Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

Alberta beef on the BBQ along with Newfie Snow crab, Poutine, and a few Canadian beers. (not bloody Molson's beaver p!ss either) Just hope the hip behaves. 

On my two trips to Canada I seem to have managed to completely avoid the beaver pee. Enjoy your day tomorrow.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Tony_S

[Andrew P]

Morning all, shinny but a gentle breeze can be reported from these parts this morning.

 

To walk or not to walk, the decision will be made after the visit to the washery.

 

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

[Andrew P]

Thoughts for @chrisf and @Erichill16 this morning, and also of course @gordon sand any others missing in action.

[Andrew P]

Talking of Breeze.

When I was an Apprentice I worked with a Len Breeze, Mr Windybank, Mr Fairweather, we also had Misters, Brown, White Gray and Pink, in the Garage.

[Tony_S]

Good morning.

It is rather damp outside here but not currently raining. We will be going for a walk later at Hyde Hall gardens. There are no special events today so it won’t be as crowded as last week when there was a craft fair.

Tony
 

[PupCam]

Clear Prop!

 

Morning everyone.      Best wishes particularly to Chris this morning ahead of his scan today.   Understandably, given the circumstances, it's a very worrying time for him and I'm sure all ERs fingers are well and truly crossed  for the best possible outcome for him.

 

Alan

[polybear]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

SWMBO'S Aunt and Uncle had an up to 5 foot high underfloor space  accessed by a hatch in the kitchen floor, it was 5 foot high at the front of the house going down to not a lot at the back... yes they were on a very steep hill side.

 

 

There was someone on TV News some years ago that had exactly the same arrangement, though it was only 3 - 4ft high.  And he'd built a huge great model railway beneath the house, all whilst crawling on his hands and knees.  It was getting to the point where they needed to sell up, and he was hoping the buyer would be a modeller as the layout was a permanent feature with no way of removing it.

 

9 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

Found out yesterday that a former "boss" will be reporting to me at the new job. Could be interesting. 

 

 

Was he a good guy, or a cockwomble?  As you say, could be fun.....

 

In other news:

Bear is ready for the Granite fitters, only to have just received a call to say they'll be landing at 09-40.  Could've had another hour in bed....

 

And it looks like Bear has murdered Henry the Hoover (actually it's Mickey the Miele to be precise) .  He doesn't sound "right" (more like a jet engine than a vaccuum) and there's a faint burning smell.  Bvgger.  Still seems to work, though Bear is wise (wise?) enough to realise that actually using it is pretty certain to end in tears very quickly.  More LDC tokens needed; June is proving to be a very expensive month, what with the roof and the worktops.  Turdycurses.

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, and my best wishes to those under stress for various reasons.

 

PSA induced stress is of course something all men of a certain age have to cope with, we all get the dreaded disease, just in most cases something else gets you first as it progresses so slowly. Mostly.  One of the male body's failings. Yes, I'm another on the watch list.

 

Archery extra round today as Mrs NHN is off for the week, only a couple or three shooting so no scoring, saying you came second when there's only three competing is a bit of a fraud!

[jonny777]

Summer has returned to North Somerset - hurrah!  I wonder if it was last all day?

 

The lurgy, which is officially not covid, certainly has the ability to knock a person back. I ventured outside yesterday afternoon and managed to clear some duckweed from the pond, and clip a few lengthy shoots off a low hedge; and became so exhausted that I had to sit down for half an hour to recover. 

 

Oh well, another 10 hours sleep has me feeling better today, but I'm beginning to think I am turning into a dormouse. 

[AndrewC]

9 minutes ago, polybear said:

Was he a good guy, or a cockwomble?  As you say, could be fun.....

 

She was pretty good. One of the better ones actually. A long term absence with a health problem meant she vanished from the department overnight. This is the first I've seen or heard from her in 6 years. A bit of a hugger if I remember. 

 

@Tony_S As I understand it. Molson/Coors is brewing Molson Export and Molson Canadian in Burton in small quantities to supply the UK and EU. Yuk. 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A beautiful sunny day, with virtually no wind (outside) and quite warm, currently 13C. So hopefully we should have a pleasant hour or so at the RHS garden centre. The plant prices are not overly expensive, when compared to other local garden centres, but the quality is much better. Then it’s home for dinner and then out once again to the small craft shop in Dunham Massey. What for I know not, but I’m sure Sheila has her eye on something there. 

 

Chrisf. I hope your bone scan goes ok, having had one only a few months ago (which thankfully came back clear) I know only too well the worries these things bring. 

 

Robert. I hope your PSA results are good. 

 

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

 

Brian

[pH]

 

57 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

 

@Tony_S As I understand it. Molson/Coors is brewing Molson Export and Molson Canadian in Burton in small quantities to supply the UK and EU. Yuk. 

 

Unlikely to taste the same as the original (this may be a good thing).  Beers brewed elsewhere under their original name are usually (in my experience) trading on nostalgia or reputation, but produced according to local tastes. At one time, I could get “Tennent’s Lager” on draft in Vancouver. It tasted nothing like the Scottish original - it was just another Canadian lager.

[PhilJ W]

Forgot to mention, I heard a scuffling outside yesterday evening. It was a young fox on the patio snaffling up the slugs and snails bought out by the rain. I stood and watched it for several minutes but then I must have made a noise because he/she looked up for a minute or two then shot off into the shrubbery.

[laurenceb]

Fingers crossed for chrisf erichill& pupcam and anyone else in need

[Barry O]

Good news for her indoors. Her ladies xray says. ,"all clear"

 

Baz

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from Sidcup where the sun is making a valiant effort to force its way through the ever darkening clouds. It's currently dry but there's little chance of heat records being broken here any time soon.

 

Best wishes to Chrisf for today and to Pupcam and also to those awaiting results.

 

We enjoyed the football in Lurker Towers - Elder Lurker was surprised how quickly the second half had gone which is unusual for an England match when the poor performance/the effort of willing them on despite the poor performance can make the match seem interminable. the evening game was less exciting although it did feature a goal with 131 minutes on the clock - a couple of lengthy injury stoppages contributed to the extended duration.

 

Work continues to trundle on. A gentle nag to the person who works for me that she needs to get on with certain tasks has elicited work that now needs reviewing.

 

And the person who runs a project I am on has got himself a whizzy project managing tool which is good for sending me lots of e-mails - although I am sure he said part of the idea for using the too was to reduce the amount of info shared by e-mail - and he has set up lots of task tables where I am allocated as the person to do the work. What he needs to build in are some kind of dependency function; I can't do said tasks until someone else has done their bit.

 

Oh well, best get on

[Coombe Barton]

Mid/dark grey earlier, but getting ungreyer with the sun attempting to elevate our spirits.

Scans - troubling whatever the reason and good wishes sent.

 

[AndrewC]

1 hour ago, pH said:

 

 

Unlikely to taste the same as the original (this may be a good thing).  Beers brewed elsewhere under their original name are usually (in my experience) trading on nostalgia or reputation, but produced according to local tastes. At one time, I could get “Tennent’s Lager” on draft in Vancouver. It tasted nothing like the Scottish original - it was just another Canadian lager.

Once upon a time the Canadian national brands all had to be brewed within the province they were sold in. One of those ancient and bizarre liquor laws Canadians hate. Molson beers brewed in Montreal were different than those brewed in Edmonton, etc. Today brewers claim to have been able to replicate beers across differing water chemistry, brewing vessels, etc. I call ******* but for many beers their ability to match flavour profiles across different breweries is fairly good for things like lager, pilsner, and other lighter beers. Not so much for bitters and stouts. Bud is a case in point. It varies in ABV around the world but still tastes exactly like making love in a canoe. 

Edited June 30, 2021 by AndrewC

[jamie92208]

45 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

Once upon a time the Canadian national brands all had to be brewed within the province they were sold in. One of those ancient and bizarre liquor laws Canadians hate. Molson beers brewed in Montreal were different than those brewed in Edmonton, etc. Today brewers claim to have been able to replicate beers across differing water chemistry, brewing vessels, etc. I call ******* but for many beers their ability to match flavour profiles across different breweries is fairly good for things like lager, pilsner, and other lighter beers. Not so much for bitters and stouts. Bud is a case in point. It varies in ABV around the world but still tastes exactly like making love in a canoe. 

I didn't realise that lager was that dangerous.

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, The Lurker said:

What he needs to build in are some kind of dependency function; I can't do said tasks until someone else has done their bit.

Good luck. We were supposed to produce plans like that when I worked as an advisory teacher for our training courses. . I think someone senior had been on a “How Gantt charts can solve everything “ course. 

[Tony_S]

27 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I didn't realise that lager was that dangerous.

 

Jamie

I had to dispose of some Guinness yesterday and not in the usual way. When tidying the garage I found some cans that were way past (years) their consume by date. I don’t normally worry too much about best before dates but I was convinced that the  can looked more convex than normal. So I opened one and it was amazing how far it sprayed out, fortunately I had taken it into the back garden. The others were like that except for one which was rather flat. 
Tony

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

Very good wishes for a successful outcome for those undergoing or waiting the results of various tests.  Alas(?) in my experience the radioactive injections seem to do nothing to reduce electricity consumption by creating your own artificial light.  

 

Hot weather deaths are alas a commonplace feature among the elderly, more potentially 'dangerous' than cold weather in some cases.  Apparently a common problem in big cities in the USA is that in extreme heat people tend to open their windows instead of leaving them closed with blinds or curtains drawn and the ingress of the hot air can have a far worse effect than keeping it out.  And of course it is far easier for us to warm up our bodies than it is to cool them - all an often unconsidered impact of rising global temperatures and consequently changed weather patterns it would seem.

 

It's fascinating how local water can affect the taste of beers even when all other factors in the brewing process are consistent.  When our local brewery closed a small concern at the other end of the county bought their beer brands and recipes but, from what little of it I have sampled, the taste is definitely different - because they aren;'t using the same water.  When Whitbread were looking round for a new, modern, brewery site in South Wales after their takeover of Ely Brewery and Rhymney Breweries they chose a site a Magor because it offered water that was chemically as compatible as they could find with water they were already using elsewhere (in England).   The water they use comes from the Great spring in the Severn Tunnel and was originally purchased from BR, presumably now from NR.  Whitbread reportedly have a license to use up to 2.4 million gallons of the water daily which leaves plenty of room for development as the Great Spring pushes out an average of 9 million gallons every day.  

 

I presume the original extraction method still applies with the water being pumped to the surface at the Sudbrook Shaft where the pumps lift it from a separate brick lined culvert which runs from the spring to the foot of the shaft - it's quite a sight watching it in the culvert as it moves at one heck of a pace to the sump from which it is pumped.  Far more exciting to watch than the adjacent drainage culvert which drains the Welsh end of the tunnel itself which tends to get very wet from the land above (not from the Severn) although there is a damp atmosphere in the tunnel which plays merry heck with anything electrical.  So yes, in my railway career I actually went just about as low as you can get on the Western Region

 

Have a good day folks and stay safe while keeping those fingers crssed.

[jonny777]

In the 1970s when Travellers Fare sold McKewans Export in cans on buffet cars, I always maintained that the taste of the beer on up ECML trains was superior to that on trains where the buffets had been replenished at Kings Cross. Whether the beer had been brewed in different places, I don't know. 

 

Now onto a more intriguing subject... I am not sure why these petrol pumps need warning signs, unless I have missed something. 

 

 

[Coombe Barton]

1 hour ago, jonny777 said:

I am not sure why these petrol pumps need warning signs, unless I have missed something.

Maybe not best to go searching for the reason.

[Ian Abel]

Thoughts with @chrisf Robert and others awaiting various results. Hope they are all on the preferred end of the scale.

 

HUMP day...

more importantly the LAST day at my current employer, tomorrow being the FIRST day, technically, with the huge corporation that purchased our business unit.

 

Still mixed feelings, especially since we have been told NOT to expect any communications related to getting our new email details, setting up of personal information, the sign-on to the payroll system, signing up for direct deposit of pay, etc., etc. until tomorrow or Friday!   Makes me less impressed than I was, for sure <sigh>

They even managed to c0ck-up sending out the "Employee Agreement" email, such that many of us responded with a "WHAT EMAIL/AGREEMENT" yesterday when asked if we could expedite completing it, as many of us "hadn't done it yet...".  <duh>

 

The above resulted in a less that decent sleep last night, though in the grand scheme of things nothing to be bothered about compared to some folks with worries about medical issues, so I should be grateful.

 

Not a lot planned today, work, tidy up loose ends to move to the new "company" and that's it.

 

17 and sunny first thing, headed for 30 later.

 

Carry on.