jonny777

Hello all, We had 21mm of rain yesterday which is enough to keep me going (in the fruit&veg watering dept) for a few weeks. Gloomy this morning with a few spots still blowing around in the wind, but weather appears to be improving slowly. I'm in charge of planning (food logistics mainly) for a family holiday near Leominster in a couple of weeks. With 7 hungry people to feed, and a range of dietary restrictions for most individuals, this is not going to be as easy as it sounds. My plan B is "get the bbq out", but when away from home even that is not the straightforward option it might appear to be. Maybe I will pack everyone off to Bulmers in Hereford and by the time they come back they will be in no state to notice what they are eating...

Here are a pair of 101s near Ely in Cambridgeshire during 1991.

I feel that I missing out on some in-joke here....

I think you can, but you may need an extra adapter to go with the cable. Without knowing precisely how many pins your scanner lead has, and how many pins you need the other end of the cable (or is it usb?) to have it is rather difficult. However, an Ebay search will produce a number of choices. If it is a 25 pin, then there are usb cables for that - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CabledUp-USB-2-0-Male-to-25-Pin-DB25-Female-Parallel-Port-Printer-Adapter-Cable-/252301854311?hash=item3abe5cc667:g:-20AAOSwezVW0fhM And if you need a male to female converter, they are easy to come by as well - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DB25-25-Pin-Mini-Female-to-DB25-Male-Gender-Changer-Plug-Mini-Adapter-Connector-/252331988379?hash=item3ac028959b:g:tVIAAOSwdU1W9KpM

Yes, rain not far away from here now - and lots of it, looking at the weather radar. Oh well, I can scan a few slides and maybe start to read my latest ex-library acquisition on Riddles and the Standard Locos.

I loved the gloom of Nottingham Midland. I didn't live in the city but my mother liked the shops there and so we had occasional visits, with my Dad retreating to the station with me and my brother. I think my fascination with the place began in about 1961 when it was still mostly steam, and there were station pilots scuttling around attaching coaches; many trains terminated so there were lots of light engine movements; we had to be quick to get to the east end of the platform for goods trains that used the avoiding lines because numbers could be obscured by a wall; and of course there was a good chance of seeing a completely different range of loco numbers going over the girder bridge at the other end of the station. Plus, one of the platform vending machines dispensed boxes of Paynes Poppets; and if we could work on Dad for an hour or so, he might just buy us one to shut us up.

Here is 81022 relaxing at Euston in the early 1980s.

Thanks Neil. I will go with that unless anyone violently disagrees.

I recently bought this on Ebay for about a fiver (can't remember without looking it up). It is not too sharp but in reasonable nick. A Western at Westbury on a stone train, but I can't read the name on the original. It is not very long - maybe 5 or 6 letters and not as long as Western on the nameplate. I hope that hydraulic experts can suggest which loco it might be?

Hello everyone. I have discovered the cause of all the loud squawking which emanates from high above the front garden. Yesterday evening it increased to such a level that I felt compelled to spend a few minutes looking out of the front window just to find out what was going on. The culprits were a pair of Jays that had been helping themselves to a few acorns in the oak tree by the road, but had found their free buffet had been gatecrashed by a couple of Magpies. The resulting commotion was almost enough to bring my half dead cherry tree back to life. The four birds were hopping around from branch to branch, each making a tremendous din. Finally the Magpies flew off and peace was restored. It is nice and sunny here today, so the watering must be done....

Oh my goodness. Ch**tm*s might be a riot in the Jonny777 household. I think I have 11 visiting, and I thought I would start some Santa's Winter Warmer beer just for the family occasion. However, I forgot that the Muntons beer kit is not meant to make as much as the normal 40 pints until after I had filled up my fermentaion vessel to (you guessed it) 40 pints. So because I have some dextrose (brewing sugar) left over from other things, I added that to the mix in the hope that it might help with the extra liquid. On checking the original gravity of the brew before I add the yeast I found it to be 1068 . If I can find a yeast that can cope and get the finished article down to a gravity 1010, then I will have a beer with 7.5% alcohol. There could be some family chaos towards the end of this year, if we all try sampling this....

I think we should have a "too much information" button. Bottling beer is a slow and laborious task. Most brews make just over 20 litres, so that is 40-42 bottles (and caps) to rinse out, drain, sterilise, fill, add carbonation drop, screw on cap, place in warm dark place for secondary ferment. Fortunately, I have hardly sampled any of the brew as I had a mouthful while bottling and it had almost no taste at all. In a rather strange way that is good, because any bacteria that may find itself in the brew would soon spoil it and produce off tastes. This is why I have a zero tolerance to fruit flies in the brew room. Allow one or two to float around annoyingly and you will soon have a hundred; and just one can do the damage. The Ocado man arrived in the Onion Van. I've seen plenty of Apple, Lemon, Raspberry vans (amongst others) but this is my first Onion. Home made bread and pate for lunch I think, and then maybe a haircut for the back lawn later, as our drizzly rain is forecast to clear very soon.

Good morning. Cloudy here and with a little rain on the way I gather, but seems quite appropriate after reading the news from Duncan. Although I am another thread newbie, it does make me sad when people die so young. My three children are a year or so either side of 34, and the family must be devastated. Low calorie breakfast today. Two Weetabix and 200ml semi-skimmed milk. 234 calories, which will do nicely as the calorie intake may spike if I bottle my Pligrim's Hope brew later.

I would love to get mine down to 1004, but am happy with anything below 1010. I have just checked and it is currently 1011, so doing well for me. I don't have the room really for second vessels, my first one would be in danger of incurring the extreme wrath of management if it was anywhere other than the corner of the back bedroom. Therefore, I bottle straight from the first one but add a carbonation drop to each 500ml bottle (because I am a lazy brewer and cant be bothered with measuring out sugar) in order to achieve secondary fermentation.

Hello, It was a bright blue sky here when I opened the curtains but in the time it took for ablutions and to stagger downstairs, it had clouded over. What have I done to deserve this? That photo of nhy581's fry-up has strangely activated my mental taste buds. I may have to raid the fridge. I had earmarked today as 'beer bottling day' but a quick look at the airlock on my fermentation bin shows that the yeast are still active, so I will leave it alone. It is a fine line between getting the specific gravity down to a nice low level, but not allowing the brew to sit on the sediment for too long as this can alter the flavour - and not usually in a good way. So, with time to spare, I may make a couple of loaves of bread; before plucking up the courage to tackle the privet hedge in the front garden which has needed attention from the shears for a few weeks now.

Wasn't that Aretha Franklin? Hat, coat, gone......

Well, the sun is still shining and I have lazed around all day. Except for answering the door to the local JW, but he does not give me too much of a bible class and I just agree with everything he says. I'm glad that I didn't venture out in the car, as the M5 appears to have been closed for most of the afternoon and most people take detours along the A370 which soon becomes jammed, so I might not have moved very far. Lets hope any injuries on the motorway were not serious. Mrs J has volunteered to cook this evening (a very rare treat for me) so I have a complete day off. The only problem for me now, is trying to convince my brain that today was not Sunday and tomorrow is Tuesday.

Hello. Lots of blue sky in Somerset, but after sampling rather a lot of my home-brewed London Porter yesterday evening my head is feeling somewhat sensitive. Lazy bank holiday for me. The youngsters tend to describe it as "just chillin", but I see it as doing absolutely nothing.

All this info is being quietly accumulated. Thanks.

I don't know about seeing him, but many of us had his "Learn The Guitar In Easy Lessons" book. I tried..... and failed

Lovely. I have a vacation booked in Leominster during September, and that looks to be a prime candidate for a day trip. If I arrive by train, I can sample as many pubs as I like I can manage before forgetting where the station is.

Simon G mentions the subject of tradesmen, which reminded me of an incident a few weeks ago. The flush on one of our toilets was not stopping properly, and I could see a tiny dribble of water running continuously down the back of the pan. These things are not good when on a water meter, as consumption soon mounts up. I did take the cistern lid off and slosh the water around just in case a small piece of dirt was trapped under the seal, but the syphon mechanism is one of those new fangled vertical plastic contraptions; not a ball-cock as in all the other cisterns I have ever known. It looked rather flimsy and I didn't want to snap anything and end up with the flush going continuously at full welly until I turned the water off. So, I did the sensible thing and called out a local plumber whose advert said "no job too small". He looked at the tiny dribble and seemed non-plussed as if to say "you called me out for this?". He said that he didn't think parts were easily replaced and it would probably mean replacing the whole unit. My reply was silence, and presumably he took this to mean that I was not inviting him to replace the whole unit, when it was actually because I had no idea what to say next. He showed me how to unscrew the main syphon assembly and told me that it might be possible to source spare parts from "Screwfix or somewhere", replaced everything, charged me £25 for the privilege, and left. The dribble became worse once he had gone, but at least I knew how the syphon was fixed into the cistern even though I was now going to be faced with an even bigger water bill. Maybe our job was actually too small. I sat wondering how I could have called out a plumber who didn't seem to want to do any repairs, when a thought came into my head. Maybe I should inspect the seal at the bottom of the syphon unit. So I did. It was a plastic/polythene circular affair which seemed to be fitted into a groove around the bottom of the assembly. I was on a roll now, so I decided to see if I could pull the seal out. It came out very easily, and on inspection I discovered there was a tiny bump in its surface which looked as though it had been trapped between something and been forced out of shape. I was just about to measure the seal's dimensions in order to look it up on Ebay, when I wondered what the other side was like. The other side was completely unblemished. So I replaced it in an upside-down position to how it had been, screwed the unit back into the cistern and pressed the flush button. Perfect. No leaks, or anything. The water in the pan was as still as a millpond. Which is how it remains to this day. I think that was £25 worth of advice well spent.

The sun is shining in north Somerset, although a quick glance at the rainfall radar shows that we are very lucky because a good deal of southern England and South Wales is dotted with showers. I just had a call from a good friend of mine and discovered he is getting divorced. How sad, and with three teenage children as well. What must they be going through? Even though it is not raining here, that has put a dampener on the rest of the holiday weekend.

That's quite ok. At least if it is non-competitive I don't have to worry about losing my soul. I just think it is so sad that many non-British guitarists are so under-rated in the UK, and Jan Akkerman is one who suffers more than others in that way, given his talent. I know folk who rave over the guitar playing of Hank Marvin, and yet say "Jan Akker... who? Does he play guitar?" Maybe I just know the wrong folk.

There is another one of it in service, here - https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/45/d6/19/45d6198cbfeb2f25352d90041eb52665.jpg