Danemouth

Lovely sunny day in Cardiff Bathroom cleaned, ironing done (jobs inherited from SWMBO since retirement). My neighbour's funeral this afternoon, I will be serving on the altar for it. Warmest regards to you all, Dave p.s. there is no way i would trust myself with a chainsaw even if I did have a use for one!

Either a Standard 8 or Standard 10 (Dad had the latter). I can't remember the differences between the two models! Regards, Dave

No need for further speculation folks http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39802636 I was glad to retire at 65, I expect he will be ecstatic to retire at 95! Somewhat grey today in the capital of the Principality Best wishes to you all, Dave

I drive a Nissan Note and TBH it has become absolutely filthy over the winter, particularly the inside - why is it when I clean the glass with the proper Permashield cleaner it always smears ? :) Following a recommendation it seems that there is a cleaning service in the car park of the local Asda. So I go along and lo and behold for £30 they cleaned and polished the outside and really cleaned the inside in less than 45 minutes! That saved my poor old back! I really must restart work on Danemouth - tried to get Railmatch "Sleeper Grime" locally - neither shop had it in stock so I ended up ordering it from Gaugemaster - the postage and small order charge cost almost as much as the two pots of paint. Regards to you all, Dave

It was nice and dry here this morning, so I decided to pressure wash the patio, over the winter months it has become unaccountably filthy. Following the failure of the old pressure washer last year I purchased one of the better Karcher washers via Amazon - turned out to be £60 cheaper than Argos or Homebase. Did a great job on the patio, it's nice and white again. Of course it's rained in the past couple of hours! Dave

SWMBO and myself have just returned from a week's holiday in London, so may I offer generic congratulations or commiserations as appropriate to my fellow ERs. Came back to some bad news - my next door neighbour came to return our keys and tell us her husband had died unexpectedly. He has been poorly for some time having lost a leg to diabetes a couple of years ago. Dog is just back from the kennels, has run like a mad thing around the house and is currently being bathed by SWMBO and daughter. Regards to you all, Dave

Rick, I've given you a "Like" but am really sorry to see the layout being broken up - I've enjoyed it over the years. I look forward to seeing a new layout when you return to the old country! Regards, Dave

Rick, Doubtless this cockwomble had to change his/her underwear on arrival at their destination and probably fumigate the car as well. Serves them right - let's hope a valuable lesson was learned. The trouble with this type of incident is it's usually the innocent passers by that cop a packet! Regards, Dave

Andy, Which ballast are you using please, particularly the colour? Many thanks, Dave

No it isn't Don. The piping is over 30 years old, 22 mm for the flow/return and 15 mm down to the radiators. It has a standard pump and is vented into the header tank in the attic. It does have two motorised valves so when they both close e.g.when the timer goes off the bypass is needed for the pump overrun Until the recent problem I knew b*gger all about bypasses and the engineer who eventually found the issue had to check the manual to see if the boiler required a bypass. Incidentally BG fitted a magnetic filter in the airing cupboard when they fitted the new boiler. https://www.britishgas.co.uk/home-services/boilers-and-heating/heating-upgrade.html Regards, Dave

The Gloworm boiler does specify a bypass in its installation instructions. This is so that whilst the pump is overunning it is not just pushing against the closed heating and hot water motorised valves but rather the water in and out of the boiler can circulate via the bypass. Three of our radiators have no thermostatic valve and are always open but without the bypass we had real problems Regards, Dave

I remember when mortgage interest hit just above 15% in the 1980's, though there was MIRAS tax relief on that. Dave

I had a 30+ year old Baxi wall mounted boiler changed by British Gas last summer when they had an offer of a free boiler for certain customers with old inefficient boilers - you just paid the installation costs which were a bit OTT, but as the boiler was free ... Had a Gloworm 30 kW model fitted replacing a 11 kW model. Our new boiler is a condensing boiler so we could retain the hot water cylinder and airing cupboard. There were problems with the electrics but under the maintenance contract they replaced the lot, clock, thermostats etc. However during the winter on several mornings we woke to no heat and the boiler showing an "F83" error code which is something to do with the boiler temperature - restating the boiler fixed the matter. British Gas sent an engineer who reckoned it was air in the radiators and bled them. The fault reappeared after a few days and another engineer identified the problem. It seems that when the boiler was installed a bypass should have been fitted in the airing cupboard - this is a short piece of pipe between the flow and return which allows for the pump to keep running for a limited time after the boiler stopped heating - it seems "pump overrun" is a requirement of modern boilers. Our problem was fixed! So if you are having a new boiler fitted it is worth checking to see if the new one needs a bypass and if so to ensure one is installed. Dave

Luke, Thanks for the info. However I am more interested in the version of the loco with sound already fitted by Hattons but don't recall seeing any comments about that version. There is no way given my legendary c@ckhandedness that I would go near an expensive sound chip with a soldering iron! Dave

I may well have missed it in this thread but has anybody bought the sound version please? If so: What sound chip is used, and Does it produce a reasonable sound? I am debating acquiring one but it's a hell of a lot of wine tokens and I would hate to get things wrong! Many thanks, Dave

Do you mean Colonel Crock written by Annette Mills? :) Dave

Like you Mike I,ve done a few Ganntt charts over the years! For those unfamiliar with with them have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart Dave

As part of Senior Manager training in British Gas in the early 90s I visited a platform in the rough Field out in the North Sea. Here's a couple of shots of a PIG I took at that time Note the spelling, Dave

Reminds me of the old joke. The boss of the Council Sewers dept had a word with one of the workers about his time sheet. In the space for his job he always wrote "Sh1t Shoveller". The boss told him this upset the ladies in the Wages Dept. The man asked what he should write and was told "Excreta Excavator" . his reply? "If I could spell that it I wouldn't be down the sewers shovelling sh1t"! :) Dave

Yes, I remember my mother taking us to the clinic in Llanrumney to be vaccinated - they insisted on vaccinating her as well as she had not been vaccinated as a child. I and my sister were off school for a couple of days with a reaction to it. IIRC the gentleman in question worked in a curry house in Bridge Street. Dave Dave

Going back to toasters for me nothing beats the toast and crumpets but especially teacake toasted on a proper toasting fork in front of the coal fire at my Grandmother's. Strewth listen to me going on about things sixty years ago! Dave p.s. In the Capital City of the Principality we have Black wheelie bin for general waste collected fortnightly, Green wheelie bin for garden rubbish collected monthly in winter fortnightly in summer, Green recycling sacks collected weekly, and Brown waste food caddy emptied weekly.

Well I've had an interesting evening - nothing to do with Doris. Listening to music about 7:20 when somebody starts hammering the front door. I am greeted by a lady with teenage daughter - she tells me her car, a 53 plate Range Rover is on fire and what street is she in so that she can tell the fire brigade? It seems she was driving the recently Mot'd car when some smoke starts to come from the dashboard so she pulls in. While she is speaking to the Fire people I stick my head out of my door to see flames starting to appear from the dashboard. Well it suddenly goes up with a hell of a whoosh and the car is well alight with black smoke everywhere. At this point the brigade arrive and do their thing putting the fire out in a matter of minutes. The worst bit was as the fire took hold the horn sounded continuously until the lads disconnected the battery. The lady was a bit worried as the daughter's riding tack was in the car! The main thing is nobody was hurt. Dave

I did fancy this book but give the cost versus number of pages I decided against it. On occasions like this I miss Ian Allan in Cardiff - i could have had a quick look at it and decide whether it was worth my while to spend the money Dave

If you mean the "screwdriver" type AF, whilst they don't work with D3xxx and D5xxx cameras they will work with D600, D610, D750, D800, D810 and Dx series. I have a couple of these lens working happily on a D600. Regards, Dave

I wonder, had the vehicle been stolen? Dave