jamie92208

Good moaning from the Charente. Ears to be lowered later then shopping.   This afternoon some G work.

Here it is definitely getting warmer and spring has sprung.  The grass is growing very fast and we don't need the heating  much.   

One thing is that some red and black insects have come out of their hiding places.   At this time of the year they are often attached in pairs.   This they are known locally as Gendarmes.

However I don't know how this collection would be categorised.

Jamie

8 hours ago, DaveF said:

I spent some time this evening looking at brochures for river cruises.  It was quite easy deciding where I would want to go and a selection of dates.  I had a long think about the prices but decided that if I really wanted to go I could even though it would be just me which makes it more expensive.

 

But... the more I looked at the details the more two things struck me.  I looked carefully at the places I would be visiting and realised that I have been to them all before in the days when I took the car to Europe for three or four weeks each summer.  Since they are historic places much of what I would see I have already  seen back in the days when I was a lot fitter and could walk much further in  day.

 

Then I looked at the actual schedules and found that in every case a surprising amount of travel on the boats would be at night to give more time for the town visits.  If I want to go along a river I want to see it all go by me, good and bad not just the carefully chosen highlights.  It is rather like being on a train, I am the one spending all the time looking out of the window at the world going by.

 

I think I have too many good memories of just driving around stopping whenever I felt like it for as long as I wanted and finding a hotel for the night when I felt I had done enough driving.  I have never been on any form of package holiday or cruise and the more I think about the less likely I am to do so, even if it means I just travel more locally now I am older.

 

David

I know that we took a day cruise from near Koblez up the Rhine and there seemed to be a lot of  such Rundfartenschiff _IIRC.  If they cover other areas it  might be possible to do and extended journey with stops in hotels along the way.
 

8 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Counterfeit products …

And people smuggling.

Jamie

Has anyone else watched the  Changing of the Guard with the French Guarde Republican and the Grenadier Guards in London and Paris,  I was once told that the Guards bearskins were initially looted from the field at Waterloo after large numbers of the Imperial Guard no longer had a need for theirs,  I wonder if this was mentioned today in the spirit of the Entente Cordial. 

Jamie

7 minutes ago, Danemouth said:

As part of this scheme my local line from Heath Halt (Low Level) to Coryton is also being electrified. Here are some images taken today

 

From the bridge over Caerphilly Road looking towards TyGlas station

 

 

Other side of the bridge with Birchgrove station

 

Now the bridge on Pantbach Road looking towards Birchgrove

 

 

 

and towards Rhiwbina Station

 

@Happy Hippo will know this area well, it was his boyhood stamping ground - there are no blue plaques commemorating that fact 😄

 

and signs have appeared on the bridges

 

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

 

 

 

Obviously you don't need to warn Hippo's 

Jamie

2 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

We already have that.

 

Perhaps the answer is to round them all up and put them on a island ....... Oops being told we can't do that as it would have an adverse impact on the island. This might take some thought.

I believe that there's an uninhabited island in the Hebrides that was used in WW2 To test Anthrax. It was declaredcsafeca few years ago. 

Jamie

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

We were on holiday in Austria when Matthew was a teenager and one of the wires on his orthodontic braces snapped and was sticking into the inside of his cheek. I think Matthew must have taken a few modelling tools on holiday to assemble some Warhammer figures if the weather was bad. He was really good while I cut the wire and fed the end into a gap between the teeth. On return the orthodontist said it was a very good temporary repair. 

I have had to use my modelling tools on a few occasions to reattach teeth dentures and recently to make new hinges for spectacles.   The attempts have all worked.  

Jamie

Good moaning from a sunny Charente.  The pool got uncovered and the filter commissioned.  I even managed to correctly connect the pipes to the filter and pump.  Then we went to some friends for a sort of buffet with other friends.  A good time was had. 

French class this morning then so e pottering in the shed. 

Jamie

13 hours ago, polybear said:

Bear here.... 

 

Pruning the Bush?  Still on the to-do list.....

 

BG

Do you want to rephrase that or do you have something to tell us..... 

Jamie

14 hours ago, H2O said:

FWIW:

 

From 1991, 'Rail' issue 148, page 6:

 

"... 112 passengers have been killed over the last 5 years when they fell out of train doors."

 

The high number surprised me, but some real numbers from an era when passengers were presumably more used to manual doors.

The issue with doors was very real.  A research project was commissioned into the safety of Mk 1 door catches which had two positions.  This was conducted by a late friend of mine who worked for the lock manufacturers at Pickersgill Kaye in Leeds.  John designed a test rig that opened and slammed a door 24/7 for several months. The neighbours weren't happy.  IIRC many of the deaths were people, were falling from doors that suddenly opened when on the first latch. I can't remember the full results that John talked about but a fault was found that had to be sorted.  It also lead to the fitting of the central door locking on HST''s.   I think that it was a combination of the, lock design and a deterioration in the structure of the coach.   Pickersgill Kayes still make train  and loco door locks. 

Jamie

20 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

In view of the apparent damage being caused by social media perhaps they shouldn't install cables.

Remember life before the internet and mobile phones?

But you remind me of my commuting days on Thameslink. Night after night commuters would join the train at Farringdon and KX and immediately phone home - to be cut off as soon as the train entered the tunnel after KX. And I am sure it was the same commuters each time but the never learned.

Jonathan  

I had the same experience leaving KX on ECML services with all the tunnels.  It was quite amusing to listen to. i was being a bit tounge in cheek.  The first thing my kids ask for when they come and visit is the wifi password. 

Jamie

11 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Normanton is perhaps the real biggie you've missed - a small mining village between Wakefield and Castleford but the junction of the Manchester & Leeds (later L&Y) and York & North Midland (later NER) with the North Midland and the home to major refreshment rooms with the traditional half-hour luncheon interval for the day Scotch expresses from the opening of the S&C in 1876 to the introduction of dining carriages in 1893.

 

I can't off-hand think of any places on the Midland that took their name from the railway, unlike Horbury Junction on the L&Y not far from Normanton, home to Charles Roberts Ltd. - though I suppose there must have been a Horbury for the Junction to take its name from.

Horbury  is quite an old town.  It certainly predated the railway. Horbury Junction is about half a mile away and down in the valley.  Horbury is famous for having had a vicar who wrote the Hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers. It even proclaims that fact on the town name boards. 

Jamie

Swanage have done it with their DMU running to Wareham.  I rode it last summer and it works.  I know that there are cost problemswith continuing the service but from what I was told that was for costs unrelated to cdl. They use WCRC for their network access and WC drivers take over from Norden to Wareham. 

Jamie

And another showing the southern end of the viaduct. I think they have about 16 arches to go.  It also shows the north end of Copthall tunnel so e of which appears to ha e been covered over. 

Just one of the wall thought.  With all those long tunnels between Euston and Wendover I hope they have installed wifi cables in the tunnels or many of the passengers are going to need therapy after being deprived of wifi etc. 

Jamie

22 minutes ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Of all the railway companies, the Midland seemed to have the most junction stations set in the "middle of nowhere" or associated with but a small settlement. Trent is the best-known example, but there are so many others with quite large infrastructure: 
Ambergate
Ashchurch

Chinley

Hellifield

Miller's Dale

Plus the one I illustrated above.

Also smaller ones like:
Fiskerton Junction

Hawes Junction

Ilkeston Junction

 

I'm sure I've missed many others...

Settle Junction station was only open for about a year. The station building was demolished over a century after it closed. 

Clapham Junction had quite a lot of sidings for a small country station over a mile from it's village that had a population of about 200.  Think that quite a lot of colliery and quarry products were exchanged there for dispatch towards the West Coast. 

Hellifield had a lot of facilities, 2 loco sheds, one carriage shed and two large goods yards.  I don't think that L and Y Locos ever worked northwards but there was a lot of  interchange traffic. 

Jamie

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Which would require a Dentist!

3 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

I believe, so I'm told, that they tried that a number of years ago, but they had to discontinued it as the mechanism they used kept getting jammed on wide open. It was very distressing because the wives just couldn't stop and eventually they wore themselves out. There's even a report that some formed a choir and we're quite successful until of course the fashion for such things changed. Nothing is known about the husbands. Perhaps you could ask your friend.

Someone read through the old minute books of our Baptist Church which was founded in 1707.  At some point in the later 18th century,two lady members were expelled for having railing tongues. 

2 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

I seem to recall reading a few years back of an analysis of how much hospitals spent on providing food to patients and it was found that on average they were spending less than the Prison Service was.

Wasn't there an experiment done by the Prison Service at one of there Youth Offending facilities, Aylesbury I think, where they altered the diet of the inmates and found that they were less violent. Can't remember whether it was vitamins that were added.

I have a vague memory of having read that the food in Alcatraz was very good for that reason. 

Jamie

8 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Son and rugrats now departed and no damage to DH - apart from the eardrums of course. I must see if we can have them fitted with volume control.

 

Dave

Is it possible to fit such controls to wives, asking for a friend. 

Jamie

Simon has just posted a new video showing progress on the Colne Valley viaduct.  It is now over the canal and the center of the first of the Flying arches has been formed. It looks as if the first two of the arch sections have been placed.

Real progress. 

Jamie

Managing volunteers is recognised as a distinct skill.  The Ozu have a module in the MBA course called 'Managi g in the voluntary Sector.' 

However I saw one museum go pear shaped as the number of paid staff grew and the volunteers were sidelined. 

Jamie

16 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

I use Persil as it gets everything sparkling.

Over here where @Oldddudders and I live,Persil is a very nice garnish that we grow in tubs.

Jamie

4 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

 

The smell of it always reminds me of the worksheets that my primary school teachers would run off on some kind of copying machine that involved metho - the prints were always purply-blue.

 

I've never bothered to try drinking it.

 

Or scotch either!

Yes I remember those but for the life of my now alcohol befuddled brain I can't remember what they were called. 

Jamie

45 minutes ago, Hroth said:

It used to be a flat 10% per transaction, which was bad enough.  Looks like the Coinstar beancounters have decided that they need to make more money as not enough people are using their woeful service.

 

I've not actually seen anyone using the machines in either Morrisons or Sainsburys...

 

btw.  At the quoted rate, if you fed in £10 worth of coppers, you'd get a voucher for £8.62.  £1.38 isn't exactly a small sum to hand over for counting....

 

 

On a totally unscientific set of observations those machines do very well from certain lower demographics.  There were always families crowdedcroundvthevonebin Asda at Morley.  I use my small change to pay for things.  I've never met a shopkeeper or market trader who doesn't like change. 

Suisvout, 3 hours of grass cutting done whilst Beth trimmed with the new lighter strimmer. 

Jamie

5 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Threw away or perhaps were rather forced to give away lest our friends across the pond should call in those loans they made to us in the war.

I believe that Attlee allowed the transfer of an Avon engine to the USSR and the copies they made powered the early Migs in Korea. 

Jamie