Early Risers.

[PhilH]

Morning (just) from the bottom. I have a valid excuse today for my tardiness inasmuch as I’ve just got in from a brisk walk round the parish. Up till just before Christmas I used to go out for a daily stomp, rain or shine, and got fairly fit losing some 15 kg in the process. Blood pressure plummeted, I was able to virtually come off meds for that condition then a bit of a disaster. I sustained a stress fracture in my big toe which blooming hurt and blooming stopped me from blooming enjoying the daily stomp.

 

Then,of course, laziness kicked in so the stomps got fewer and farther between… until today. hopefully today is the great watershed, as in the start of stomping season. We shall see

 

Whatever you’re doing. Enjoy your day!

Edited April 17, 2023 by PhilH

[New Haven Neil]

Just been for my toddle around the village as it happens, 2 miles.  I am trying to keep as mobile as I can prior to surgery 'some time' this summer, when I will be laid up for 3 months basically (there goes summer) and the rate that muscle disappears at is unbelievable.  As I have been there twice before I know what's coming....unfortunately.  This is a painful surgery, but better done now before I get too old and decrepit to recover reasonably well.  Pah.

[Tony_S]

41 minutes ago, polybear said:

the number of times it kept saying it couldn't recognise made Bear almost lose the will to live.  Don't they ever properly test these things before letting them loose?  Yep, Rant.

Have you tried ringing the number and remaining totally silent? Some of them eventually transfer to a human(or at least a human answered queue)  when there is no response 

[NGT6 1315]

52 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I like the Japanese locomotives bought by RENFE, classes 251 and 269. I often think about buying models of them as there are some lovely HO examples. 

 

Yeah, Renfe as a European railway buying Japanese-designed locos seems quite unusual to me for the time period they were procured. Then again, this business relationship started during the Franco era, so I suppose it might have had at least something to do with diversifying sources for political reasons.

The earliest of these classes was the 279, or 7900 under the old numbering scheme, which were bought in 1967/68. They were followed by the 289 (8900) in 1969-72, whereas the 269 and 251 first arrived in 1973 and 1982 respectively.

[BSW01]

Eleven years ago today, I was diagnosed with T3 stage prostate cancer, my treatment started the same day! I was Initially given a 3 week course of steroids, this was to prepare my body for the shock of hormone therapy, my first injection was 9 days later, I was then referred to ‘The Christie’ for further treatment. I was asked if I’d be willing to take part in a drug trial, this wasn’t a new drug, it was a drug usually used when cancer has returned, the trial was to see if it could be used in a new way. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance, this trial began in the July. The following January after the cancer had begun to recede, I was given 37 doses of radiotherapy, 1 dose a day, 5 days a week, which ended in mid March. Although I’ve not been told I’m cancer free, in all the tests done since, they can’t find any trace of it.

 

So, there we have it, thanks to the wonderful team at ‘The Christie’ all NHS staff at the various hospitals I’ve had treatment in and the research done by various test laboratories around the world, 11 years later I’m still here, enjoying life and my retirement, I can’t thank them enough. 
 

All I’ll say now is, GET your PSA tested and enjoy life, you just don’t know what’s round the corner!
 

[DaveF]

It started dull again today but reasonably mild, the sun has since put in an appearance.

 

Yesterday being Sunday had the weekly e mails and phone calls followed by a visit to church for the usual Sunday communion service.  I was back home in time for a leisurely coffee followed by some time in the greenhouse sowing more seeds which are now in the kitchen to keep them warm for germination.  I have to say that I am not really enamoured with most peat free composts, they have an odd consistency with a lot of coarse fibres.  I shall see how the seeds and plants get on.  I may go back to John Innes composts which were always my preferred choice until it became harder to find in the local retailers - though I notice some are stocking loam based composts again.

 

I do realise why peat has to be phased out as it is a finite resource.  I had a look at the garden and more or less decided what else needs doing in the next few weeks, I may need to visit a garden centre.

 

I didn't go to my normal monthly meeting about things that run on strips of steel (well actually nickel silver) as I had said I'd be in if the delivery for the Ukrainian family came when they were all that their new house.  In the event I wasn't needed so had a peaceful afternoon - in fact I fell asleep having not slept well overnight.  Then the evening was mainly some nice music (Bach) and a book.

 

David

[jamie92208]

Just a quick update. Drwas rung at 08. 55.  Beth saw her at 11.50 and was diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumaticca and given a course of steroids which we picked up by 12.20.  That's a result and hopefully will work.  Also our granddaughter has got into the school her mums wanted. That's great news. 

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

I had my Covid booster this morning. Pfizer again. It was done at a local pharmacy. Not one I normally use but all very efficient. 
 

[The White Rabbit]

15 hours ago, PupCam said:

...  I've mentioned before my "Diary of Events" (~34 pages and counting) for my own situation.   Hopefully you will have something similar but if not,  it might be a good thing to do it retrospectively as far as you can and then keep it up to date as time goes on.

 

Anyway, be as grumpy as you need, we're here to help.

 

Alan

 

Yes, I started this some time ago when the NHS first started on treatment. I'm well into double figures. 

 

And for anyone with medical problems, I'd heartily recommend they do the same. 

 

15 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Sorry to hear your not well White Rabbits, no idea what age you are, but as I have passed the biblical three score years and ten and am still under surveillance for the big C amongst other delights, I have decided to grab each day, not so much as if it might be my last, but more grab it by the ballix and extract the most out of each and every one of them, find it helps give me a positive attitude and lifts my mood no end. Keep well and keep doing what you like, even if you're not supposed to.

 

I'm a youngster in my 40s. It is fairly common in one form or another in older gentlemen but I'm not supposed to get this at all! And if I do, the odds on it being as serious are supposed to be remote. 

 

Advice to [carpe diem] is not bad or unwelcome but I'm afraid it's difficult to apply in practice, especially when many activities are either risky or difficult to pursue without being reminded of my condition on a minute by minute basis. 

 

14 hours ago, polybear said:

Firstly, VVVSBT's to our friend Bunny (aka @The White Rabbit).  Hang in there, Buddy.

 

(Thinking about it, we all have a Terminal Prognosis do we not?) ... 

 

Yes, life has an inescapable ultimate destination and while we can lengthen the journey, we can never avoid arriving there one day. What really hurts - even more than the doctors' changes of opinion and insensitivity - is the timing. Just before this came along, I had made some key decisions about life, including ones which would have made a radical improvement in my life. A few weeks later the symptoms started to show (though like Brian's cancer, they initially masked themselves as something else which wasn't serious and was easily explained as a product of the enormous stress I was under). This - and a few similar things between then and now - makes it very difficult to avoid the conclusion it's a deliberate act on behalf of someone - or something. I know that might sound paranoid but given the odds on this happening to me at all, then the timing and combination of certain other things going on, all of which made my life pretty miserable, according to the mathematics laws of probability, we're talking astronomical odds.

 

I feel like a beetle being toyed with by a sadistic toddler with a stick, no matter which way I turn I am blocked or poked or prodded. Particularly with the frequent and radical changes in prognosis and the emotional roller-coaster from those, it feels like Fate has decided to torment me until either I go insane or kill myself in sheer desperation. 

 

5 hours ago, Barry O said:

@The White Rabbit.. bl**dy doctors..  just Carpe Diem for as long as you can. Being grumpy is a must by the way! ... 

 

5 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

.... I did however pick up @The White Rabbit'newsRabbit'news.   My sympathy you.  I can't offer any medical advice but would challenge the medics head on as forcefully as possible,.  If necessary take someone with you to help. ...

 

1 hour ago, polybear said:

... Judging by Bunny's posts the Quacks appear to be almost making it up as they go along; a certain Bear would be investigating just who is the Top Cookie in the UK for the (allegedly) particular affliction concerned and asking the GP for a referral to that person for a 2nd Opinion; the other option would be a Private Consultation with that person if circumstances allow. ...

 

I can manage grumpy. And challenging has been done. But one problem is getting a good night's sleep, I posted on here last year (when things were bad but with the expectation of improving/getting a final cure). On the days after the bad nights (sadly a majority) thinking clearly is tricky - so those I deal with aren't always 'kept honest', whether we're talking doctors or any other sort of jobs. Having a helper would be useful - but not always possible, often hospitals have said we can't accept anyone else (mainly due to Covid) with you for appointments or treatments. And even if that policy doesn't apply, having someone to act would be difficult. I lost my partner some years ago - the NHS didn't listen to us for her either until it was too late - and all my close family have now either passed on or are in very poor health themselves. Friends? Over the last few years I have lost all but one of my close friends - one death, two emigrations and two turned out to be fair weather friends - and she has a lot of her own problems at the moment and is in no state to spend the required hours with me. 

 

I don't know who the top person is in the UK - but will be looking - though I found someone who was supposed to be the head man in Yorkshire. He was one of those who has mucked me about and let me down in all sorts of ways, including potentially lying to me. I don't want to go into details as it's potentially a law suit. Private medicine is an option and if it takes travel to another country to get fixed, I'll do it. Many, many LDC or Deltics but what price a life? I have been talking with a private consultant lately, his was the last opinion to be given. He is due to speak with some colleagues to pool some ideas, either for a proper fix (he wasn't optimistic) or to at the very least make it so I can have something of a natural life for another 20-30 years. 

 

Fingers crossed that, as @Erichill16 wished, there is another 180 - and that is delivered! Anyway. Rant over. For now at least! 

[polybear]

59 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Have you tried ringing the number and remaining totally silent? Some of them eventually transfer to a human(or at least a human answered queue)  when there is no response 

 

Bear cheated and used a different phone number for the same place instead.  When I was using the recommended number and the auto system couldn't even recognise a spoken** single digit house number three times in a row I knew it wasn't going to end well.

 

Thames Water arrived at 13.00 hours and are digging as Bear types....

 

I had a call from very clever Buddy (a retired Jeweller - of the making, not flogging variety) - he had a fall at Easter and managed to dislocate a couple of fingers.  Ouch.  As he couldn't face the idea of sitting in A&E for 18 hours to get them fixed he instead padded his vice jaws with Leather then clamped them in the jaws and pulled them back so they were, er, located again.  Thas' 'ard, that is.....

Bear gone.

[jamie92208]

Some on here may like the bike in the picture.  Taken in early September 1981.   Our eldest is sitting on my friends bike.  The bike still exists in my friends shed.  I think that this is the Bonneville.  He also has a Bantam from the same era.  @PupCam @New Haven Neil.  The young man now rides a rather large Ducatti.

Jamie

Edited April 17, 2023 by jamie92208

[Tony_S]

11 hours ago, polybear said:

Thas' 'ard, that is..

Years ago I missed a step when exiting the back door. The top of my left foot was very lumpy and looked rather displaced. We were due to drive across France to the Alps a few days later. So I pushed everything back. I have since learned this wasn’t sensible but it would have been more painful to cancel the holiday. I am not at all ‘ard.

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Tony_S

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl,

Furniture moved around in mobile home 

Two beds moved to mobile home, 

More to do...

 

Mobile phone 1 attempted to fit SIM in, err the one from my old phone is too big.. new one ordered at the huge cost of 15p.

The phone is right around the change from being phones locked, to locking being ilegal. So until the card arrives there's no more to do.

 

Now to play with phone 2.

Which appears to be a huawei, but it appears to have no model number on it, now on charge..

 

I've also been playing with a box of electronics, it's arrived with other items from our unmentionable hobby at the MRC. It appears to have been professionally made, and they've done the sneaky trick of rubbing off the chip numbers inside. It's got 2 five pin din sockets on the back and a switch. On the front it's got a 4 position rotary selector switch,  start and  stop buttons with 4 LEDs...  Use ? So far I have no idea...

If I can work out what it is the club will then decide what to do with it

 

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

Years ago I missed a step when exiting the back door. The top of my left foot was very lumpy and looked rather displaced. We were due to drive across France to the Alps a few days later. So I pushed everything back. I have since learned this wasn’t sensible but it would have been more painful to cancel the holiday. I am not at all ‘are!

 

Beth's joints have a habit of dislocating.  I once had to put her right hip back into place at 35,000' on flight home from Tenerife.   I used the fold down crew double jump seat at the front with the stewardess holding her shoulders.  It worked.

 

Jamie

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by jamie92208

[NGT6 1315]

I'm currently rearranging my static display areas, if you will, so on the topic of Talgos...

 

 

 

I also have a 354, which itself was a further evolution of the 353 with yet more power and 200 kph top speed. I cannot help but think the 353 and 354 in particular remind me of soap bars, visually.

 

Those are fairly recent Electrotren models as well, re @jjb1970's comments. As it is, I refitted the diesels with DCC sound last week!

 

 

And this was a limited edition of the LS Models 193, with €100 from each sale having been donated to humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

 

 

And two additional political liveries, if you will!

[Ian Abel]

Moaning...

 

Weekend was busy, but with nothing really spectacular, mostly a few errands.

I DID manage to get to the "Wild Bird Shop" to use up the gift card the kids gave me for my birthday a while back. Couple of new squirrel proof feeders, some seed and a good chat about what best to attract which birds. Nice shop, I'd never been there before, but it will become a regular place now.

We then went to a nearby restaurant run by the sons of our travelling companions, for lunch. Ran into some of their other kids AND grandkids there, so that was nice, gave us a chance to visit with them.

 

Sunday - IT BLQQDY SNOWED!!!!! Was in the forecast but I had hoped standing outside and uttering expletives into the sky would make it decided against annoying me.

Didn't work. We got 7/10th of an inch, but given the ground is reasonably warmed up from three days of mid to upper 20s temps, it's mostly all gone already. 

The weather did mean we were basically inside all day though. 

 

Jemma and Brendan got in late last evening from the vacation in Mexico, so won't be by until today to pick up Whitney. Not much else other than work for today.

 

More seasonable weather today -2c and sunny first thing, 5c the expected high.

 

Tally ho.

[45156]

Afternoon All,

 

Oxfam has been oxfammed, and a few more railway books added to the stock - but nothing all that exciting. 

 

eBay has been eBayed, but quite a few items failed to sell.  However, we have made a few good sales over the last few days, and you can't win them all.  Five parcels in two days is not to be sneezed at.

 

Fodder run tomorrow, then off to Leominster to see what has sold from the cabinet (if anything).

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[PupCam]

Afternoon All!

 

6 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

While we're on bikes.....

 

@PupCam what do you reckon to this?  spotted in the background of a photo, didn't see it at the time.

 

2010 Manx GP.

 

 

That looks interesting!    What's the parentage of the engine?  And what's the big painted box in front of the crankcase I wonder?

 

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Some on here may like the bike in the picture.  Taken in early September 1981.   Our eldest is sitting on my friends bike.  The bike still exists in my friends shed.  I think that this is the Bonneville.  He also has a Bantam from the same era.  @PupCam @New Haven Neil.  The young man now rides a rather large Ducatti.

Jamie

 

Excellent!      Sowing seeds early always gets good results 😀

 

In Other News

 

Nice trip out with friends this morning rounded off with scoff in a local pub.   There's worse ways to spend the day.   The rest of this one may involve some Beeza faffing.

 

Got to be a true Early Riser (for Puppers) tomorrow as an adventure is on the cards.   Looking forward to it.

 

TTFN

[PeterBB]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Some on here may like the bike in the picture.  Taken in early September 1981.   Our eldest is sitting on my friends bike.  The bike still exists in my friends shed.  I think that this is the Bonneville.  He also has a Bantam from the same era.  @PupCam @New Haven Neil.  The young man now rides a rather large Ducatti.

 

Jamie

Thanks @Jamie.  You have just stirred a memory.  Many years ago a young cousin was playing with her dad's motorbike .  My aunt told him that was so and he replied words to the effect that it was safe and would not fall over ... then suddenly my aunt screamed at him "The kids have got the b****y thing started".  My uncle was a big man but he then moved quite quickly as he heard the clutch  ... thankfully no injury and the cousin is well into the 70s now.

[Barry O]

Dislocating fingers was a regular occurrence when I played rugby. A stride over to the goal post, pull arm back and.. thump.. finger hits post and is no longer dislocated... simplee.

 

Baz

Edited April 17, 2023 by Barry O

[tigerburnie]

I was playing in the second row when the scrum collapsed and my shoulder dislocated, a bloke on the other team shouts I'm a surgeon plants me face down in the mud, put his knee in the middle of my back and pulled my arm about and it went back in. My not so very sympathetic skipper said don't go off there's only 5 minutes to go, play out on the wing and just get in the way if they attack. So there I was running about with my arm flapping about like it wasn't mine, luckily no one came near me.

On another occasion having a tooth extracted and the dentist was struggling I saw over his shoulder the assistant looked like she was going to pass out, seems my jaw was dislocated the dentist had his hand in mouth pushing it back into place. Both have given me jip since on occasion, but my fingers are alright.

[NGT6 1315]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Dislocating fingers was a regular occurrence when I played rugby. A stridebovervto the goal post, pull arm back and.. thump.. finger hits post and is no longer dislocated... simplee.

 

Baz

Double, no, triple cringe! 😵

[polybear]

Bear here.....

Bear Towers now has a water meter. Pity the b'sterds didn't clean up afterwards though 🤬 - the first I knew they were in their truck and off down the road, with just a leaflet shoved thru' the door to say they'd finished.  So Bear was out there for quite a while squirting the drive + various other bits with the hosepipe.  And then it suddenly struck me.....

"Sh1t, this is costing Bear money......."

As to whether or not the meter proves to be a good idea or not won't be known for a year, but all common sense suggests that as Bear Towers is only occupied by a solo Bear it should be.  At some point I need to do some before n' after readings n' sumz to work out how much things like washing the Bearmobile cost - purely out of interest though, as the Bearmobile isn't gonna suffer for the sake of a few quid.

Bear gone

[polybear]

WTF??

 

"He was convicted of rape earlier this month however, due to new sentencing guidelines for under 25s, he was not jailed and instead given 270 hours of unpaid work."

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-65298929

[Barry O]

@polybear  as there are only two of us a water meter was a good thing to get. Despite increased charges our bills have dropped since we had it fitted.

 

Baz