Early Risers.

[Dave Hunt]

11 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

The most interesting thing about that living room is the ceiling light fixture!

 

 

It's a period piece but not that unusual. We used to have one almost identical to that in our previous house.

 

Dave

[The White Rabbit]

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

What a birthday present.😄

 

Now don't go expecting it every birthday! Though it would make a change to the usual resignation speeches/letters: Dear Sir/Madam/Members, As it is the 7th July 20**, I must regretfully offer my resignation in order to give Mr JW his present... 

 

Happy Birthday Phil. 

 

And a belated many happy returns to Pete for yesterday. 

 

[The White Rabbit]

Afternoon awl,

 

A big change from yesterday weather-wise. Blue sky and a hot sun. A better night was had and after a little paperwork, a walk was had. I'm glad I didn't wait until the pm. I was out in the garden a few minutes ago and could feel the sun through my shirt. Bird baths topped up...

 

A Labrador was encountered on the walk, it's not good weather for all that fur. He was very happy to stop in the shade for a minute while the humans wished each other good morning. If we had one, I'd be thinking about a paddling pool for the summer months, underneath the laurel in the shade would be good, even if I did have a year round leaf-fall job. Speaking of work, many or the farmers are now making hay, several of the fields which at the start of the week were alive with flowers and insects are now a bit shorter, quieter and less colourful. Thankfully I don't suffer from hay-fever. 

 

Mixed grills are probably rather subjective but if they were going to tempt me, I'd want some of each of the four principal meats and some variation in how each were cooked/presented. And yes, I think there's a lot of 'mileage' in non-pork sausages. Pre-pestilence, a local farmers' market had a stall selling some superb beef sausages. And another with buffalo and rare-breed meats though that's another post/conversation. Our village butcher has an award-winning gamey sausage, pork is only one of the component meats. 

 

And I'm going to stop there before I make myself hungry!

[J. S. Bach]

23 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

It's a period piece but not that unusual. We used to have one almost identical to that in our previous house.

Dave

Speaking of period light fixtures, just me let go in here and browse ("I'll get one of those, one of those, one of those, ..."  he says pointing in different directions):

 

Fixtures similar to the one in the living room were sold (over here, anyway) under the trade name HOLOPHANE and others. They are a favorite of mine.

 

Here is a photo of Crouse-Hinds fixture with their version of the ribbed-glass diffuser:

These were on ebay (2010 according to the date on the photo) but I got seriously outbid on them!

 

Darn, you got me wound up on a favorite subject!! A most favorite style of C-H "VAPORTIGHT" fixture, this one is mine:

 

The opaque milk-glass (C-H calls it "opal") globe was hard to find, but it yields a nice, soft light, like for an area night light:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by J. S. Bach
To do a minor edit.

[New Haven Neil]

We had a full set of similar light fittings to Stuart's lounge in the hallway of our last house, they suited it's 1914 build, there were triple versions over the stairs.  Cost us a king's ransom, then we sold the house.....the new owners wanted them.   Pah.

[45156]

And here's the final result of the garden once planted and fully fenced.

[45156]

And one more which RMWeb wouldn't load

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from a sunny LBG.

 

Happy Birthday to Phil, and belatedly to Petethemole.

 

Work continues. One of my colleagues has resigned. Following the redundancy of my former boss, that will leave the team at 60% strength (and lower than that in terms of experience). I assume that my new boss will find time to recruit a replacement. time will tell.

 

In just over two weeks time I shall be on my hols - the first time since the dreaded lurgy arose. And I shall forget all the woes of work for that period!

[45156]

1 hour ago, J. S. Bach said:

The most interesting thing about that living room is the ceiling light fixture!

 

We have two, one at each end of the living room - they are by Jim Lawrence lighting, and are called the Foster Pendant Lights.

 

https://www.jim-lawrence.co.uk/foster-pendant-light/

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by 45156

[Ian Abel]

Happy birthday to Pete and to Phil.

 

AWOL with no excuses - I'm sure I could make some up...

 

July 4th weekend and "day" was rather pedestrian in the current US-centric view, mass shooting, plenty of shootings not considered "mass", oh well, business as usual 😡😡

 

We enjoyed a quiet get together with neighbors that's about it!

 

Back working since Tuesday, continues quiet.

Non-BIN day today due to the holiday Monday, almost forgot and just stopped ourselves putting the BINs out last night, will occur tonight.

 

Weather has been varied but generally nice, less humid but no precipitation, could do with some for sure.

 

20 first thing, expecting rain later, but not too confident, high of 30 forecast.

 

Onward.

[TheQ]

Tried to find an Asda today, drove round it twice without seeing it, only on the third attempt was it found down a minor side street.... And it's a big super store!!

It also the first time I've ever been to a petrol station with no kiosk, no credit card, no fuel from the 12 positions.

[AndrewC]

Greetings all from the boring borough. Been off for a bit and away from the laptop as we’ve had house pests, err guests. The ex and her hubby V2.0 have been here for a few days prior to schlepping north to visit the offspring and a bunch of her family. Loads of BBQ were consumed as part of a big Canada Day party last Friday with good friends and their munchkins. More BBQ with the visitors. I’ve still got about 1kg of brisket and some beef ribs that Fred Flintstone would drool over about to be vac sealed for future consumption. Tuesday was my solar orbit completion day. Lunch in Soho and a bit a beer crawl through Camden was enjoyed. Camden has now finally been officially ruined. The old market stalls replaced by trendy shipping container box park wanna be foodie things. What few decent pubs remain are rammed with even more horrid people than before. Thank feck for the Black Heart & British Boot Shop. (Where SWMBO just spent £900 in new footwear) 

 

Yesterday was a do burger all day. Today was a do burger all day. Got excited for a minute that something interesting politically would actually happen. Talk about a damp squib. Meh. Got my hopes up for a minute that something involving chains, boat down the Thames, the Bloody Tower, and a large French veggie slicer would be involved. 

 

Modelling Mojo has shown signs of stirring. Half of me wants to try and lay some O track in the garden when SWMBO isn’t looking. The other half of me has a box full of OO-9 and a ready made 2’ by 4’ baseboard just crying out for a micro layout which I can build on the patio while enjoying the sun and a few fermented beverages. Decisions, decisions. 

 

Back, eventually. Enjoy the rest of the day. 

[The Lurker]

Happy birthday Andrew

[PhilJ W]

Happy birthday Andrew.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Mention of sausages reminded me of the Tess Coes 'New York sausage'. Only available ready cooked from the deli. More like an English sausage than anything American, the only difference is the addition of some mustard. I recall that in the then Essex County Council had a standard ceiling light fitting in the schools I attended. It was an opaque white glass bowl suspended by three or four chains. The main feature was the collection of dead flies in the bowl. When I left school they were in the process of replacing them with florescent tubes.

Edited July 7, 2022 by PhilJ W

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

…..Mixed grills are probably rather subjective but if they were going to tempt me, I'd want some of each of the four principal meats and some variation in how each were cooked/presented. And yes, I think there's a lot of 'mileage' in non-pork sausages….

I am assuming that the four principal meats are: pork, beef, lamb and chicken.

 

I would also add goat, wild boar, venison and duck to the list. Although goat, wild boar and venison are very lean meats and thus need to be very quickly cooked (if the cut allows for that). So wild boar, venison and goat chops would be very doable. Grilling duck would be an equally interesting challenge as the trick would be not to allow the fat rendering from the duck to flare on the coals and char the duck skin. Thigh is always a good choice for duck, goose and chicken as thighs are more robust and stand up better to grilling than a breast.

 

A bacon chop would not go amiss, nor would an assortment of sausages. Plus, perhaps, some quickly grilled kidneys on skewers to round everything off. A selection of potato dishes would complement the meats*

 

Condiments? Chutneys, mustards, Reform (club) Sauce and (if you have to) brown sauce.

 

To drink? None of that namby-pamby lager nonsense, what you need is a good, solid, stout, IPA or porter. For those of us whose fathers and grandfathers had the foresight to lay down a few firkins of wine in the cellar, a big red – such as a Barolo, a Malbec, Amarone or Montepulciano - would be ideal.

 

I think it would be great fun to host an ER mixed grill: with loads of great grilled meats and sausages, good quality alcohols to lubricate everything and erudite conversation guaranteed.

 

iD

 

* A green salad could be provided to make a desultory nod towards the “and two veg” (spuds are a veg - so we’ve got one of the two covered)

Edited July 7, 2022 by iL Dottore
Typo

[iL Dottore]

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

[New Haven Neil]

LPT attack.....three today and loving it.....

 

[Barry O]

Happy Birthday @AndrewC!

 

Amixed gorilla must have liver as well as kidneys, two types of sausage (pork and blackpudding is one of the too), gammon steak  rump steak, blackpudding, pork chop or a Barnsley chop, field mushrooms, eggs and some form of potato...Allhallows wirh a mugatea(or a pint of dark landlord) a dab of English mustard and..off you go

 

Baz

[Coombe Barton]

... we’re probably going to take no action over the doubling and redoubling of Covid infection and probably let them run riot, which will mean more hospital admissions and the already struggling NHS is going to both pressurised and unfairly blamed. ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/07/07/covid-growing-but-cabinet-distracted/ 

[J. S. Bach]

Yes, happy birthday @AndrewC .

[simontaylor484]

Happy Birthday @AndrewC

[PupCam]

Evening All!

 

Firstly birthday greetings to Pete and to Phil and belated greetings to Andrew either with or without allowance for the planet's precession around it's sun and hence an accurate view on the distance travelled. 

 

"covid-growing-but-cabinet-distracted"  which cabinet is that then?    I think we need to specify a time and date (down to a resolution of a second should just about do it) to be certain of which cabinet we are referring to.   That's probably far too much of that sort of talk on here so I'll move on! 🤣

 

In Other News

 

I was reading an interesting article in the current issue of Real Classic (old motorcycles magazine) on the joys of old BMW air-cooled twins.     It was written by some bloke called Neil who's wife also rides and they had moved from the mainland (I infer) to the Isle of Man sometime back.   Could it be?   No, surely not?

 

We had an interesting walk round the Shuttleworth estate yesterday and found a new (to us) feature - the Summer House.   Considering the hundreds of times we've visited the place for both aeronautical and physical exercise purposes over the years it's discovery was something of a surprise.   Today we turned our attention to Ampthill Great Park with a nice walk through the park and woods and we re-visited Catherine's Cross for the first time in ages.   Older ER's may recall the book Masquerade by Kit Williams in the early '80s that was a series of clues that led ultimately to buried treasure in the form of a Gold Hare.     The location of the treasure was marked by the shadow of the cross at noon on the  equinox.   I recall a friend having the book but not getting anywhere close and, of course, we had absolutely no idea that the treasure was not far away.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)

 

Whilst thinking about discoveries, I have been engrossed in trying to coax old image processing software to run on my relatively modern PC.   It was a bit of a struggle but I think I've got the measure of it now and have a bit of a handle on the maximum image size that it can handle before going belly-up.    I've also learnt how to convert Canon raw format images into tifs using a nifty and free (you'll recall Puppers likes free) Canon utility and then batch pre-process the images in Affinity Photo ( a modern , cheap type of Paint Shop Pro) ready for the pre-historic stacking software so that's good.   It's true, every day is a school day and long may it continue.     Anyway, this is the current state of my art - they are getting sharper and more detailed 😀

 

 

Tomorrow I may just be going on a small adventure to look at a pre-war, 2 wheeled motor vehicle.     Wish my wallet luck ........

 

TTFNQ

 

Alan

[simontaylor484]

@TheQ that seems to be a common feature of Asda filling stations. The one I often use in Castleford often has pumps out of order for various reasons 

[Ian Abel]

Birthday greetings @AndrewC