Early Risers.

[emt_911]

After the last few weeks of mentioning POETS on a Friday morning and ending up finishing late, today it wasn't mentioned by me and I was home by 16:00.

 

I do have to work tomorrow but only for about an hour. It puts me a few miles away from where NHN is staying at the moment.

[Tony_S]

We can see the cranes in Neil's Sheppey sunset photo from our house.

[AndyID]

OK, so I know to the estuar-ites among us, Sheppey does not really come to mind as a destination - not Queenborough anyway, however this campsite....is rather nice.  Only 5 pitches, that's our van there at the back.

 

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Off in the site owner's boat for some fishing, out under the Sheppey bridge, and a train obliged.

 

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nice sea bass, about three and a half pounds.  fishing does nothing for me, Mrs H is the fisherperson.

 

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We met some traffic.  This is a gas carrier, I was an engineer officer on ships like this in my first career.

 

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finally, the sunset last night....

 

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Edit - the house at the campsite has a claim to fame - Barnes-Wallis lived there whilst developing the bouncing bomb.  Thankfully now we can be friends with Dom and other nationals we were once at war with without need for such things.  The past is the past, and it stays there, I have no wish to glorify war.

 

Sheepey sounds like it's not such a baaaad place.

[bluebottle]

 

Edit - the house at the campsite has a claim to fame - Barnes-Wallis lived there whilst developing the bouncing bomb.  Thankfully now we can be friends with Dom and other nationals we were once at war with without need for such things.  The past is the past, and it stays there, I have no wish to glorify war.

 

 

And, of course, Wallis would have agreed with your sentiments, Neil. In his “The Dam Busters” (which I'm sure many RMwebbers have read), Paul Brickhill gave him the last word:

“After the war his friends urged him to claim a reward for his wartime inventions, but he said that if he did he would never touch such money for himself. I asked him why and he said, 'My dear chap, go and read your Bible, turn up Samuel II, Chapter 23. You probably haven't got a Bible, so I'll tell you this story about David.

'He was hiding in the cave of Adullam after the Philistines had seized Bethlehem, and in his anguish he said, “O that one would give me a drink of water of the Well of Bethlehem,which is by the gate!” Now the three mighty men who were his lieutenants were with him, and I'm dashed if they didn't fight their way through the Philistine Lines and draw a goatskin of water out of the well by the gate. They fought their way back and took the water to David in the cave, but when they told him how they had got it he he would not drink it. They asked him why, and he said:

“ 'Is this not the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?' “

Later, Wallis was granted £10,000 for his wartime work; this he immediately put into a fund to help educate the sons and daughters of men who died serving with the Royal Air Force.

[leopardml2341]

G'night All.

[BoD]

So, if I decide to move back to my home county, you'll have to go back to Durham then.

One in, one out :D

Don't just think we'll let him back in that easily.

[Oldddudders]

Evenin' all

 

Sherry was due to meet her Choral Engineer pals at 13.00 in Paignton. So we arrived by bus, had coffee on the platform of the preserved railway. It was sunny and their 350 hp diesel was shunting the Manor so it could be coaled by the elevator. We then wandered round to the library where they were to rendezvous. Sure enough, I was introduced to several people. I then cluttered off before their coach arrived. Except it didn't - until 15.50, almost 3 hours late. For a trip to Truro. Sherry is very forgiving, but my beliefs about the artistically gifted being unable to organise anything are merely reinforced.

 

After some trips around on the local buses an early evening pint beckoned. Wetherspoons was busy, and a lot of people were watching the tennis, so I nipped next door to a place that no doubt struggles, and is much more expensive, but served me at once. They had cricket on their large-screen, albeit with the sound off. But I probably watched more cricket than in decades. Two pints later the England tail had gone, so stumps were drawn. Quite entertaining once in a while.

 

Then home to refix the blind I had apparently fixed yesterday which collapsed this morning. A balti was procured - so many shops are just a couple of minutes' walk away - and I am now sobering up before driving to meet Sherry off the coach in Paignton. My first drive in an automatic after 43 years holding a licence!

 

Sleep well all.

[AndyID]

My first drive in an automatic after 43 years holding a licence!

 

 

I hope you remembered to glue your left foot to the floor.

[Barry O]

Don't just think we'll let him back in that easily.

my passport is still valid(!)

 

Bit warm here still. I am freelancing tomorrow in another cricket League - I have been assured tea will be excellent!

 

Sleep well everyone,

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Then home to refix the blind I had apparently fixed yesterday which collapsed this morning. A balti was procured - so many shops are just a couple of minutes' walk away - and I am now sobering up before driving to meet Sherry off the coach in Paignton. My first drive in an automatic after 43 years holding a licence!

 

Sleep well all.

I was taught to use a gearbox and I have always disliked automatics. The first time I drove an automatic, a Transit minibus which had what looked like a normal manual gear lever sticking out of the floor I found that my left foot depressed an imaginary clutch pedal every time I had to move the gear selector.

[emt_911]

Another ER looms tomorrow but at least it's the last one of the week (at last)

 

Night all

[Tony_S]

I swap happily between my automatic and Aditi's manual car now. My reflexes seem to know where I am. Modern automatics are quite nice, I won't ever buy another manual if it is my main use car. Aditi doesn't totally trust the automatic, though she was fine driving the Jeep we had in Canada.

[DougN]

Well it all sounds good what people have been up too. Well it seems the GLW had forgotten to tell me of a family gathering 8-( along with master DougN off to national boys choir for this afternoon and tomorrow. Unlike Oldudders this is military precision operations! The choir is strict and efficient, the boys love it though.

 

It seems Melbourne is going to have a very cold winter this year. Most of our weather looks to be coming directly from Antartica for the foreseeable future. We may even get snow this weekend down to 500m but unlike the UK it is gone within a couple of hours. This means that the break I have will mean more modelling time. The crazy Beagal will not be happy...he likes attention but is a pain if he comes in the house.. The nose has to smell everything.

 

I find the discussion about autos and manuals interesting as I have driven manuals and autos but the GLW has only driven autos... Therefore we only own autos. I enjoy driving a manual but as a daily grind yo and from work... No thanks. Work intrudes into that time too much with phone calls.... Thankfully I have a hands free Samsung which I just yell at to ring people. I thought originally it was just a gimmick but it really does work well.

[andyram]

From the outside, this seems to be the biggest problem in education these days - not the quality of the teaching or the quality of the school, or the money available, but that parents no longer support the school in matters of discipline - perhaps that translates as "quality of parenting". Mrs Lurker reports something along similar lines at the nursery she volunteers at

  

Yesterday I professed my dislike of Faecesbook to a group of friends who frequent it. I was later described by one of them, via email, as a miserable old git.

 

A few hours later, I got another email from him, this time stating that he hoped I hadn't been offended.

 

OFFENDED?

 

I thought he was paying me a compliment!

Interesting couple of posts shown above which link to something that has happened to me this evening. An old secondary school colleague contacted me this evening. She is a parent of one of the other boys in the football team I had a "run in" with on Thursday. She is also a Facebook "friend". She sent a Facebook message to tell me that she was disappointed with how I acted with the boy I nearly sent off in the football game. She claimed I did not act in a correct way and was wrong to get angry with him, even though she did not condone the boy's actions.

The fact is..this boy decided to dispute a decision. I explained the decision to him - he argued, I told him to get on with the game. He continued to moan and slag me off to his mate's in my hearing. At this point I called him over explained that I wasn't changing my decision and he should stop the back chat or I would send him off. He turned away and walked off still moaning, so I called him back and basically told him he would have no further chances. Obviously it seems that, in her mind, it is fine for a boy to show a lack of respect to a teacher just because he is wearing a football kit. As I think I mentioned before I have had similar issues during previous matches with this school.

The message arrived via my phone just at the end of tonight's Jimmy Carr show at the new Derby Arena. It has left a bitter taste at the end of a good night. Now I am fuming.

 

Feel a little better reading about Jock's nice and well deserved birthday party. Glad you had a good one sir.

[AndyID]

 I found that my left foot depressed an imaginary clutch pedal every time I had to move the gear selector.

 

That's why you have to glue your left foot to the floor

 

On cars with a wide brake pedal, it's pretty easy to use the brake as an imaginary clutch, with spectacular results.

 

(BTW, it's not uncommon to see people driving with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake pedal. It may in fact be mandatory while driving a Cadillac in Florida.)

[AndyID]

  

The message arrived via my phone just at the end of tonight's Jimmy Carr show at the new Derby Arena. It has left a bitter taste at the end of a good night. Now I am fuming.

 

 

I wonder where he got the idea is OK to argue with the ref? I'd be tempted to let her have it with both barrels, but it's probably a much better idea to completely ignore her.

[andyram]

I wonder where he got the idea is OK to argue with the ref? I'd be tempted to let her have it with both barrels, but it's probably a much better idea to completely ignore her.

I just sent a message back to say "up to you, just remember you were opposite of field so would not have heard what was said"

 

The annoying thing is, the message arrived at 10.45pm. She will have probably seen on Facebook that I was at the show, so decided to ruin my evening.

[Smiffy2]

Well, I shall certainly be an ER tomorrow, as we are setting off for Barnes around 6.30. If you're in the area pop along and say hello, I'll be on the Craft Gallery stall looking like a spare part.

 

Been a good(ish) day today, new glasses, new shoes and a long cuddle with Rose until she decided to kick away from me and got her foot entangled in my shirt pocket, leading to screams... Daisy just looked at me. She's learned to raise one eyebrow.

 

Sad to see the news of Omar Sharif's passing. A good friend of mine used to play bridge against him online. A good man (degrees in maths and engineering, apparently).

 

Sleep well, compadres.

[newbryford]

I just sent a message back to say "up to you, just remember you were opposite of field so would not have heard what was said"

 

The annoying thing is, the message arrived at 10.45pm. She will have probably seen on Facebook that I was at the show, so decided to ruin my evening.

 

Ask her to referee the next game.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Smiffy2]

Andy, the timing is probably due to a couple of glasses of wine and an evening eating her own liver over it. In the morning she may well regret it and realise that any action from her is going to fail and make her look vindictive. I suspect you'll hear no more about it.

 

BUT

(and just in case) - get it all written down now, with every detail you can recall. The 'notes I made at the time' ploy has great power, especially against someone whose main weapon will be bluster.

[Two_sugars]

Baz . . . Come yem when ever you like. . .Colliery lads always welcome, even if it is Horden. .  I mean . . Yorkshire's not the North. . . Not from where I'm sitting.

 

Andyram . . The silly c*w person probably had a bottle of White Lightning before she posted . .

 

 

So, with those  two comments, I wish you all a Goodnight . . .And Pleasant Dreams. . 

 

 

 

Eved if you are South of the Lune/Tees.

 

John

Edited July 11, 2015 by Two_sugars

[laurenceb]

Night all

[Jock67B]

Morning all,

Apologies for posting so late, but I've just trawled through all the pages I'd missed - the result of this is that I'm now too tired to continue posting! I will try to spend some time on here in the morning but just want to say a massive thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes - they further strengthened my resolve to achieve another one.

I thought I should put every one's minds at rest with the news that our barbecue and indeed consumption of the food produced on it, (Our son not only provided so much of Waitrose's finest produce, but cooked it as well!) were actually enjoyed in the garden, so I apologise for the ambiguity of my post! I put it down to tiredness/gin and tonic consumption!!

Sleep well all,

Kind regards,

Jock.

G'night all!

[lightengine]

Andyram, school and youth football will never please everybody. I started up year 4 football when I worked in school. Mostly it was ok except one boys parents who I was forced to include in my team because they complained to the Head.

My younger sons youth team played against a team from Chichester. The goalies father reffed and was so biased that it was unbelievable. He actually shouted at one of our most placid players for an innocent foul and then made my son retake a penalty. Luckily he scored the 2nd time as well. He was the only ref that I know of in 12/13 years of involvement with youth football who we made a complaint about.

We had a brilliant Head and generally our teams were the best in the area in inter school matches. He trained and reffed year 7. If they were winning too easily he would call them over and tell them to only play 2 touch or they would get penalised for tripping over an ant.

[Gwiwer]

Morning all.

 

An Antarctic blast has hit.  It's barely 5C after an early top of 11C with a gusty southerly blowing in and a band of heavy rain imminent.  If you're above about 1000' expect this as snow.  "Feels like" outside is -1.2C apparently.  In another 90 minutes I must leave the warmth of the duvet and head for the Palace of Attendance rugged up to the nines for the evening.  Yes Australia is a hot place

 

Some unexpected and sad news from back home.  Middle nephew, who wed his long-time girlfriend only last year, woke to find she had left him following extended bad health which cost her a career and left them with financial worries.  Not yet sure of the full story as she has also cut all ties with our side of the family.  Nephew will be moving back in with my sister and brother-in-law once some dust has settled.

 

Enjoy your weekend.  Especially those not required to attend places of remuneration.