Early Risers.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Think we've worn out Seren...

[Tony_S]

10 minutes ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Think we've worn out Seren...

Robbie would look like that, stretched out in front of the fire (even though it was only flame effect). However if anyone were foolish enough to use the word ”walk” or move his lead he would be up and bouncy, at least until the last week of his life. If we wanted to say walk but not excite him we started spelling it letter by letter but I am sure he learned to recognise that too.  

[TheQ]

Only slightly greyer than Ben is now.

 

Been reading a very good long thread on the RAF Radar convoy that went ashore on Omaha beach on D-Day. It was started by Dr Les Dobinson CEng MIET who as a member of The RCAF , was there with the unit. He got the convoys memorial put up near the American memorial at the beach.

Sadly near the end is the announcement of his death in 2021 at the age of 97.

https://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/r-a-f-units-in-d-day-landings-on-omaha-beach.14165/

Edited January 17 by TheQ

[NGT6 1315]

The town looked like this when I went out to grab dinner...

 

 

I'll let you know if I should be snowed in by morning!

[Joseph_Pestell]

3 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Everyone that has or had a Labrador will know that the Seafood Diet is their pets favourite....

 

 

We used to look after a neighbour's Labrador from time to time. Owning a very well-behaved dog, we were not too careful about leaving things out of reach. Untik we came down one morning to find that Cocoa had ripped apart a pizza carton to get at just  a few crumbs.

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from a part of the Boring Borough which is still cold and cloudy but which has been snow free.

 

WFH this week as we are between offices which means I seem to have done more ferrying of others while trying to work! Oh and answering the door to deliveries- three calls in a row interrupted today!

 

there was talk of pharmacies earlier - we seem lucky here in that there are two independents on the high street plus a Boots, another on the way down to the station and another down in Foots Cray. And given that I am about 90 seconds Walt from the High Street, that’s pretty good. The High Street itself is the usual mix of charity shops, nail bars and takeaways although the Chinese medicine shops seem to have gone.

[PupCam]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

....... My next door neighbour has a motion-sensitive security light that lights up every time a cat/squirrel etc walks along his fence. The ambient light shines onto my bedroom ceiling and often wakes me up.

 

And one wonders how much crime they have prevented?     I'm guessing 3/5 of not-a-lot.    It's a shame so many people feel the need!

 

1 hour ago, Darlington_Shed said:

Part of my problem with retirement astronomy/astrophotography is that the retirement plan involved a relocation to somewhere with decent dark skies. Instead, Mrs Shed is still borderline workaholic and we'll be resident in west London for a few years yet. So we have central London skyglow a few miles to the east, Heathrow airport skyglow a few miles to the west, we're right under the Heathrow flightpath, and surrounded by neighbours with security lighting (which, BTW, makes not a jot of difference to your chances of being burgled or having your car nicked).

 

Of course, those things are only a nuisance on the 10 or 12 nights of the year that don't suffer thick cloud cover or some form of precipitation 🙂

 

Unfortunately now, even when you get somewhere with a decent sky, some bod is shoving thousands of little satellites to buxxer it up.   Still, they'll be handy when I want o access the internet in the middle of the Sahara.       Of course, turning such problems into opportunities (oh no, I'm sounding like I'm back at work) the challenge of tracking and photographing the ISS is a very significant one and there are some who have had some spectacular results.    I have enough trouble finding small dots in the sky that aren't, to all intents and purposes, moving! 🤣

 

ION

 

Two laps of the Swiss Garden completed,    a migraine after lunch followed by being asleep for a good deal of the afternoon.   I still feel tired so I fancy an early night is on the cards.

 

TTFN

 

 

[Tony_S]

26 minutes ago, PupCam said:

the challenge of tracking and photographing the ISS is a very significant one

You still have six years according to an article I read today. 

[The White Rabbit]

5 hours ago, Hroth said:

Everyone that has or had a Labrador will know that the Seafood Diet is their pets favourite only available setting....

 

Fixed that for you... 

 

4 hours ago, Tony_S said:

... As [Robbie] jumped he had stolen a salmon sandwich as it was in between the woman’s hand and mouth. ....

 

That reminds me of a cartoon I want to post. Once the IT problems are sorted and if Life gets a bit easier, I have some scanning to do (the old one has gone pop and I'm unsure if it can be revived, there's a procedure I want to try before binning it but I am not optimistic). Does anyone else have the book 'How to live with a Pampered Pet'? https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Live-Pampered-Eric-Gurney/dp/B005OTIUKO - a modest little paperback but worth a couple of pounds if you see one at a realistic price. Fully illustrated, including on pets helping themselves ...  

[Tony_S]

2 minutes ago, The White Rabbit said:

including on pets helping themselves ...

I mentioned that Robbie was good about not taking our food at home. That was only true until he was eight. He had an infection and had to have an emergency neutering. However after the surgical cone collar was removed he just took food if he could reach it. We could no longer put snacks on low coffee tables or near the edge of worktops. 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I was making an eyelid inspection this afternoon and missed a call from a *credit card company about financing a new car, I'll have to call back in the morning. Just been watching Winter Watch, there was a very interesting article on the Portugese man-of-war. I was intrigued to discover that it is not a jellyfish but a group of hundreds of separate animals living as a colony and each animal has a separate function. *The credit card is hardly ever used and I 'froze' the upper limit more than twenty years ago, I've asked for the limit to be raised while I'm waiting for the insurance to sort things out.

[Dave Hunt]

We were very lucky with our dog Sam, who was a lab/collie cross but looked almost pure black lab with a white chest. We could leave him in a room where the coffee table was laden with food and he wouldn't touch a morsel, just sit and gaze longingly at the goodies. The really amazing thing is that we didn't what you would call train him in this behaviour but after just a few "NO"s when he showed any intention of going near food that wasn't his, he never tried it on again. Like I said, we were lucky.

 

Dave

[monkeysarefun]

17 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

We were very lucky with our dog Sam, who was a lab/collie cross but looked almost pure black lab with a white chest. We could leave him in a room where the coffee table was laden with food and he wouldn't touch a morsel, just sit and gaze longingly at the goodies. The really amazing thing is that we didn't what you would call train him in this behaviour but after just a few "NO"s when he showed any intention of going near food that wasn't his, he never tried it on again. Like I said, we were lucky.

 

Dave

 

 

 

We had an Irish Setter when I was growing up that was trained to not snatch food so would sit there gazing longingly at it while we were eating, but a stream  of drool would ooze out of each side of her mouth. Often they would join up to form one stalactite which would continue to slowly make its way to the floor, it looked like she was  wearing a spit stethoscope.  Then she'd shake her head and cover the whole area and everything in it  including the food  in doggy drool at which point she  usually got it handed to her anyway.

[Coombe Barton]

... awayday today. And there’s still marking. But realised that I have only 36 timetabled teaching days left to work ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/01/17/covid-nothing-new-and-jabs/

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

It’s been a long time since I’ve manage to post an evening update, mainly due to not really finding the time to do so. Anyway, it’s just really been more of the same, Sheila is still improving, my ‘inner’ domestic god qualities are also improving too! However, I’ll be glad when things start to get back to normal and I can start doing some DIY tasks etc. and also head back to the workshop. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[Two_sugars]

goodnight all . .. . sleep well . . .

 

John

 

[pH]

Today, the city has been running a plow regularly up and down the short street just west of us, keeping the street to the local high school clear. The problem with that is that the school has not been in session, a ‘snow day’ having been declared. Meanwhile, our street, off the street to the high school, hasn’t seen a plow all day. With the snow continuing to fall, we now have about 25cm on the street.

[Ozexpatriate]

7 hours ago, pH said:

Here’s the view off the deck this morning:

That's a healthy snowfall.

 

Here we had melting all day - drip, drip, drip everywhere. Except that the layer of refrozen sleet covered with frozen rain and now rain + meltwater on the pavement is even slipperier than it was before.

Unlike whatever the New York Post Office building might claim:

Quote

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

The USPS did not make their appointed rounds. I guess sleet + frozen rain is not enumerated.

 

I went walking on the ice (with traction devices on my boots) to the mail box and there is evident meltwater on the surface of the street under the ice, but it hasn't broken up.

 

Today was bin day but that was delayed until tomorrow. Perhaps a big heavily chained garbage truck can help break up the ice layer.

[zarniwhoop]

45 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

That's a healthy snowfall.

 

Here we had melting all day - drip, drip, drip everywhere. Except that the layer of refrozen sleet covered with frozen rain and now rain + meltwater on the pavement is even slipperier than it was before.

Unlike whatever the New York Post Office building might claim:

The USPS did not make their appointed rounds. I guess sleet + frozen rain is not enumerated.

 

I went walking on the ice (with traction devices on my boots) to the mail box and there is evident meltwater on the surface of the street under the ice, but it hasn't broken up.

 

Today was bin day but that was delayed until tomorrow. Perhaps a big heavily chained garbage truck can help break up the ice layer.

For the quote, I prefer the discworld version: NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESENGERS ABOT THEIR DUTY (from Going Postal)

 

but as you said, it's only the enumerated items which can delay them.

 

Good luck with the refrozen pavements in the morning - my memory suggests that refreezing after a partial thaw always seems to be much slippier. Stay safe!

 

 

[BR60103]

57 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

For the quote, I prefer the discworld version: NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESENGERS ABOT THEIR DUTY (from Going Postal)

 

Dont arsk us about Mrs. Cake

 

[BR60103]

Yesterday there was a coating of ice on the handle of the side door of the garage. Today there was a thick coating. The weather is making up for the mild December we had.

 

We were out briefly this morning for grocery shopping.  We have skipped our outdoor walks for the last few days, mostly because of possible hidden ice on the sidewalks.

 

[jjb1970]

Over here there's a domestic situation inducing headaches in me. My sister-in-law finally divorced her husband a few months ago after serial affairs and generally rogue-ish behaviour. Within a matter of weeks she found a replacement and got married to an American bloke. Which is a bit troubling to start with, not finding another boyfriend but rushing into things so quickly after a divorce seldom ends well based on what I have observed (unless they were already a thing.....). However, her life, her choice, it's not for me to tell anyone else how they should live.

 

Unfortunately it has turned into a bit of a domestic debacle within the family. The sister in question is rather wealthy, I don't mean wealthy 'for an Indonesian person' but properly wealthy. Her and her husband built up a business and sold it to a multi-national for quite a tidy sum. The older brother who is well connected found out via the jungle telegraph somehow (it's amazing what a small world we live in) her new husband is bankrupt and had at least three other women he was promising to marry but wasn't actually divorced. Now why would a bloke on skid row suddenly find jesus and promise eternal devotion to a rich woman in a poor mental state after a divorce? No idea, answers on a postcard if anyone knows. The brother found it out and verified it so he should have raised the issue, but no, he told my wife because he wanted someone else to do the messy bit. Cue Mrs JJB getting sucked in and a massive fall out with her sister.

 

I have told Mrs JJB it's not for her to make decisions for her sister, and suggested she was used by her brother so that she could be the messenger while he sat squeaky clean and told her brother to do his own dirty work in future. I fear I may have been rather blunt with her brother that I have enough muck to deal with without adding to it because he lacks the balls to have a difficult conversation. And for her sister, I've told her to recognize Mrs JJB was only thinking of her, if she wants to ignore it then fine, that's her choice, but don't blame my wife for telling her unwelcome stuff. Ordinarily I honestly wouldn't care less what her sister does, she's not a baby and she's old enough to make her own decisions and mistakes, but don't drag me, my wife and the kids into it, however in this case I do worry that the guy in question is abusive and she may well end up in a very bad place hence why although I'm not going to get sucked in I did consider it worth having the conversation. The guy is seriously intense, appears to have anger management issues and I noticed before all of this broke she was very different and turning away from people. I suspect she has been suffering depression after her divorce, but I've kind of lost sympathy over the way she's behaving.

 

Oh well, things are back to normal in our house at least and Mrs JJB has accepted my counsel that she needs to just move on and let her sister do what she wants to do and not allow herself to be used by others in her family like that.

[jamie92208]

Families, at least we can choose our friends, 

 

Good moaning from the Charente.  All sorts got done yesterday.  Whilst waiting for the new saw blade to be delivered I continued running speaker cables.  To get round a corner the frinks cabinet had to be moved. Thus all the ornaments on top of it and the glasses inside had to be safely relocated.  It was moved and a large amount of black mould was found in the corner.  This was all cleaned off with dettol and then alcohol and during the day two coats of anti fungal paint were applied. The speaker cables were run and we now have music again.  

 

The saw blade was delivered and fitted.  It goes through logs like a knife through butter,  finally a guy came to sort out the Satellite dish and we now have UK telly again. All good stuff. 

 

Today is a day out trainspotting with my mate so all in all a good day to look forward to. 

 

Jamie