AndrewC

Just don't use the microwave. There used to be a similar problem with Packard Bell motherboards and the serial ports. 5 mins with a soldering iron would bring them back to life.

Riding in the bed of a pickup is a sore point for me. Way back in high school (78 to be exact) my best mate's sister and the gang were out for a Saturday jolly in the Rockies. Truck hit a big pothole just as Kim was moving from one side to the other. She was bounced out and didn't survive. She was a lovely girl (that I fancied) and not even 16. Senseless waste.

Is this one of those stories with a happy ending?

Greetings all from the boring borough. Good news, the sounds of hammers, saws, and Heart FM once again emanate from downstairs. Our builder is back. He looks like he's lost about 7kg but happy to get out of the house and back to work. We may even have a usable front room by the weekend. Happy Bazday!!! SWMBO is about ready to start throwing idiots under trains. All this week the stations have been rammed with groups of students blocking the barriers, stairs, and platforms. They never seem to board a train, just stand there in peak times making a nuisance of themselves. To clarify, its not the kids she wants to eliminate, but the moron organisers that think bringing a group of 100 or so teenagers to a busy station in both the morning and afternoon rush is a good idea. Especially when 2 or 3 of these groups show up at the same time. Back to work, this coffee won't drink itself.

Some chase ambulances. Our Ivan prefers hearses. <non serious urine extraction>

Nice. Very nice. We looked at the Evoque and the Disco sport. Only the latter could hold my current modules. I have to remove the back seats of the Freelander completely to get them to fit. The Disco has just enough length and height.

Greetings all from the borough most boring. Another hot day in the pizza oven we call a house. Last night around 1am the gears on the bedroom fan's oscillator gave up the ghost with a loud crunch. piece-o-crap. The saga of the building works continues. Builder finishes his meds tomorrow and intends to be back at work on Thursday. (like Alice I try to believe 6 impossible things before breakfast) In his absence I called the skip hire company to remove the now overflowing yellow tub of crap. It's been slowly filling with rubbish from afar since the building work stopped. They sure don't hire rocket scientists to work in their office. Called on Thursday. (we will confirm the pickup time and date with you) Also told them 3 times during the call they can't pickup before 10:30 as the neighbour works odd shifts and won't be around to move his car before 10. So..... 08:00 on Saturday completely unannounced the poor b*ggger of a driver turns up. D'oh. Another showed up yesterday morning too early as well. Finally third time lucky around 2:30 yesterday afternoon. Of course all this means is the builder is going to have to get another skip in next Monday. Painting the front room has revealed a p1ss poor plaster finish in parts. That will have to be redone. Meh. Work is a steaming pile of yak excrement at the moment. Let's just say out of 38 people in our practice, we've lost 7 in the past 6 weeks. 2 of those were senior consultants, and a third is on long term stress leave. That leaves just 3 of us for every project on the books. I've been juggling 4 projects over the past 2 weeks. Throw in the stress of the building works and I'm about ready for the man with the nice white coat and long sleeves to take me to the rubber room. Hi Debs. See, no train content. Meant to say this before: Hi Gavin. Bas: no rain here. Please send some. SWMBO has emptied all the water buts trying to keep her garden from looking like the surface of Venus. Tony: I haven't worked out what model of LR you bought. We came close to a Disco Sport last year but decided to keep the Freelander for one more year. It's 16 now and ready for retirement. Stewart: Why can I picture you camped out with a tent in front of your fridge freezer, Simpson's style, trying to keep cool. That's about it from me. More coffee awaits. Enjoy the day.

Good morning all. Robert so sorry to read about your dad. My condolences. That is all.

Cambell kits. Now that takes me back. Good quality wood but bloody expensive they were. Instructions were some times just second rate early quality photocopies. If they are unreadable you may be able to look up the kit online and get a better quality copy.

Greetings from the boring borough. I won't say its hot but a pair of Hobbits just came to the door and threw a ring into the house. Getting tired of this. Sadly the bloody builders have buried the shed's air con unit behind about 2 tonnes of their crap. Normally the unit would have been moved into the bedroom by now. Still no sign of them. Plan B starts tomorrow if they don't show up. Tomorrow the bid goes out to complete the work I can't do and I'll finish off what I can. I doubt I'll ever see a refund for the difference between what they've been paid and what they've completed but I can guarantee they'll never get another bit of work through bidvine or trusted trader. The skip hire has been notified to remove the skip. I'll get another company to supply the final one. The end of my tether hath been reached. In other news, it was tears all around yesterday as we bade farewell to MiL after her 5 week visit. My new locos arrived but until I clear the shed of the builder's crap my modules will have to remain in storage. That's all for me. Now just noon as too many other interruptions delayed my typing. Enjoy the day.

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Happy birthday to Pete & Phil. Must be the winters but I’ve got / had relatives all with birthdays in early July. In fact there is one for every day from the first to the 10th.

Greetings from the boring borough. Yesterday saw the completion of another solar orbit for me. It was a bit of an un-day. Chauffeured the ladies to Ikea and Home Sense in Thurrock. Pub lunch. The rest of the day spent doing very little apart from managing a migraine. If parcelfarce don't c0ck it up, I should have a couple of new locos arriving today. £112 in vat and customs charges. Throw in the $70 shipping and I'm going to have to really look at just how stupid expensive ordering from Canada/US has become. I've got 3 more on pre-order due in the next 6 months. Likely the last. Still no builder. He has cried off sick until next Tuesday. I'm becoming more convinced the he is doing another job. The plasterers are here finishing off the hallway today. That means a hell of a lot of painting to be done next week. Little planned for the day. May wander to the pub. Another day out tomorrow with the ladies, and MiL heads home on Sunday. Enjoy the day.

Greetings from the pizza oven in the boring borough. House is bloody hot still. SWMBO & MiL off to Hampton Court Palace for the flower show today. No sign of builders but the plasterers managed to do the equivalent of 3 days work yesterday and have caught up most of the prep work the builder was supposed to have accomplished last week. They should arrive any minute now to finish off the front room today. Friday they'll get the rest of the hallway done. At least that means I can start painting before the flooring goes down. My next trick will be to get a quote on the remaining work in case the builder can't carry on. I'm not sure if he is really injured, taking a break, or is working on another job that our's has overrun into. I suspect the latter and if that is the case....... watch this space. Time to pretend to work once again. Enjoy the day.

With the quality of Tim Horton's since they sold out and no longer make fresh in store, the rubber donut seal is probably tastier.

Greetings from the 7th circle of hell the boring borough. The house is in full pizza oven mode. Meh. SWMBO and MiL off shopping for the day. Builder still sick (that's a week lost now), however the plasterers have made an appearance and will be taking up some of the slack and will spend 2 days now completing all the drywall and plastering work. Builder was due a milestone payment for finishing off the front room today. That ain't happening. It was a good weekend. Saturday in Brighton to wander about with the masses. Despite how busy it was it never felt really crowded. Lots of shopping by the ladies and I managed to check out a couple of beer places I hadn't tried before. For those interested, Bison brewing have just opened their second pub, first one actually in Brighton on North St. Small but 14 taps of happiness. Yesterday of course was Canada Day. In the best tradition I spent several hours reassembling the toilet to fix a leak. Turns out the donut that seals between the cistern and bowl had been put in upside down and had twisted causing water to leak out the back with every flush. The rest of the day was spent on the patio. Canadian beers, Canadian music, and BBQ. (ribs, potato bombs, and grilled veggies). I see Ian's first day as a free man will be spent on trains. Watch ThamesStink actually run a train on time just to p1ss him off. Time to pretend to do some work. Enjoy the day.

Greetings from the borough of boring. Another bout of insomnia has arisen. 4 hours last night in convenient 20 minute segments. Meh. Feel like moderately microwaved death this morning. I opened my big mouth on Tuesday saying the builder should be finished in a couple of weeks. He then called in sick for the past 2 days and no sign of him this morning. That puts the estimated completion back to July 19. Assuming he is back on Monday. Failing that, I'll be looking for another company to finish things off. In modelling news, my 2 new locos have been shipped from PWRS. Just in time for me to order another pair. (RS18 this time) Cheaper, faster, and more reliable than ordering direct from Rapido. (which I will never do again) About it from here. Enjoy the day.

We seem to have a swarm of metal fairies around these parts. Everything put out front during construction managed to vanish very quickly. I think the record was one radiator went in under 40 minutes. Cooker, dishwasher, hob, 6 radiators, bits of pipe, even the old shower frame went along with the metal shelving. Some knocked, most didn't. Our old boiler went before the installer could get it into his truck. Saved me the £25 scrap charge I was going to have to pay.

It's been a while but greetings from the boring borough. I've been sprinkling the usual mix of likes and supportive emojis but far too much to catch up on properly. Instead, I'll bore you with my "exploits". We are now into week 16 of the 10 week house renovation. The budget has been blown to h3ll and back. There is light at the end of the tunnel though. Another 3 weeks and it will finally be done. Since the labour for the quoted work is fixed price with milestone payments, the builder is taking a bit of a hit but a lot of that is down to how slowly they are getting things done. For example they had 1 day in their quote for opening up the wall between front room and old kitchen to form a through lounge. It has taken 2 with another to do the re-plastering. To compensate a bit we've been adding a few nice to haves. We've also agreed that the massive amount of drywall installation to replace the beyond repair plaster would be an additional cost. (6 layers of heavily painted over wallpaper hid a multitude of sins. The upside is we now have all the wiring for the stereo built in, the Sky cable run under the flooring, new wiring and conduit to the shed, and all the plumbing + waste pre-fit under the stairs so we can get them to install a small WC once our bank balance recovers. It has also meant we've managed to get the whole house rewired for less than 1/3 the cost quoted by another electrician. Swings and roundabouts as they say. If you are keeping score and haven't scrolled on by this missive, when its completed... Repaired roof with replacement guttering, new wiring, new boiler, all new plumbing, new radiators, kitchen moved, new patio doors & old back door blocked and changed to a window, chimney breasts removed, back wall reattached to the house and pinned, 4 large steel beams to support the works, 6 steel brackets to underpin the back wall, new ceiling + rafters + insulation in spare room, new bathroom/laundry room, all doors and architrave replaced, through lounge, all walls & ceilings either repaired or drywall + plaster, engineered oak flooring throughout except tiled floors in kitchen and bathroom, front room fireplace restored. Phew. The 16 year old Landy had an oops moment on Friday when the front right brake caliper seized. (new calipers, pads, discs for the front) £480 later.... Shame as the plan was to replace it finally in August. Hopefully it will pass the MoT in 9 weeks and keep on going for a few more months. A replacement is now out of budget for a bit longer. MiL has been with us for 3 1/2 weeks now. All is good. She's happy to putter about and is currently painting the spare room/office. SWMBO and her are off to Hampton Court flower show next Tuesday. That reminds me, I need to schlep to the orange box for more Work is work. The current project is winding down. Its been one of better ones, so a bit sad to see it end. Corporate wise not so good. Another annual reorg. Another rearranged group of deck chairs on a large ocean liner. I now answer to a Del Boy type who only cares about the numbers from the sale and not actually providing the services that were sold. He answers to a chap in Finland who wants the whole bunch of us to go on a jolly to Madrid in August. (cost per person is more than what our annual bonus was this year, so there are a load of p1ssed off people at the moment) I've said it before but this time for sure, time to start seriously looking at moving on after 8 1/2 years. (the longest I've ever stayed with one employer). Modelling is non-existent still. However, the nice people at PWRS are shipping a pair of SW1200RS locos to me. With luck they will arrive in time for my birthday next week. Woot!!!, or not as the case may be. Phil, charities have had to become fairly ruthless when it comes to accepting furniture these days. People were using them as free disposal services for utter crap. the Emmaus near us will pick up for free but will inspect first and if its not resalable they can't/won't take it. Our old pantry units were gratefully received. The old sofa is now in the builder's skip as it was too badly worn to be of use. Enough of the wittering on for now. Enjoy the day.

Yesterday has put me off Yodel for life. We have a storage locker at Safestore in SE7. Yesterday morning we couldn't get into the building as there were 2 Yodel lorries unloading cages filled with packages blocking most of the parking lot. The rest of the parking area was filled with delivery sub-contractors. The way some of them were throwing the boxes around while they rearranged their vehicles was shocking. One box from Moonpig was kicked along the ground a good 10' from where the cage was to the back of the driver's mini van.

Gee I wonder who that might be??? We still have to do the Brussels + Thalys as the Direct Eurostar to Rotterdam & Amsterdam doesn't call at Ebbsfleet. Gimme an old Eurostar or TGV set over the refurb or new units. Far more comfortable. For those looking for a good hotel in Amsterdam, I recommend the Singel. 15 min walk to Centraal but slightly off the tourist hell path. Not cheap but no stag or hen parties. Great bar 2 mins along the canal (Louis) that caters for locals more than tourists.

Used to get quite a lot of them. Not so much anymore. I feel it is my civic duty to keep the f**kers on the phone as long as possible to reduce the number of calls they can handle and the chances of hooking a sucker. Managed 22 minutes once. If I'm busy and the call is from blocked or an obvious fake number (02003 for example) I tend to answer with "Microsoft Security, how may I help you". For me TPS and ex-directory for 11 years has made no difference. If I can ever get the inlaws to use Whatsapp, we can ditch the land line altogether. The ones that really p*ss me off are the "you've had an accident" recordings. This bunch have more or less given up on land lines and now call mobiles. I've currently over 60 blocked numbers from these arsebadgers.

That job comes with a free lobotomy. Greetings from the boring borough. Construction still crawling along. The counter tops for the kitchen are due to arrive and be installed today. That means tonight, I have a brand new functional kitchen. It also means tomorrow, I have to move my temporary office space as they demolish the old kitchen. Half way through week 13 of the 8-10 week build. We can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel though. One bit of heavy work left on creating the through lounge, but all the rest is just plaster, flooring, and skirting boards. Took MiL for her birthday meal last night at the Ivy. She loves that place so the choice was a no brainer. Service and food was impeccable but some of the clientele left a lot to be desired. Dress code of smart casual, had obviously gone out the window with some people looking as if they'd just come off a building site. Andrew P - take it easy. Andy Ram - see above. Burger all else to say apart from enjoy the day.

Excuse me. I have something in my eye again. It's never easy. It never gets any easier. Sandy has now moved on and made space for you to bring happiness to another that needs it. I'm dreading the next round for us. 2 of our 3 rescue moggies just turned 14.

The Tate Modern called. Thank's but we already have one just like it.

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.