 

Now all I need to do is raise the front of the washer very slightly from underneath then pull and the washer will slide out.  The rubber front feet still do a good job of stopping the washer from going walkies.  I'll test the clearance either side of the washer tomorrow (currently around 1cm) by sliding the washer out/in and increase if required.

 

However,  Bear would really like to add a steel box-section (20 x 20 x 2.5mm) just above, and close to the front of the washer - this is to act as a support to the granite worktop above the washer (a wooden batten will do the same at the rear, screwed to the wall - though that is behind the washer so not an issue).  This means I'll have to adjust the legs to give a base unit height of 880mm minimum (giving 10mm clearance above the washer).  Of course that means there will be a knock-on effect on the height of the granite up-stand by 10mm - and the wall tiles - and the wall units....unless the up-stand height is reduced by 10mm from the standard 100mm, or a row of wall tiles is cut (not something I want though).  Careful measuring and testing tomorrow...

 

Five units are now unpacked, inspected, legs fitted, positioned and levelled to each other; doors and drawers have been removed and are upstairs out of the way to prevent damage.  One door has a small nick in an edge (not visible until the door is opened) so I'll flag that up for a replacement.  Tomorrow will see some adjustment to the existing sink pipework so the kitchen base unit can be fitted; some holes thru' the back panel will be required - but I need to check the washing machine clearance, and hence the sink unit position before I can drill these with hole saws.

[polybear]

In other news:

A check of the local Estate Agent's website has confirmed that buddy next door's house is now up for sale - which is no surprise cos' Estate Agents don't come back to take piccies for no reason.  I've not seen buddy for a couple of days - no mention has been made; I wonder if SWMBO has actually told him it's listed - a negative here would come as no surprise to this Bear.

Incidentally, it's actually listed as a four-bed property - buddy did a DIY loft conversion some years ago to create an office for SWMBO; whilst it looks nice and he's no bodge merchant I do know that the BCO would take a very dim view of it being considered as a bedroom.  Be interesting to see how that one pans out if & when surveyors get involved.

Turdycurses.  Bear will be opening that new LDC tonight - I feel a strong need for comfort food.

[pH]

Son got this shirt from his kids for his birthday:
 

 

I had to have it explained. Clue - he’s a keen guitar player.

Edited May 2, 2021 by pH

[TheSignalEngineer]

I can't believe how cold it feels here tpoday.

 

8 hours ago, Barry O said:

3.609 miles walked during cricket yesterday.. low due to fewer overs being played.

Two matches to spectate today. Sammy has played for two clubs which have teams in different leagues. Current main club asked him to fill in for the U13 this morning, only a few balls with the bat as it was the last two overs. Got six runs off 5 balls before getting ensnared in a run-out mixup with one ball left then bowled two overs for 6 runs in a 12-run win.

This afternoon he played in the other league for his old club U11 side. He took two wickets in two balls whilst bowling two overs for two runs and with his partner put on 35 in their allotted 4 overs in a 25 run victory.

Absolutely frozen but at least the rain held off until the last over.

 

5 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

May I offer a piece of advice for the fixing of the height PB, from one who has cursed fluently the person who decided not to install the flooring beneath the washing machine as it was a) saved a few pennies and b) difficult to do.

Been there etc. The Wells Fargo Kitchens Unlimited eejits employed by the builder of our house made that mistake with the dishwasher. Fortunately having trained in fitting and maintaining equipment in impossible to get at places under signal boxes, by making use of the two millimetres remaining clearance I was able to get the weight off the front feet and retract them by inserting a very thin old bicycle spanner and tapping it with a hammer. The new machine rests on two strips of marine ply slightly higher than the floor. 

 

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

I have to report that, LDC not being available, apple and walnut cake was offered for afternoon tea.

No cake being available today I resorted to my own brand of snack bar.  It is a high energy thing I concocted for use on backpacking and cycling trips after trying several commercial versions. It starts similar to a cake recipe but uses dark muscovado instead of sugar which has about 300 calories per 100 grams. 2/3 of the ordinary flour is replaced by various grains, mainly porridge oats but can also include rye flakes or polenta flour.  Dried fruit, nuts, seeds and choc chips up to about 50% of the weight of the other ingredients are mixed in. It is usually spiced and/or flavoured with salted caramel or other tasty stuff and before baking the top is covered with rolled oats. It is cut up into 50-60 gram portions when cool. Delia has a similar recipe which she coats in chocolate which is OK in Winter but can get a bit messy when out and about in hot weather.