jonny777

Excellent.

The prose is very camp, but no less interesting for that. I prefer to read books that I know nothing about. I haven't seen a copy of Exchange & Mart for years. In the 1970s I was tempted by an Aston Martin DB6 which was on sale for just over £2000 IIRC in that paper. I wish I had bought it, but keeping it in good nick and buying fuel would have bankrupted me.

Another dry and bright morning in North Somerset, but a cold one. SWMBO had a frustrating time trying to send a 9kg parcel via Yodel from the corner shop. The courier service was not the problem, only her flat refusal to embrace modern technology on her phone. She pretends to be an expert in conversation, but when faced with the woman in the shop wanting to scan her barcode she is flummoxed, even though I had done all the preparations for her and left the page with a button saying 'show barcode' as the top page on her mobile. I managed to break the ice on the pond and remove some excess duckweed. I don't think there are frogs in there, but wouldn't want them to suffocate. This will probably become a daily job for a while. Living room temperature has now struggled up to 13C, and I can read the paper without shivering.

Bright and cold here in North Somerset, but the wind has dropped since yesterday. We had a few flakes of snow yesterday, but if I had blinked I would have probably missed it. Continuing my classics lockdown reading, I have decided on "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" as a successor to Wildfell Hall. I don't know why, but I wanted something which I had no prior knowledge of and sites such as '100 books to read before you die' are full of H G Wells, George Orwell and Thomas Hardy, some of which I was made to read at school for English Literature O Level and left me cold at the time. I am not intending to read Anne Of Green Gables or Little Women, which are included in the 100 books and I don't fancy American authors at this present time. Oscar Wilde was not a person on the syllabus at our school, probably because his pastimes were a little too close for comfort for some of the staff, given the strange rules for pupils there at the time. As for the A17, I view it as a kind of lottery. It all depends on the speed of the slowest driver in front of you, and how far they are going. Normally, the slower ones have about 2 miles of traffic trudging along behind them, and in the harvest season progress behind agricultural vehicles can be 'very' slow. One thing intrigued me on my last drive west from Kings Lynn while clearing my Dad's bungalow; that was an artic HGV which I was following and did a steady 45 mph until we passed from Norfolk into Lincolnshire, and then suddenly speeded up to 55-60mph thereafter. I am not sure whether that was just coincidence or if the driver knew something that I didn't.

Changing the subject temporarily, I am amazed at yet another photo of a Britannia pacific c1960 has resulted in the cliche'd response of "another one of Kingmoor's finest" on a forum far far away. As far as I know, and leaving out the last 3 or so years 1963-67 when most of them started to migrate there, Kingmoor had no Britannias allocated except for a few months around 1961/62. I wonder where this idea has come from?

Ah yes, similar to the old Brian Moore scrum quote of many years ago, something like - It is well known that Bath hookers will go down at every opportunity presented to them.

Finished The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, and was about to take a few hours of classics reading break and go back to slide scanning when the phone rang. It was the doctors, booking me in for a covid jab this Thursday. Wow! They are racing along as I am still 4 weeks from my 68th birthday. They even gave me a second jab appointment in May. I am a bit bowled over by this. I wasn't expecting a communication until at least mid-March.

Cold but bright here in North Somerset. Bedroom thermometer said 9.8C when I got up. Maybe I should have stayed under the duvet? The best pasty I had was bought in St Mary's, Isles Of Scilly - but as for the thick pastry rim around the side, they are supposed to be like that. The traditional pasty eaters, Cornish tin miners, would hold the pasty by the rim until they had eaten the contents and then throw the rim away, because of all the pollutants on their fingers. There is such a thing as the wrong kind of snow, technically snow grains, and it gets everywhere especially if it is windy at the same time. I remember it getting through my car's radiator grille on winter in the 1980s. There were no drifts around the car, but on opening the bonnet I found the entire engine compartment full of snow. I had deliberately parked with the back of the car into the wind, but somehow the swirling eddies had brought the snow in from the opposite direction. Big snowflakes only occur when the humidity is high and the smaller flakes stick together as they are falling, or if there are really active showers and the flakes keep getting caught in the updraught and collide with each other many times before emerging from the cloud. It is amazing how the disappearing wood pigeons have made instant changes to the bird feeding hierarchy. Collared Doves have re-appeared and a couple of blackbirds are now braving the food tray. The robin is now a regular visitor. The BTO weekly garden birdwatch has published Autumn 2020 and Wood Pigeons are now the bird most commonly recorded in gardens taking part in the scheme. Second place is Blue Tit and third, Robin. Sadly, Song Thrush is now 24th on the list and only seen in 9% of gardens, thanks mainly to slug pellets.

I remember eating a steak and kidney pie once and finding a couple of bones amongst the meat. I thought little of it and just picked them out and threw them on the fire. It was only afterwards that I thought about their shape which were like small mammal vertebrae. Then I thought, what kind of small mammals might accidentally have found their way into a pie making factory, and I wished I had not eaten the pie. I don't remember any adverse digestive reactions though.

As a meteorologist (retired) I am somewhat confused as to the sudden obsession with the lack of instantaneous snow. What does everyone think 'the beast from the east' means exactly? The fact that a low pressure was named storm Darcy by the KNMI (Dutch Meteorological Service) should give you a clue. The worst affected area is going to be the Netherlands. You may see fit to mock the lack of instantaneous snow in a country other than the one seriously affected, but believe me when I say, you will have seen enough of the beast and its winds from the east by this time next week, that you will be praying for mild, wet weather with low cloud and hill fog. As for curries, I am another who sees no point in burning my mouth in exchange for money. However, in the macho world which pervades a lot of society, one-upmanship rules; and if one person has three tablespoons of hot chilli powder mixed with his curry sauce, no one else can rest until they have had four tablespoons, or five tablespoons, or.... well you get the idea. On the royals, I quite like the monarchy as a whole. Yes they are a bit expensive and tend to live a life of disconnected ritual and routine, some of it handed down over the centuries; but I kind of like that pomp and pageantry combined with a hereditary factor rather than the republic version where the spoils are conferred on the one with the biggest ego/budget/BScampaign. I can't imagine a President Blair, or Branson, or Sugar, etc.

Especially as, at the time of the initial 'transmission', the said animals were hibernating in caves for the winter, as they do every year.

Cloudy and cold in North Somerset, but as far as bitterly cold winds are concerned - the worst is yet to come. I have to smile at those poor souls who believe one kamikaze wood pigeon would demolish my bird feeder defences. Jonny doesn't believe in half measures. A few kamikaze wood pigeons would have one simple effect, a free Sunday lunch for Jonny. Meanwhile, in the real world, the wood pigeons seem to have raised the white flag. The starlings have properly learned how to negotiate the spikes, and a blackbird was within the compound when I looked out of the window. I must go and get the bacon on......

I remember him, and he made me very suspicious; mainly because the style of his replies and his wording was almost identical to many 'sudden' arrivals on other forums (mainly unmoderated political discussions where nothing was out of bounds) who we regulars began to suspect were government shills. I have searched through the initial Feb/Mar coronavirus thread, and all Lantavian's posts have been removed without trace. I'm not sure whether other peoples' replies quoting him have also been removed, but I couldn't find any when I was looking; except for a reference to @Lantavian. You may think this is the idea of a madman (and you could be right), but before jumping to a guilty verdict please read up on the 77th Brigade.

Don't forget strange cars such as the NSU Prinz, and bubble cars. Then there were 1970s Lancias which rusted so fast no one can remember them. The coal merchant might not have become wealthy by purchasing new cars, but I can imagine him driving an old Rover P4 which he has cherished for years, and washed every Sunday morning without fail.

A bright but frosty start in North Somerset. Red sky though, which is not good. The starlings seem to have learned how to negotiate the spikes I glued around the tray of bird food, and I saw a wood pigeon make a few pathetic efforts to hover over them yesterday while working out "how to land on that infernal contraption", but pigeons have been absent this morning. Good news I hope. The only thing which concerns me about vaccines, is why has the covid virus remained almost stable until we are at the point of vaccinating everyone against it, and then suddenly it starts mutating in different countries all at the same time? I know viruses will mutate, but one could be forgiven for thinking this one is doing it to order.

Dull and wet this morning in North Somerset, and have already done something wrong. I put my washing on and then went to feed this fish (tropical) only to notice that the air bubbles were very weak on the pump outlet. I cleaned out the pipes and inspected the pump, put everything back in place only to find I seemed to have made the situation worse. A more thorough inspection will have to take place later this morning. Meanwhile the fish will have to be more frugal with their oxygen consumption. I am relying on the rain to clear by the time the washing needs to go outside on the line for a few hours. Then I have to glue anti-wood pigeon spikes around my wild bird food tray. This will probably not be 100% successful, but it might deter the fatties from walking around the food inside the cage (which they can't get at) for hours on end.

And even that is a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of Carbon Monoxide coming out of vehicle exhausts.

I bet you say that to all the girls..... I'll get my coat.

Dry and bright here in North Somerset, but the beast from the east is getting ever closer. Likely to hit the UK on Saturday night. Expect supermarket shelves to empty rapidly when the news hits the panic buyers at large. The forecast for N Somerset has air temperatures falling below freezing on Saturday night, and not rising above zero until at least the following Friday (12th). The rest of the UK is expected to be similar, if not worse.

I just looked at those photos, and thought wow! the detail was so good for 2mm scale that I might consider switching. At least I would get far more into my 10' x 2'6" space.

It's a dry and cloudy start here in North Somerset, but the cloud looks thin and I can see hints of blue sky in the distance. Had a big multiple food delivery day yesterday, and now my freezers have enough meat and pies in them to last me a few months. On the subject of old fridges/freezers which have lasted decades without failing, the chest freezer in our utility room was purchased towards the fag end 0f 1977 - not long after we were married. It is still going strong after 43 years, although I leave it well alone; unless adding/removing frozen items, in case my presence upsets it and it switches off forever. There are a lot of yellow crocuses appearing now (the blue ones we have are a week or two later, usually; and I noticed a couple of snowdrops just beginning to show a flower. Unfortunately, the real cold air has yet to arrive; but is likely to begin to show its teeth during Sunday.

I always think the same with Nicola Sturgeon and Susan Calman.

I thought it was going to be a cloudy and miserable morning in North Somerset, but the cloud appears to be breaking up now and the sun is trying to make an appearance. Hooray. Mild here, with a temperature of 9C. I think Nicola has no chance of getting her way. Unfortunately, the Westminster establishment have thought about the implications - such as the UK having a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. That would most likely be lost if we turn into EWANI (England, Wales And Northern Ireland). Then there is defence, a number of important RAF bases are north of the border and would a victorious SNP want these to continue, no doubt at a high financial cost? Then there are the nukes, which have a very expensive base by the Clyde; are the Scots going to want that, and if they don't then think of the job losses on relocation in the south? The whole indy idea may be good for votes, and a bit of jingoism, but I believe it will never be allowed to happen.

Some years ago, our green waste was changed to be collected every fortnight alternating with the non-recyclable waste. Prior to that we used big green bags to put everything in. Under the new scheme we were required to purchase a green wheelie bin from the council (although I can't remember the precise cost £25 sticks in my mind). Green bags would no longer be emptied. All went well until late 2020, when we were informed that the service was changing to a yearly payment scheme - costing £50 per annum as from this April. So now we will have paid for the bin and for the service to empty it every two weeks, even if we have nothing. We have compost heaps in both the garden and the allotment and we only really use the green bin for large amounts of hedge trimmings, or when we have a bindweed/bramble clearing session. If I don't pay then we will have no overflow outlet, and if I do it will be rather expensive for the few weeks we use the service each year.

Hello from a cold and cloudy North Somerset. Temperature now 3C and yesterday's snow has gone - not that a great deal settled anyway and it only snowed for a couple of hours - but quite a pleasant change while it was coming down. The air ambulance was hovering around yesterday a few hundred yards away, but have no idea why. Nothing so far on the local news. I had a strange dream about driving a large coach, but couldn't park it. What amazed me (when I woke up and thought about it) was every time I pressed the brakes, the coach made a short hiss noise as with air brakes. I dare not think how my brain conjured that up.