Early Risers.

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl Inner Temple Here,

6 hours sleep last night not too bad...

 

As our big race approaches I take even more interest in the weather, the forecast has changed again, this time 8 mph westerly for the start of the race, which is almost as good as North westerly. Interestingly it also shows a lull down to 1mph wind at 19:00 which hopefully will upset the hot shots.

We have Norfolk Punts, Slipstreams and Thames A raters come and compete, the A raters are hugely expensive,, with carbon fibre masts etc and are sponsored . They tend to win the outright fastest over the water each year and don't even get to see darkness..

. But in some way they spoil the race  by getting round the course in 8 to 10 hours, it is supposed to be an endurance race.

 

My personnal record is about 10 hours but that year the wind was so strong everyone got round very rapidly. Normally 22 hours would be right for the boats I sailed and the majority of the fleet. Although I'm a minor race offical and have been for several years, once I finally finish rebuilding my boat and once it gets sorted into some sort of race condition, I intend to do the race again.. My target had been for when I was 60... It's now looking more like I'll be 65...

 

 Unusual weather on the way in, clear and sunny onn the coast but foggy inland..

 

 Time to... take the next measurement

Edited May 31, 2018 by TheQ

[grandadbob]

Blimey! My gob is well and truly smacked. Three mile round trip to hospital for blood test done in less than 30 minutes. Didn't even get charged parking as I was in the car park less than 20 minutes!

Definite first for me.  

[Barry O]

Hey up from a very misty North West Leeds Highlands.

A request, does anyone else see an advert on this page for Diarolyte or is it just my tablet? If yes I will PM Andy Y about it.

 

Back to today.Financial adviser appearing first. Our other visitor is an ex Met Police driving instructor. He works for himself now. He can offer good advice about driving. Just wish her indoors would listen! Nuff said.

 

Ian, getting rid of the commute will be good for your health. When we moved to Didcot her indoors continued to commute to London for a while before changing jobs and commuting to Reading. Moving to Leeds stopped the train based commute and gave us a bit more sleep time and a lot less stress time.

 

Mike, apparently some of our woes up here are NR related. The Blackpool rework has had a slight knock on over here. But we now have all sorts of new routes for drivers to learn with no time allowed to do so due to all sorts of reasons. Nationalise the railways? Disaster waiting to happen if NR and Daft have anything to do with it.

 

Best wishes to all, especially those that ail.

 

Mugatea now drunk so c u later

Baz

Edited May 31, 2018 by Barry O

[BoD]

Yes, I see that advert too on my iPad.

 

Perhaps it's Andy's way of telling us we have verbal diarrhoea.

[AndrewC]

 

Back in the boring borough after 7 days and 7 brouwerijs in the Netherlands and Belgium. Over 100 different beers enjoyed. Local Belgian and Dutch trains were all on time, I'm happy to say. Thalys and Eurostar on the other hand, meh. To be fair, not all their fault. The outbound Eurostar was 20 late due to a delay at the chunnel. The Thalys from Rotterdam back to Brussels was delayed by 29 mins (so no compo) due to issues with the Dutch highspeed line. Thalys service really has deteriorated as of late. The train was already late so wasn't cleaned or stocked at Amsterdam. No (should have been included in our ticket) food or drink. No bar car, nothing. Tuesday's Eurostar home was delayed by the c**ntpuffin that decided to go for a walk from Ebbsfleet to Essex through the Thames tunnel. 3 hours of shut down resulted in us sitting agonisingly close to the platforms at Ebbsfleet but unable to detrain. Eurostar seem to have taken a leaf out of Southeastern's book and call the delay 104 minutes as that was the final destination delay, rather than the 126 mins late that we arrived in Ebbsfleet. How the hell they can claim 22 mins of recovery between Ebb and STP I'll never know. The result is half the compensation we should have had. 

 

The house construction continues at the usual snail's pace. This is week 12 of 8-10 with at least another 4 to go. To be fair the house wot Murphy built has been throwing up every wobbler possible. Repairing and replastering has now given way to a full on wall boarding operation for the remaining rooms. MiL arrives on Saturday, so this is going to get interesting. 

 

Enough bitching and complaining. We did enjoy ourselves and needed the break. 

 

Far too many posts to properly catch up on, but sprinklings of likes etc have been done. The usual congrats and commiserations as appropriate. 

 

For the scaffolding, I'd just get the local metal vermin to remove it quietly. If the company complains, just say "I thought it was your lot wot dun it"

 

Enjoy the day. 

[Purley Oaks]

Afternoon all.

 

Can I pick the collective brain?

 

We recently had some work done to our roof.  The work all finished a couple of weeks ago but the scaffolder has yet to remove the scafolding.  I get the feeling that he is just using us to store the scaffolding until it is needed elewhere.  I have heard of similar tales in the past with different scafolders at diffrent times. Ive asked nicely a couple of times but haven't really pushed it yet as it is only just coming up to the fortnight (and there was a bank holiday).  However we are expecting a delivery of some furniture and one strut of the scaffolding would make access impossible and so need at least this part of the scaffolding removing.  I have informed the scaffolder of this.  

 

Has anyone experienced this sort of thing before?  How might I deal with this if the situation continues?

Sorry to hear about this. Had a chat about this with my eldest son, who's a scaffolder, fully-certified (in the work sense!) - both employed by a scaffolding company and also runs his own small scaffolding company. He said that most companies will not do this for cheap storage because most companies want their scaffolding back in the yard for future work. He added that it depends what the contract says - have you a written contract for this scaffolding work or was it arranged by the roofers? The other advice is that you could hire other scaffolders to take the scaffolding down and pass the bill onto your scaffolding company, but I would let the original scaffolding firm know about this to give them time to react and take it down themselves.

 

Hope this helps a little. Let us know what happens. Good luck!

 

Mal

[Purley Oaks]

Morning all

 

Another haar day here, with "mist rolling in from the sea" as a certain ex-Beatle sang. Also haircut day for me, and I may see the new Star Wars film Solo on my own this afternoon (so seeing Solo solo).

 

Yesterday's mugginess only lasted until lunchtime when there was a cool breeze from the North Sea.

Today I hand my official notice in so jut one more month left of this carp commuting. We have had over five years of disruption due to the London Bridge rebuilding and Billions of our tax pounds to only end up with a far worse service let alone mor uncomfortable trains.

I feel another email coming on to our local MP. No response from my recent email but I suspect he does have a rather full in box. Our local users group were mentioned in the BBC news yesterday. I do have a form emailed by GTR to fill in and send to ORR.

Congratulations on handing in your notice, Ian. Hope you feel a sense of relief once you've done so. Can you take the next 4 weeks off sick and still get paid? Just a thought! Sorry to hear about the continuing carp, though.

 

Hey up from a very misty North West Leeds Highlands.
A request, does anyone else see an advert on this page for Diarolyte or is it just my tablet? If yes I will PM Andy Y about it.
 

Is Diarolyte a website you vist often, Baz, dashing to and from the loo? Only ask because a couple of years ago I checked out the Air France website and since then am continuously bombarded by pop-ups for their flights to Africa, Caribbean, Far East. Clever tech, but a little annoying. Indeed, since I booked a hotel at Glasgow Airport through Booking.com, I keep getting mails from them asking if I want more bargain hotel deals in Paisley. Er, no!

 

Hope you all have an ad-free day

 

Mal

[81C]

Morning Peeps 

Cast your mind back when you were at school in a science lesson and the teacher making an @rse of themself trying to do

a demonstration with the little blocks of wood marked fuel, oxygen and heat basic school stuff take one thing away from the list

and your fire will go out, yesterday at lunch time I was watching the tail end of "Close Call" two women were filming with their 

i phones a tumble dryer burning away the door to it was wide open and the power was switched on they were standing outside of the

room with the door wide open I could not believe what they were doing I called SWMBO in to see it Her said they were #######

idiots, they clearly didn't have an ounce of brain between them after Grenfell these two didn't have the brain power to connect  that

they were in danger, they thought the were clever in the interview that they had bothered to call the fire brigade you can't make it up.   

Back to sanity Her said we should have an easy day today  knock me down with a feather hopefully I will get out to the layout and

run some trains and do a bit of scenic work.

 

                                                                                                                                                                              enjoy your day K.N.Acard

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Today I shall be sampling GWR and Class 387 travel in order to get to Ealing Broadway (I shall not be visiting a solicitor on arrival and alas my favoured chippy there has gone the way of all good things).  

And Ian - good to hear that you've bitten the bullet.  might hit the pocket somewhat but will no doubt do your health a power of good.

 

Have a good day one and all.

[lightengine]

"Trundling" in the Harpenden area. We dont have enough of this, its a great term. Pootling is another nice one. Dawdling is ok but maybe used more often.

I wonder if Roundhouses trains ever Trundle? I am sure his descriptions wouldn't be so gentle.

[lightengine]

Fick fog (very very heavy sea mist) lasted all day yesterday and by late evening vis was down to less than 100 metres. Today it is slightly clearer although we cant see Shaldon yet. Shaldon is our measuring stick. I think the sun is attempting a break through but we wait to see. No swallows up flying around yet, obviously their insect prey is resting in the slight chill.

Chap across the road had his ridge tiles and front valley fixed a few weeks ago. Now the ridge tiles have been taken up by the loft converters who are on the back roof. One of the workmen is eastern european as I hear him on his phone. The house owner is pleased with their work but I do wonder about them driving around in a van marked "Bob the Builder". It kind of implies Bob the Cowboy, although in this case it's more like Bobski the builder.

[lightengine]

Congrats to Roundhouse. I am going to miss the daily trials and horror stories of your epic struggles to get to and from work (finding the Northwest passage must have been easier). I mean that most sincerely as I cannot imagine how you both put up with it so long. Good luck for the future.

[roundhouse]

Congrats to Roundhouse. I am going to miss the daily trials and horror stories of your epic struggles to get to and from work (finding the Northwest passage must have been easier). I mean that most sincerely as I cannot imagine how you both put up with it so long. Good luck for the future.

There are many who have worse journeys than us and I fo try to find alternatives to get home but still winds me up then adding work pressure often just pushes me over a certain threshold these days.

 

No doubt I will still have updates to write about from my other half hut she does have a few extra alternatives than me and can work from home.

 

I hope to build a decent size shed / workshop that I can report on how long or wet the grass is each morning on my commute from the house.

[BSW01]

Good morning

 

It’s not as sunny as of late, but it’s still warm. Compost has now been added to the new border and the whole thing looks a lot better now.

 

I’m currently sat in the kitchen with a muggertea awaiting the postman to deliver a package for Sheila, or Sheila’s return from her Zumba class, I’m not sure which will be first. But it looks like I won’t get to the workshop until after dinner.

 

Back later.

[trisonic]

Today’s forecast on Hawaii is sunny with showers and some hot rock monsters:

 

 

Ian, good luck with your future!

 

Best, Pete.

 

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. A few more bits for the micro layout arrived just a few minutes ago, banana couplings for coupling the boards and the electrics together at the same time. Ian, I think you've done the right thing for your health, and your sanity. Hopefully you have some leave saved up and you can get out of the rat race ASAP. When I retired they faffed and f@rted about so much (it was early retirement) that it was only agreed six weeks before my actual retirement date, and I had the same number of weeks leave entitlement left. In the end they begged me to work for the first two of those weeks which meant that for those two weeks I was paid double. Thats it for now, be back later.

[southern42]

' Morning all from a hazy lazy day in red dragon land.

 

Yesterday, offspring came down to West Shore with us, but while Ray put in some hard graft concreting a slab to take a signal post, we went for a relaxing walk along the prom and then over to the "other" shore where it all supposedly happens, passing a couple of road trains on the way.  On the "other" side, I was captivated by memories of teenage years travelling on these beauties, this one now doing one hour heritage tours from Llandudno Pier.

 

 

I once got to sit in the cab of one of these, in one of the machine shops at the Southall AEC where Dad worked.  I still cherish the moment - and the Wagon Wheel that Dad brought out from his Office drawer!   It was fete day and machines all quiet.

 

 

Mooring Awl Inner Temple Here,

6 hours sleep last night not too bad...

 

As our big race approaches I take even more interest in the weather, the forecast has changed again, this time 8 mph westerly for the start of the race, which is almost as good as North westerly. Interestingly it also shows a lull down to 1mph wind at 19:00 which hopefully will upset the hot shots.

We have Norfolk Punts, Slipstreams and Thames A raters come and compete, the A raters are hugely expensive,, with carbon fibre masts etc and are sponsored . They tend to win the outright fastest over the water each year and don't even get to see darkness..

2007nationals11.jpg. But in some way they spoil the race  by getting round the course in 8 to 10 hours, it is supposed to be an endurance race.

 

My personnal record is about 10 hours but that year the wind was so strong everyone got round very rapidly. Normally 22 hours would be right for the boats I sailed and the majority of the fleet. Although I'm a minor race offical and have been for several years, once I finally finish rebuilding my boat and once it gets sorted into some sort of race condition, I intend to do the race again.. My target had been for when I was 60... It's now looking more like I'll be 65...

 

 Unusual weather on the way in, clear and sunny onn the coast but foggy inland..

 

 Time to... take the next measurement

 

I remember dinghy sailing in the annual Bala Lake handicap race.  Yep!  The big boats are on the water for 5 mins and win all the prizes!  We got a dunking by a Flying Fifteen keel boat which refused to give way!  The Mirrors and the like put in an endurance test before the big uns had even got off their trailers!  Those were days! These days, I just delight in seeing the yachts sail out of the River Conwy while we steam round and round the little railway track by the sea.

 

Have a good day, all.

 

[The Lurker]

Van update.  

 

At 21.23 o'clock the van due at 17 o'clock finally arrived with the furniture from the late parental home.  The driver was full of apologies and claims to have been "messed around" by other clients but surely even Thameslink would acknowledge this simply isn't good enough.

A veritable poundland cooking chocolate sort of van service, then.

 

(other own goal tweets are available)

[The Lurker]

Grey day here at LBG, still muggy but not yet raining.

 

Work continues. Not a lot to report otherwise, so have a good day all. Best wishes to those who are ailing including Debs.

 

I look forward to Andyram's comments on his team's new manager. I've enjoyed winding up another Rams fan with potential new signings....

[Gwiwer]

Lunchtime greetings from Much Pootling-on-Lyne. I see the Diarolyte advert includes Day Returns to Looe. But if one books a Super-Advance it comes with included seat reservation.

 

Big issues at the House of Fun this morning with a TCF blocking the Up Windsor Slow (platform 3) and forcing all trains through platform 4 (Up Windsor Fast). In order to minimise track occupation / maximise capacity trains did not stop at the station. Passengers were advised to change at Richmond and use the District Line or Overground instead. Except that with a power failure at Gunnersury both those routes were suspended. Ouch.

 

A warm murky morning is turning into a storm-threatening afternoon. The worst might be yet to come.

 

Best wishes all.

[Barry O]

So between seeing the Financial Adviser and our visitor arriving we bought a new fireplace and fire..(her indoors used a cunning double bluff and shawl moment to get me into the shop. Pah!

 

Now waiting for visitor..might grab a bit o eyelid inspection time...

 

Baz

[81C]

Peeps 

I spoke too soon three about the thing in a row jinks I included a repaired storage heater in the list with the TV and power wash 

the sodding micro wave turned turtle today so it was a quick trip to Horrorsons to get a new one when I got back Her said   "its 

black, I said "how observant of you"   "get it your self next time"       "take it back if you don't want it", with that 

remark I was off down the road. 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I.M Quaking.

Baz join the club they are as cunning as a fox what ever you do they will alway outwit you, I'm sure it's a sixth sense they have.

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl,

 

Norwich is in near grid lock. The old A47( Dereham road), junction with the outer ring road, is dug up and totally closed for a week. There has been an accident in the one way system further in to town, and a gas leak out the other side. From the radio they say not a lot is moving...

Luckily I work out on the edge of town and drive away from the city...

 

Went to the bank on the way home where just outside I met a couple of beautiful Rough Collies, down here on holiday with their servants...

 

Also purchased various food goodies to keep me going all night during the race.

 

If I can persuade a border collie to stop beating me up with a stuffed toy, eyelid inspection beckons..

[Ozexpatriate]

Today’s forecast on Hawaii is sunny with showers and some hot rock monsters:

The thing that impressed me the most about that photograph is that the house hadn't already burned down when the photograph was taken. The patio cover seems very close to the lava flow.

[roundhouse]

Notice handed in and news spreading fast.

Our Thameslink avoider plan has backfired this evening. Caterham service delayed due to no driver. It will be at least 15 late. Missed the Thameslink that is running today but dissappeared yesterday so now on a Southern service to ECR where we will bail and go for beer.
Only four more weeks!!

Edited May 31, 2018 by roundhouse