AndrewC

Not sure but I've had confusion in the past with parking tickets. Seems the dealership registered 2 Freelanders, same colour with sequential registration. LM and LN. The difference was mine is 5 door and the other was 3 door with removable roof. Lewisham council seem to have the most illiterate people in their enforcement department. The last one I got was sent back with a nasty-gram and I'd enlarged their enclosed picture with a red circle around the registration on the letter, and the number plate on the photo. Never got another one after that.

Ahhh, explains it.

I would be questioning those charges. £11.25 for the ransom. 20% vat of £49.75 is £9.95. Even if they charged on the postage cost that should have added no more than £4 on £20 postage. The maximum you should have been charged is £25.20 Sounds like they incorrectly applied duty to a low value item.

Sadly on the Bexleyheath line, none of the peak trains ran 30 late, no delay repay for SWMBO. I gather through the Twitterverse that people took up to 90 mins to get on a train as they were crush loaded from Bexleyheath and no longer than usual. No excuse for not running 12 cars as they aren't running the loop service via Woolwich Dockyard.

Hard time? Never. We've just missed you. Glad to see you back and ok.

Including the windchill its warmer in Winnipeg than it is here. Red warning now for Cardiff. Lots of swirly snow and wind here but not that much on the ground yet.

Greetings from Tuktoyuktuk the boring borough. A bit chilly this morning. Path gritted, bird bath thawed, shed heater switched from frost-protect to toasty. At the moment it looks like the Epsom Freemo is still a go so I need to get some last minute checks and preparation done. If I have enough time and the wombles de coque aren't out in force on the roads, I may sojourn to the local Maplin for some more 6 wire telco cable. Nice to see the c**twaffles at Southeastern covering their backsides again. On the metro routes in morning peak the loading is normally around 118% of capacity. Today they've reduced their "service" by 78% on most lines to 2 trains per hour. That means less than 1 in 5 will be able to get on a train to work this morning. SE don't give a rat's a*se as they save buckets of cash by not paying for paths. No delay repay as the trains aren't scheduled to run. They still get the revenue though as more than 80% of all peak journeys are on pre-paid tickets, travel cards, season tickets, etc. Lucky for me, my day in Bracknell was cancelled before I set off this morning. SWMBO on the other hand is once again on a bus to Woolwich, then hand to hand combat to get on a DLR to Bank. Oh, and to top it off, since SE are running a "service" TfL aren't accepting her season ticket. Effectively she is paying twice to commute today. The sooner these walking turds lose the franchise the better. 13 months left of this circus. With Stagecoach and Abellio the only alternatives, I don't think things will improve much. Even Connex wasn't as sh!t as this fustercluck of ineptitude. Rant over, blood pressure returning to normal, coffee refilled. Great to see Debs returning to normal. Today is my Friday. Meeting was cancelled so it should be fairly quiet and I can catch up on things. Enjoy your day.

Good moaning all from the winter fantasy land of the boring borough. Couple of cm of white crap here. Queue panic. Southeastern has gone into total melt down. Pardon the pun. TfL seems to have forgotten how to operate buses, and both Bexley and Greenwich councils managed to not start gritting in time. SWMBO is currently on a bus heading to Woolwich and the DLR. The normal route isn't running but another route is on diversion taking the same route as the normal bus through the area. Go figure. Current temp is -7c. That is far colder than what was predicted, and the coldest temp we've had in nearly 15 years in the UK. Looks like this weekend's Freemo meet may be off. Shame if it is. It was to be Millarville's last scheduled outing. Either way on Sunday the modules are getting stuffed into storage until after the building works and probably until after I renovate the shed. It's almost 10 now and needs some remedial work. Likely I'll empty it out, put in new flooring, add a couple more electrical outlets, rerun the cat5 cable from the house, new roof felt, new roof insulation, better lighting, etc. The siren song of coffee is luring me downstairs. I cannot resist any longer. Enjoy the day.

I stood waving as well. Leaky pipes here as well. The muppets that installed the boiler managed to disturb some of the ancient pipework causing the seal on a couple of joints to fail. An hour with the Dremel tool and a packet of new 15mm olives et voila. No cooked breakfast for me though.

Greetings from a rather chilly boring borough. -1c at the moment with a wind chill of -7c. Basically shorts & tee shirt weather for your average Canadian. Shame I'm getting wimpy in my old age and starting to feel the cold. The new boiler is working well. Looks like we replaced the old one just in time. Too offset this I've been BBQ'ing every night for the past several days. SWMBO has just returned from thawing the bird bath and topping up the birdy buffet. Ian: so sorry to hear. Debs: I'm planning on a massive bulk posting full of modelling pics and train content once you are back on your feet. That'll learn ya's for spending all that time in hospital. Congrats and condolences to everyone else as appropriate. Today I shall mostly be managing expectations of a client that was wrongly told I was their new solution architect. A total c0ckup on the catering front. The sh*tweasel that caused the problem has already been carpeted. Meanwhile I sit and await (billing of course) the client I'm supposed to be working for, but who still haven't managed to provide me with access to their development environment. To quote Douglas Adams, "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by". It is quite interesting to watch the snowball effect of something that appears so innocuous. Day late in gaining access = delay in finishing = delay in starting next project = p*ssing off the next client. Day late in gaining access = delay in finishing = delay in go live = delay in migration from old system = 6 month minimum license extension for the old system = £100k+ extra cost on a tiny project with a £15k budget. Oh well. Enjoy your day.

Thanks Mick. Appreciated.

Just a few days until Millarville's final scheduled Freemo meet. Some minor repairs to do this week. Mostly replacing the signage on the 7-Eleven that got a bit wet & streaky when it was unloaded in a "blizzard" last Dec. This time next week it'll be on its way to a temporary home in our storage lockup.

For the most part I've enjoyed both shows. Obviously the Canadian one is far superior. :-) I know the ONR is no where near the Rocks but many of the problems they face are the same. As a Canadian, the footage of Roger's Pass, Golden, Lake Louise, etc is making me homesick.

You don't know me very well. As others can attest I have a bad case of potty mouth. For me that's mild. It's not the guy's voice but the dialogue that is grating. Same goes for the pronunciation of many of the place names. Just listened to a bit of the original narration. Much less faux drama and not quite so basic.

the UK narration is full of the faux drama crap. I may have to try and find it via VPN as the UK narration is getting on my t*ts.

Quest in the UK have been showing this on Mondays. Sadly it's one of the only shows on that channel not available on catch up. https://www.questtv.co.uk/rocky-mountain-railroad Original link to Canadian site: https://www.discovery.ca/Shows/Rocky-Mountain-Railroad Apart from the rather annoying over dubbed UK commentator it is quite good.

Gooooooooooooooooooood morning from the boring borough. Little happening at the moment. The calm before the construction storm. Hopefully a quiet day at work as well. 2 days of study and catch up expected. Next week will be 4 days on a government project then a Friday off to prepare for the Epsom Freemo meet on the 2nd & 3rd of March. After that it will be one of 2 long term projects for me. One in Germany which will be 100% remote from home. The other is with a bank in the Midlands but they want bum on seat even though there is no technical reason for it. History has also shown banks are the worst to work for. They expect people to work on site then fail to provide any desk space or building access. Our local recycling centre is supposed to check addresses if you don't have the little green sticker in your car window. They never seem to bother. Next door but one cheats and dumps all his crap at the much closer Greenwich centre. They too never check but with my luck the one day they did would be when I attempted to use their facility. Ours is actually quite good. Its a drive through loop with all the various types of crap separated. There is also allegedly a reuse section but I have yet to find it. Best wishes for Debs and her dicky ticker. More well wishing for Simon. Let's hope the chemical soup puts a halt to that b*stard 'C'. That's all for now (stop cheering at the back) Enjoy the day.

Our last house in Canada was a new build in a new area. Lucky for us we were able to design and choose just about everything we wanted. We even reversed the stock plan from the normal giving us something unique as it was one of a kind in the end. In some ways we are taking some of the best bits from there and incorporating them here. First floor bathroom with laundry facilities. Through lounge and as open plan as possible in a Victorian Terrace. Patio doors off the kitchen. Oak flooring. Depending on whether or not we burn through the contingency budget we may even be able to add a small ground floor WC under the stairs. I'm another fan of online banking. The only issues we've ever had was SWMBO's office WIFI had been hacked. Her card details were scooped when ordering online. Not the bank's fault. The bank spotted it before she did and sent her notices through the app and text message. Other than that, I know to the penny what is happening at the touch of my finger print. Paper on the otherhand, has presented us problems in the past. When we were in Charlton there was an outbreak of identity theft linked to scumbags sifting through the paper recycling bins. Lucky for us we weren't affected but it was incentive enough to minimise paper and everything with our name or address, or any identifying text gets cross cut shredded.

Greetings from the boring borough. Not quite as boring as usual though. Operation Dung Heap has begun. For those that knew my late lamented dull blog, "The Dung Heap Chronicles" was the name given to our house by us when we first realised just how much work was involved in renovating and restoring it. Instead we made it tolerable and waited for the moment we had the funds to do it properly. This is the beginning of the total renovation/refresh of the house. The decluttering is underway and a storage lockup for everything we have to move out during the renovations has been secured. Managed to catch the end of the extended January sales to order all the flooring, tiles, bathroom fixtures, and a full new kitchen. I did treat myself to a built in wine cooler beer fridge My debit card is currently still too hot to touch without kevlar gloves and ceramic tongs. Virtual hugs to Debs. Happy Birthday Chris. Bob, its good to see that cocooning you in bubble wrap was a great idea. Floaty on the water things. Not for me unless they are small enough to carry home on your back. I guess spending 40+ years 1.1km above sea level means the allure of ships has escaped me. Maplin, good for some things but as mentioned, online is killing them. I can get my electronic bits and wire from Kenable or Rapid for around 20% less with next day delivery. Just trying to park at the nearest Maplin is a lesson in anger management and blood pressure control. Back to sorting the filing cabinet and giving the shredder a workout. Enjoy the day.

We're so sorry Tony. Such a lovely dog. Pets become such a part of the family. Excuse me I have something in my eye.

Time for a little happy dance.

Good moaning from the boring borough. Managed to avoid St Clinton's day more or less. We went out last week to avoid the idiots and ripoffs. As seen in one pub a £49pp dinner consisting of putting a cloth on the table, a red balloon, bottle of cheap prosecco, and the same crappy lasagne they normally serve for £7. I did treat to a takeaway ruby from across the street. New boiler in place. They had to replace the gas line from the meter to the boiler as well. All done, dusted, and warm by 3pm. I did get their January special which saved us close to £900 on what Grittish Bas had quoted for the same model + installation. This one has the all singing/dancing programmable, smart phone, yadda, yadda controller. Strange that it cost half as much mechanical Bosch one that is normally installed by default. Today the man from the gas board is coming to replace the meter and emergency valve as yesterday's boiler installer who used to work for them, wasn't happy with the condition of said meter connections and shut off valve. Foot still pretty sore. Not as bad as the past 2 days but better than it was. The plan is to go to the quack tomorrow then likely to the QE for X-rays. Neil, I'm just happy my foot is not even close to the state of yours. Good to see Debs responding to treatment. What happened to Mrs Id is pretty disgusting. Not untypical though. I've heard and seen many many similar stories over the years. Happened to my mum. Turfed less than 6 months before her planned early retirement where she would have had a full salary pension and benefits for life. The wrongful dismissal threat and a call to a friend in head office meant her package was topped up rather nicely to the chagrin of her former manager and his operating budget. A week later she walked into a new job at the school board that she loved so much that she worked on for another 7 years. Spooky thing was after she was turfed the company's plants started having fires. Far more than normal for an asphalt plant. We jokingly blamed mum's curse. The biggest fire that took out a couple of million $ worth of factory happened the day after she died. Revenge? That's about it. Gas man has arrived. 8-12 window and he is here by 08:20. Enjoy the day.

Greetings all from the boring borough. Today is new boiler day. Yippee. I disappear for a few days and everything goes to hell. Condolences to Rick and family on their loss. Positive thoughts and well wishes to Mal as he improves. Poor Debs, up and down up and down. Hopefully no more false starts and this time her recovery leads her home. Ian A. Best wishes with mil 100 not out is a good innings. Hopefully the rest of her days are comfortable and stress free. To any I've missed, apologies. It seems we as a collective are going though one of those rough patches. No pancakes here yesterday. SWMBO and I alternate Sunday breakfasts. One week I do a full English on the bbq, the next she usually does pancakes, bacon, maple syrup. No ash today either. For us its just another Wednesday. Managed to slip off the edge of the step when getting off the train Monday night. Thought nothing of it until 4am when it felt like someone had stuffed my foot into a meat grinder. Still hobbling about but compared to the hardships of others here, tis but a scratch. Enough of my mutterings. Enjoy your day.

Or is it he can only type in daylight. Very slowly.

Greetings all you groovy protoplasms from the boringist of boroughs. Good to see Debs improvement and her smiling face greeting me when I logged on to RMweb this morning. All quiet here. The new guttering is working its magic. No downpour outside the back door and no more Charlie Dimmock water feature in the front garden. Currently chuckinitdown. Last day on the current project for a few weeks. Thank feck. Slightly tender this morn after a leaving do followed by a de Molen tap take over beerythingydrinkymadoodle. TFIF.