jonny777

Another dry and sunny morning in North Somerset. Yesterday, I noticed two frogs mating in the pond (which is not yet one year old) and the water level remains higher than it used to be, so I believe my repair is holding. I am not one for pressure washers because they may cause my water meter to spin around more than usual, and I pay enough for water already. Also, it is amazing to see the plants which manage to seed themselves and germinate in the tiny cracks between the paving. I have had poppies, forget me nots, dandelions, and lots of herb robert. Maybe the most dramatic is an aubretia which appeared a few years ago in the crack between the house and concrete path by the back door. I never thought it would survive, but have left it to its own devices and it seems to be thriving as you can see from this morning's photo......

Could you explain this to my other half? I can hear her upstairs while doing her yoga in the back bedroom. I tend to give that room at least half an hour after she has finished.

I suppose I was fortunate in the 'foreign' food area because during 1972/3 I shared a house with a person a few years older than me who had hitchhiked around Europe. The only country he did not see much of was Albania, because the border inspectors said his hair was too long and wouldn't let him in. Anyhow, he saw his mission as attempting to wise-up the shy and timid 19-year old me. So in the space of a few months I was taken to various eateries, including Chinese, Indian, pizza and KFC. I didn't really want to go, and my parents had warned me against what they termed as "foreign muck". But, he insisted; and I must say that once eaten I was a convert to those forms of food. I became obsessed with Chinese and then pizzas, not so much Indian and KFC in those days. Soon I shall be looking back on half a century of munching through these delights, although the last time I had a KFC it tasted nothing like my memories of the 1970s version; and I have spent years trying to re-create the original chicken chow mein and prawn foo yung in my kitchen, and have only just got there via a lengthy experiment with various sauce and five spice combinations.

Dry and sunny here in North Somerset. I'm going to have to cut the grass again if this keeps up. It is strange how much money is wasted by house-movers (and by that I mean the people who move in, have many thousands of £££s work done and then put the house up for sale). Our new-ish Greek neighbours have asked if the front garden fence between them and us is theirs (Yes, but apparently not marked on their deeds) and would we mind if they replaced it (Not at all). During this exchange I noticed that they had just turfed the whole of their front garden, which must have cost a few quid. Little do they know that the previous occupants spent thousands digging up the entire garden, including the grass and covering the whole area with gravel, on which they parked various little used cars with noisy exhausts, and then moved away a couple of years later. However, when the previous occupants moved in they spent about £30k ripping out all the downstairs features, internal walls which the occupants before them had spent probably about £30k putting in. The dining room, which had once been the garage became the garage again, but positioned slightly forward to facilitate a downstairs lav; and the kitchen, which had once been a kitchen diner became that yet again. I have been here 35 years, and am convinced the amounts spent internally next door over that period add up to as much as the house is worth now. Good business if you are a builder, kitchen/bedroom fitter I suppose.

On the subject of alcohol, someone sent me this via the net......

Well I think it has worked. I was inspecting the painted area for dryness and righting a pot of aquatic plant which must have fallen over during the winter, when my eyes concentrated on a few emerging leaves exposed by the drop in water level and found I was staring at a frog. I thought there were none in there, as I saw no sign of activity when I filled the buckets early this morning. Anyway, I gave froggy a while to settle down and then put the water back, and added more water until it came almost to the top of my 'repair'. I will check tomorrow for soaking wet soil on the outside of that patch. At least this way I can go to bed with a little optimism.

Or, as a letter printed in today's Guardian says - "After watching extensive coverage of the Ever Given, I am amazed that there is still no sign of a growing group of elderly men gathering on the bank shouting advice such as "put it into reverse" and "cut your revs down". Ian Grieve, Llangollen Canal"

Thanks. I like the sound of that.

I might end up doing that, if this experiment fails. In the mean time, I have covered the whole patched up area in some thick black sealant which can now dry in the sunshine and a temperature of 16C which is quite promising.

Sunny and dry in North Somerset today, and I have taken advantage to be out early and try a pond liner experiment which needs a lot of time. Unfortunately due to some form of unpredicted soil compression, the spirit-level adjusted soil base which I prepared and stood on (to flatten out any lumps) in order to make sure everything was perfect for the preformed liner to sit on, decided to sink slowly on one side once the weight of the water began to have an effect. This has resulted in the thick plastic liner buckling slightly and the water spills over the top at that point, whilst being nearly an inch from the top everywhere else. Short of draining the whole thing and starting again, my Heath Robinson theory is to superglue a piece of thick vinyl sheet to the depressed area, cover this with duct tape, and then layer more duct tape over the joins on the inside of the pond in order to produce a water-tight area. This probably will not work, but the result will not be any worse than the starting point. However, all these stages need time; take buckets of water from pond to lower water level, leave to dry, super glue extra piece to liner, leave to dry, duct tape join, leave to dry, duct tape inside - well you get the idea. I decided today would be an ideal day for this, although SWMBO has given me other instructions.

It is grey and windy in North Somerset, but dry at the moment, but the rainfall radar shows something light drifting up the Bristol Channel, and I am not talking about shipping. I carried on with my policy of moving poppy seedlings from one part of the garden to the other, in order that they might try and seed themselves in different places. I had sat in a chair near the greenhouse and decided on a sunny patch where they might do well, but it is near the path to the greenhouse and so risked being trodden on. However, I thought I would take a chance and moved a few plants. SWMBO appeared and I told her what I had done but she said they were far enough from the path to be safe, did a bit of un-neccessary tidying up around the greenhouse and on her way back trod right on the poppy plants. Then once I pointed out what she had done, she vanished inside for a sulk. I think clodhopping 'gardeners' should be restricted to wide open spaces like municipal parks, but I haven't told her that yet as A&E are probably still rather busy.

Dry and sunny this morning in North Somerset, although a bit breezy. I see the anarchists a few miles away have yet again refused to do as they are told, and suffered a beating by police as a result. I can't comment too much as it would be considered political; but suffice it to say that any hard line administration, who were looking for an excuse to continue the clampdown on freedom brought about by the covid virus, would see these 'protestors' as the perfect reason to do so.

Was that before or after you learn how to make a large pot of tea?

Hello from North Somerset. Dull and damp here, but rain has been absent for a while so I will not complain. I sympathise with Andrew P over lawn cutting and backache. I am the same, in fact anything which involves pushing arms forward and then bringing them back again. Using the hoover has the same effect, as does standing and washing up. This was the main reason we (I) bought a dishwasher. In my case there are horizontal muscles across the base of my back (just above my ar5e cheeks) which seem to be the ones to go 'twang' at the earliest opportunity. I used to know most flags; because in the 1960s I collected cards with flags on. They may have come from packets of bubble gum, but I can't remember. I eventually collected the whole set, but it took me an age to get El Salvador. It became a craze at primary school and we would swap cards in the playground despite these pleasurable activities (in fact *all* pleasurable activities) being banned by the headmaster. In the end I gave all my duplicates, which must have numbered about twenty, to the school bully in exchange for El Salvador. He thought he had a giant bargain, but I didn't care as I now had the whole set and wasn't to be bothered with swaps any more.

Here is a salutary tale about how Taiwan dealt with the pandemic; and how with a population of 22 million their death toll from Covid stands at 10, and the number of infections has reached 1000 - most of those being tourists in quarantine. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/24/how-taiwan-triumphed-over-covid-as-uk-faltered

So were we; that is until we reached the miserable old git in the shop who demanded we show him our receipt to prove we actually bought the bottle there. Anything to stop him giving money away.

The problem with that approach, is that anyone with a switchboard extension (to a genuine number) will find all their outgoing calls will be blocked.

The government are frightened of the extremely wealthy with their private jets. They all belong to the same 'club' and probably donate to the Conservatives in many and various ways. One only had to look at the number of aircraft flying during the first lockdown to see just how many people were making long distance international flights. I'm afraid it is always going to be one rule for them and another for the rest of us.

Grey but dry here in North Somerset, as well. However, the last couple of days have started this way but the sun has appeared by lunchtime and the afternoons have been very pleasant. Therefore, I remain hopeful. I placed my bowlful of muesli on the arm of the settee while I opened the curtains in the living room. Next thing I know there is a strange noise behind me and the bowl has tipped off the arm, with the muesli and milk spread artistically onto the cushion of the sofa. Being a 'waste not want not' kind of person, and to teach me a lesson; I scooped up all the muesli back into the bowl re-filled with milk and have eaten it now. I just had a call from the coal merchants asking if I wanted another pallet? I had to decline as I am not even half way through the one I bought earlier in the winter. What do they think I am running here? A blacksmith's forge?

A grey but dry morning in North Somerset, and no wind. The washing dried well yesterday and it was pleasantly warm when the sun came out, and I managed to get the step ladder and use a spirit level to check the top of my rain gauge on the shed roof. As I suspected it was leaning backwards a little which meant the tipping bucket rain gauge inside was not balanced properly and needed more weight of water on one side to the other. I also took advantage of a spring day to check the irises, which came by post earlier in the month, and I planted in bare ground at the back of the pond. They seem to be ok; at least none look dead, and a few have green shoots beginning to appear which is a relief. When they all reach full height, their leaves will fill a large gap in that area even if they do not flower in their first season here. Now to read the paper......

It's a grey but dry day here in North Somerset. There is a bit of a breeze so I may put some washing on. I refuse to get involved in a debate about good or bad foods, as it is too subjective and everyone has likes and dislikes. It is almost as bad as good or bad music as a subject. Sorry, but circular arguments are not my cuppatea. For the first time that I can remember, I started watching rugby on TV just after 2pm, and was still watching rugby at around 10pm. England were terrible, and as a neutral the France-Wales match had an exciting and extremely tense conclusion. Thereafter had a fitful night's sleep because laying on my left triggered pains in my jaw, and laying on my right led to a sharp pain in my shoulder shooting down to my wrist. I snore when on my back and get regular grief from SWMBO. Maybe I should learn to sleep standing up? As a left field thought, how do birds in trees manage it? Why don't they fall off the branches when fast asleep? I know I would.

I just wonder if EU leaders thought that careful consideration of vaccines was the sensible path to follow. Maybe they decided that the headstrong UK with their mass order of millions of doses would be a good guinea pig trial for them to study, and follow or ditch, depending on what happened to the vaccinated UK population? They seem to have reasoned without the obvious highly contagious levels shown by the various mutations, which can spread like wildfire through a region (as witnessed in Kent towards the end of last year). It must be very difficult trying to co-ordinate so many countries and their vaccine demands/production, especially when there are no hard borders.

...... And there's more. On the same day (22/7/62) BR ran an excursion from Sutton In Ashfield to Llandudno which was routed via Derby Friargate and Rhyl. Unfortunately, the blue electrics could be almost anything by that date. All the AL1s to AL4s had been delivered and the AL5s were up to E3070 by then.

70053 and 70054 were both officially Holbeck locos at that time, but were transferred to Crewe North during early August of that year.

According to 6 Bells Junction, 46200 worked a part of the Ffestiniog scenic railtour on 22nd July 1962. The tour didn't actually go via Crewe but 46200 worked from Llandudno Junction to Chester. (Sorry looking at the wrong year on original post) 22nd July 1962 was a Sunday.