Early Risers.

[Grizz]

18 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

There are stethoscope devices you can use for detecting underground leaks, it might be worth asking the water company if they will use one of theirs's or lend you one. Its basically a tube with a cup at the bottom end and an earpiece at the top. There are also electronic leak detectors starting at about £20 for a basic model. It might be worth your while to call in some specialist companies.

https://www.google.com/search?q=detecting+underground+water+leaks&rlz=1C1GCEA_enGB904GB904&oq=detecting+underground+leaks&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i22i30l3j0i10i22i30j0i390.24645j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

Phil many thanks for your help mate. To be completely honest if I’d thought about it I do know exactly where the leak is, it is next joint back from the stopcock. The problem is that this joint is a composite joint from old 1930s 3/4 Galvanised pipe onto the new (in 2007) 25mm Blue MDPE. The galvy pipe is heavily corroded and should have been changed years ago but we never got round to it and now it would require digging up three households gardens with machines to get to it. 
 

It was the soul destroying task of digging up the garden that was the killer. This was to find the route of the old galvy pipe. Actually I did suspect I knew where it ran before I even started digging but I just wanted to be sure. So I dug three trial holes. 
Back in 1998 I rebuilt our patio by digging down 5 inches onto the virgin rock chalk and casting a reinforced concrete slab before laying locally produced brick paving bricks. I then build 9 inch brick boundary garden walls between our place and my brothers place next door. The old galvy pipe runs under the slab, quite deep down, and under the walls, from my brothers garden. All 5 properties on our side of the village were tied cottages of an estate,  so this pipe run is a legacy from the past and is as such a private water main across all of our private properties, linking each house to a common main. 
 

The really hard part is the is only approximately 1.5 of galvy pipe to play with before it dives under the concrete slab under the patio. The rub is that this 1.5 m is heavily corroded and that obviously makes it very difficult to get a composite adapter joint to seal on the galvy. Particularly as we are the second house from the pumping station. The last time we tried this was 4 years ago and it held until last week. If by pure luck I had found that the pipe ran along side the concrete slab instead, I would have replaced the lot across my property but annoyingly it was as I had first feared. 
 

Never mind though, on the up side I managed to find the pipe run direction by only digging three small trial holes in the lawn, having first fenced the chickens out of the worksite. 

Ta Da….

The tricky bit is we only have 1.5m of galvy pipe to play with and it is probably as stable as a pig on stilts. 
So we have decided to install one of those ‘Lego’ plastic inspection chambers around the pipe and the stopcock, so that if there is a problem in the future we wont have to dig the garden up again. I’ll probably go for a 900 x 900, which might seem excessive however it will allow for access and a reasonable working space. 
 

This morning I am going to back fill the two trial holes we don’t need. 
 

Thanks again Phil….

 

ATB Grizz

[grandadbob]

Good morning all and a very belated Happy Birthday to Simon.

Blue sky and sunshine here and a fine, dry day is forecast.  Currently 4°C

It's been a bit hectic since my bad news on Friday.  Just after I posted that Col's son Steve and DiL Jane came round to see us and stayed for an hour chatting.   Since we first met in the 70s all 3 generations of our families have been and still are firm friends so there are a lot of memories.  I got asked to contact a couple of friends who had moved away and they had lost touch with and managed to do that yesterday and also had a chat with Col's wife Kath.  Apparently he had been going downhill for several months and what happened was not unexpected.  Apologies for banging on about this but we were almost like family and it's hit us hard.  Once again many thanks for all the support but then you can always rely on ERs for that.

The Boss is still suffering from Toothgate and not getting a lot of sleep and having to take painkillers. She's got a bruise on the side of her face and it looks like someone has "lamped" her.  Wasn't me Guv, honest! 

Friday was Abbie's 23rd birthday so we went out for the planned meal and glasses were raised in Col's memory.  The drinks bill was as much as the food!

Yesterday afternoon I watched two rugby matches but TBH didn't enjoy either one and even though England won they weren't very impressive.  (and that's being polite)

We're off to Nicki's house at lunchtime as it's Joe's 20th birthday so there is another small family celebration today.

Sunday means egg & bacon etc and it has just been offered so I will have to "gettamoveon."

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by grandadbob

[NGT6 1315]

5 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

5c feels like 1, but dry at least - archery on today, a touch windy for it but we'll see how it goes!

 

I guess you can at least interdict areas that way!

 

Moaning awl. The kids were a bit restless during the night and Annika would only get back to sleep after curling up next to me. I am, of course, not blaming her but I do feel less well-rested than I would prefer.

 

Enjoy whatever you've got planned.

[AyJay]

10 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Was a late addition to my piece, just added it as I checked punctuation and grammar so didn’t in fact check the addition. Amended now as I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea! 

As a matter of fact I do have a T shirt which features Putin but this will now be relegated  to the garage and used to wash the car.

I did find a picture showing a panda with a gun. But I have not mastered how to attach pictures into posts using my phone???  So I’ll just have to say “Eats, shoots and leaves”

[AndrewC]

Greetings all from the boring borough. Sunny but with a definite nip in the air. 

 

A belated happy appearance day to Simon. Congrats on completing another solar orbit. You will find that each subsequent one seems to take less and less time. 

 

Commiserations to GDB. Sometimes a friend, even if and especially if recent interaction has been minimal, can have a bigger emotional impact than expected. 

 

The usual boring crap here. Shopping done, run to the butcher & French cheese shop for some Compte & butter. An afternoon of playing whack a mole with all the annoying tasks that need doing around the house. A trip to the lovely paint mixing lady at B&Q is likely today's punishment, as we've run out of the hallway's easy breasy blue and I need some semi-matte to finally paint the door frames. Failing that I may just say f*ck it and spend the day playing in the man cave. I've also got a pork belly to smoke & turn into burnt ends. 

 

Latte & breakfast time. 

 

political comment look away now: 

 

The whole Ukraine thing will become very nasty very quick if putin doesn't get them to roll over soon. The only way out of this is to remove putin. That won't happen unless his own people turn on him and eliminate him surgically. What really scares the sh*t out of me is the Russians have Chernobyl and access to all that contaminated material. I can see why they prioritised that location as it prevents the Ukraine from building dirty bombs. 

[iL Dottore]

15 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

That's odd.  I get them from others almost daily including from a fellow ER today.  Hmmm.  

Maybe because I tried to send the PM from an iPhone???

Anyway, contact made. Thanks

F

[grandadbob]

2 hours ago, AndrewC said:

Commiserations to GDB. Sometimes a friend, even if and especially if recent interaction has been minimal, can have a bigger emotional impact than expected. 

 

 I think you've hit the nail on the head Andrew.  Although we'd seen Kath a few times out and about we haven't seen him for several months even though they live in the next road.  She hadn't told us how bad he was apart from saying he wasn't getting out of the house but we thought that was because of Covid precautions.   Bitterly regret not going round and knocking on the door now but what's done is done. (or not) 

Breakfast is imminent.

Edited February 27, 2022 by grandadbob

[Erichill16]

Here’s a picture of previously mentioned T shirt.

I have thought of a better use, if there is another toilet paper shortage I have the ideal solution.

It was bought at a tourist market in St Petersburg and according to the lady that sold translates 

to ‘a most honourable man’ ! 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Erichill16
Add final sentence.

[tigerburnie]

Morning, first belated Birthday wishes to Simon, things on my mind distracting me just now.

We used to eat at a restaurant that put 5% on the bill as a tip for the staff, then it hit the local gossip mill the owner was the only "staff" that got the money, a lot of folk ate elsewhere and the bad guy sold up and left. I now no longer trust such ideas and do not eat at establishments that "add extras" to the bill, my charity donations are paid direct to ones of my choice(apart from the lottery) and remove the middleman's opportunity to help themselves. A tip for staff always goes in cash the person direct.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Sympathetic thoughts this morning for all of those under attack from tyrants, health issues and black dogs.

On a lighter note. A bright morning today in the frozen north. Due to all other adults being unavailable due to sports fixtures today I have been awarded a playday 

Youngest grandson had a birthday last week and daughter got him a ticket for the Bricktastic Lego exhibition in Manchester. Has to be accompanied by an adult so I got the second ticket. Due to the amount to see a trip out for lunch will be required. Naturally being eco-aware he wants to go by train so win-win situation.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Lazy old day today, no shopping to do and I can't be asked to do any chores.

2 hours ago, Grizz said:

 

Phil many thanks for your help mate. To be completely honest if I’d thought about it I do know exactly where the leak is, it is next joint back from the stopcock. The problem is that this joint is a composite joint from old 1930s 3/4 Galvanised pipe onto the new (in 2007) 25mm Blue MDPE. The galvy pipe is heavily corroded and should have been changed years ago but we never got round to it and now it would require digging up three households gardens with machines to get to it. 
 

It was the soul destroying task of digging up the garden that was the killer. This was to find the route of the old galvy pipe. Actually I did suspect I knew where it ran before I even started digging but I just wanted to be sure. So I dug three trial holes. 
Back in 1998 I rebuilt our patio by digging down 5 inches onto the virgin rock chalk and casting a reinforced concrete slab before laying locally produced brick paving bricks. I then build 9 inch brick boundary garden walls between our place and my brothers place next door. The old galvy pipe runs under the slab, quite deep down, and under the walls, from my brothers garden. All 5 properties on our side of the village were tied cottages of an estate,  so this pipe run is a legacy from the past and is as such a private water main across all of our private properties, linking each house to a common main. 
 

The really hard part is the is only approximately 1.5 of galvy pipe to play with before it dives under the concrete slab under the patio. The rub is that this 1.5 m is heavily corroded and that obviously makes it very difficult to get a composite adapter joint to seal on the galvy. Particularly as we are the second house from the pumping station. The last time we tried this was 4 years ago and it held until last week. If by pure luck I had found that the pipe ran along side the concrete slab instead, I would have replaced the lot across my property but annoyingly it was as I had first feared. 
 

Never mind though, on the up side I managed to find the pipe run direction by only digging three small trial holes in the lawn, having first fenced the chickens out of the worksite. 

Ta Da….

The tricky bit is we only have 1.5m of galvy pipe to play with and it is probably as stable as a pig on stilts. 
So we have decided to install one of those ‘Lego’ plastic inspection chambers around the pipe and the stopcock, so that if there is a problem in the future we wont have to dig the garden up again. I’ll probably go for a 900 x 900, which might seem excessive however it will allow for access and a reasonable working space. 
 

This morning I am going to back fill the two trial holes we don’t need. 
 

Thanks again Phil….

 

ATB Grizz

When they replaced the water supply to my house and three of my neighbours a few years ago they only dug a metre square hole, one in each garden (about five metres apart) and they used a mole drill to run between them. They also installed a meter box and from there to the house used a smaller mole drill. They had to reposition the stop cock as the original supply pipe that was leaking ran beneath the house. Luckily I had a cold water pipe just inside the kitchen door. This was where they installed the new stop cock. So they drilled at a forty five degree angle from the floor/wall join to meet up with the new pipe about a metre underground. This was beneath my patio and all they lifted was a couple of bricks, keyhole surgery. The cost was quite reasonable and I paid it off in none interest instalments. The pipes were corroded although they were copper, something to do with the acidity of the Essex clay. Some sections of the abandoned pipe had already been replaced by blue MDPE but this was abandoned with the corroded pipe. I'm not sure exactly what they done next door as they had an extension built on a concrete raft that extended over the old main.

[BSW01]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

 

This book seems rather good (I don't have a copy, sadly) - the author is an excellent artist and modeller:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Creating-Backscene-Railway-Modelling-Companion/dp/0711038422/ref=asc_df_0711038422/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=311058666397&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1238634570389606530&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006997&hvtargid=pla-565043497395&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

And his website is here:

https://bambrickstudio.co.uk/about-my-book/

 

PB, I have a copy of this book and I can confirm that it IS very good. It was one of a couple that I was perusing yesterday. 

[iL Dottore]

On 26/02/2022 at 11:30, tigerburnie said:

are the sausages Cumberland?................................just asking for a friend........................................

Yes, and not just Cumberland but a total of 20 different types of sausages from around the world (and about 15 different mustards…)

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A bright and sunny start to the day here in England’s northwest. For a change, we didn’t have breakfast in bed, we had a full English, bacon, fried egg, black pudding sausage, tinned tomatoes and a hash brown! I know some don’t like hash browns, but we do and we don’t care!so there! This was followed by toast and marmalade, a glass of orange juice and a large muggertea, Sheila had coffee!

 

The reason for the change in eating routine is that James and Amelia are calling round this afternoon around 1 o’clock, which is about the time that we normally eat our dinner. They don’t want anything to eat as they will be eating out later on and we feel very uncomfortable eating when we have guests who AREN'T eating with us. 

 

It will be nice seeing them both, as we haven’t seen them since just before Christmas, due to his variable working hours, so we’ll have a lot to catch up on. After that there are no firm plans for the rest of the day, but I’m sure I can find something to occupy myself with. 

 

Back later. 

 

Brian

[simontaylor484]

Morning all 

Lovely morning so far weather wise

Just doing some random jobs in the garage cant be bothered to do much

[iL Dottore]

A belated happy birthday to Simon. I hope that he had a good day and has now sobered up.  

 

The social event I went to yesterday went well enough although I’m afraid being confronted with food I had not cooked and an abundant choice of alcohol I indulged liberally in both. Now, it’s back to the straight and narrow.

 

On another note: a friend of mine dropped off 4 kg of unwaxed bio lemons for making Limoncello. Accordingly, the best part of 3.5 kg of lemons have been zested and the zest is now quietly maturing in a 3 L container of pure alcohol. In about three months, I will make a simple sugar syrup and combine the alcohol and syrup to make the Limoncello -  which in turn will mature in a dark and cool cellar for another three months before being decanted into bottles, sealed and given to friends. Depending on the amount of finished Limoncello I end up with, I might try my hand at further developing the Limoncello into a crema di limoncello.

 

Of course, all this citrus flavoured adventure has left me with a lot of lemons to use. I will probably juice most of them and try my hand at turning the lemon juice into an alcoholic lemonade through the addition of yeast to lemon juice, sugar and water.  I will also  use a few to make a Lemon Drizzle Cake.

 

On the matter of the Lemon Drizzle Cake: I will be baking one this afternoon, ready for Mrs iD’s return from the holiday hovel tomorrow afternoon. Having done my research and found a suitable recipe, I now realise how very easy-peasy it is to make and bake a LDC. Apart from the fact that by making your own LDC you can control what goes into it (unlike a certain ursine of our acquaintance who seem to get off on the E-numbers, stabilisers and emulsifiers of the factory produced LDC), it really requires very little in the way of equipment (you can actually do it all by hand, with a whisk, if you are so inclined), requires very little in the way of counter space during prep and - unlike cooking many other things in the oven - will not make a mess of your freshly scrubbed and polished oven.

 

A final twist to the LDC which I might try out is to create a lightly alcoholic lemon syrup with which you bathe just warm LDC before pouring the lemon drizzle (basically lemon juice and icing sugar) over the cake. This lightly alcoholic Lemon syrup will, according to the recipe, keep the cake nice and moist.

I may post photos.

Edited February 27, 2022 by iL Dottore

[PhilJ W]

Please do post some photos @iL Dottore but make certain it doesn't count as cruelty to Poly Bears. On another note, the foxes were back this morning but behind the pee-line. I'm ready to move the pee-line to the bottom of the garden, shoes ready to put on, back door unlocked and an extra muggatee this morning.

[simontaylor484]

@iL Dottore I don't drink alcohol any more (4 years now)  i m just having motivational issues today

[Coombe Barton]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Yes, and not just Cumberland but a total of 20 different types of sausages from around the world

Could any of them contain the picture of the Fallen Madonna by Van Clomp?

[laurenceb]

Is that. Mr Bear knocking on your door Flavio?

[laurenceb]

5 hours ago, grandadbob said:

Good morning all and a very belated Happy Birthday to Simon.

Blue sky and sunshine here and a fine, dry day is forecast.  Currently 4°C

It's been a bit hectic since my bad news on Friday.  Just after I posted that Col's son Steve and DiL Jane came round to see us and stayed for an hour chatting.   Since we first met in the 70s all 3 generations of our families have been and still are firm friends so there are a lot of memories.  I got asked to contact a couple of friends who had moved away and they had lost touch with and managed to do that yesterday and also had a chat with Col's wife Kath.  Apparently he had been going downhill for several months and what happened was not unexpected.  Apologies for banging on about this but we were almost like family and it's hit us hard.  Once again many thanks for all the support but then you can always rely on ERs for that.

The Boss is still suffering from Toothgate and not getting a lot of sleep and having to take painkillers. She's got a bruise on the side of her face and it looks like someone has "lamped" her.  Wasn't me Guv, honest! 

Friday was Abbie's 23rd birthday so we went out for the planned meal and glasses were raised in Col's memory.  The drinks bill was as much as the food!

Yesterday afternoon I watched two rugby matches but TBH didn't enjoy either one and even though England won they weren't very impressive.  (and that's being polite)

We're off to Nicki's house at lunchtime as it's Joe's 20th birthday so there is another small family celebration today.

Sunday means egg & bacon etc and it has just been offered so I will have to "gettamoveon."

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

Don't apologise Bob, something like this is always going to hit you like a train and having an outlet will help.

[tigerburnie]

Had a bright and breezy walk along the beach at Monifeith(near Dundee) with family, just the sort of pick me up that was required and blew away some cobwebs, managed to drive there, my eyes are improving slowly(I can see fine with my glasses on, it's without them that the problems arise). My camera has developed a fault that could see a lot of modelling tokens vanishing, it never rains eh.....pah!

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Coombe Barton said:

Could any of them contain the picture of the Fallen Madonna by Van Clomp?

You moan "Ze Fallen Madonna Wiv Ze Big B00bies?"   Of coase yo do.  She is laying in ze bidroom.  

[simontaylor484]

Well we have knocked off for the day various little jobs done garage alarm fitted and tested and a padlock put on the tool cupboard. Then we have swept the floor in there half a bag of concrete dust along with saw dust and other detritus that will find its way to the tip tomorrow. I just need the temperature to rise a little more to use the concrete dustproofer and hardener because the white dust gets every where. I have also given the up and over door locking mechanism some attention tightened the wire ropes and greased the moving rods that lock on either side of the door.

Next weekend hopefully we can start on the spare bedroom although we have some more stuff to go up in the loft

[simontaylor484]

6 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

You moan "Ze Fallen Madonna Wiv Ze Big B00bies?"   Of coase yo do.  She is laying in ze bidroom.  

Colonel Gruber is still looking for it