Simon G

The rain appears to have stopped here for now, so we managed a dry walk this morning. Before that, I had tried to sort out the bathroom door, which keeps swinging open since I put new hinges on a few weeks ago. I had put some packing pieces behind the bottom hinge, but that didn’t work, so I have moved them to the top hinge. While not perfect, it is a lot better now, so I will leave it be for the time being.

Our house used to be like that. Two things I have had done made a huge difference, the first was fitting A rated double glazing and the second was having a new roof put on 3 years ago. The old roof was so bad that it seemed like there was a gale inside the loft! Despite that we did put the heating on for a hour this evening, but the room has stayed warm for the 3 hours since it was on. Still very wet and windy outside!

Surely it is no different to any other day?

Morning all, The bright sunny and relatively warm weather has come to an abrupt halt this morning as duly forecast. We made an early visit into Whitehaven today for Mrs G's second vaccine jab, and did a bit of shopping while it was just still dry. Then came home and went out for a walk after a cup of coffee. Mistake! It wasnt really raining when we left home, but in the 30 minutes we were out, it came on and we got home rather wet, despite wearing waterproofs. The vaccine trip was good, as we were due to have driven the hour long trip to Ulverston for her second jab next week, but she called the local surgery covid jab number yesterday and got the appointment for this morning. That has saved half a day so we are pleased with that. She then managed to go online and cancel the Ulverston appointment as well.

According to the engineer who tried to fit our smart meter, they used to use mobile phone signals, but don’t any more. Had it been a mobile signal, he might still have had problems, as some mobile providers don’t work reliably here. From what the guy told me, the gas smart meter relies on the electric one having been fitted first, as it appears to piggyback onto the electric one.

Evening all, Today has been a rather frustrating day. We had an Eon engineer coming between 8 and 12 this morning to fit smart meters. He arrived at 11.45, having had a lot of problems in his previous fitting. He started by saying that he wasn’t confident that a smart meter would work here as we were unlikely to get the long wave signal required for the system to work properly. For some strange reason (cost probably), they don’t give the engineers a signal tester, but let the, fit the meters only to find that they don’t work, so they have to refit the old one! The poor engineer did his best and tried two separate meters, but to no avail. Old meter duly refitted. Then this afternoon, I went into Specsavers to collect my new pairs of glasses. The first girl basically just handed me them without really checking that they fitted OK. I left the shop, and walked for 5:minutes, then decided that neither pair seemed right, so went back and had another girl adjust them. After another half an hour and a brief bit of driving, I returned again and had them adjusted by a third person, having explained that they were sitting so high on my nose that when looking straight ahead, things were out of focus due to the varifocal effect on the lower half of the glasses. They don’t seem to bad now, but I am really considering never returning to Specsavers again. Their service has been simply awful. I was due to have collected them 4 weeks ago, but apparently they were substandard when first delivered.

Morning all, I haven’t posted for a while as we have been away visiting our new granddaughter in a childcare bubble, and I don’t like to advertise our absence from home on any social media. It has been an absolute delight to see our granddaughter and to see just how much she developed in our stay and it was a hard task to drag ourselves away and return home yesterday morning. At least we had the consolation of meeting up with no 2 son for the first time in nearly 18 months for a very pleasant pub meal in the sun (mostly!) as a way of breaking our journey home from Cambridgeshire. I now just want to get back down there again to see her again and Mrs G thinks the same. In our absence the weeds have made a major bid to take over the garden, so weeding has commenced in the sun this morning. Half the strawberry bed has been weeded, and now it is coffee time, followed by lawn mowing. Looking out of the living room window tells me that the task of hedge trimming is nearly due, as there was significant growth while we were away.

Another fan of Portmeirion here, having been a few times and also stayed in the hotel once (but just an overnight stop while on business at the nearby Trawsfynydd power station). A trip was made into the big city of Whitehaven today to collect new pairs of glasses. After sitting in the waiting area for a few minutes, I was told that on inspection, neither pair of glasses was up to standard, so I came away with nothing. Have said this before, but I shouldn’t have gone to Specsavers! Now waiting for a telephone appointment with GP as I have an ear infection. They fobbed me off with a telephone appointment for the same problem 2 weeks ago, so I will be rather more assertive when they get around to calling me today!

Morning all, I am finally allowed to say that Mrs G and I are now proud grandparents! Eloise was born last Monday morning, but her parents asked that nothing was put on social media until they had posted, which they have now done. Mother and daughter both seem to be doing well, and no 1 son now seems to have a permanent smile on his face! So far we have only seen her in photos and on FaceTime. Hopefully, we can get to travel south sometime soon to stay with them and meet Eloise properly. I can’t resist posting a photo:

Morning all, Very bright and sunny here but also very cold this morning. When I first ventured outside, it was barely above freezing, and I don’t expect it to warm up much today. I can still enjoy some sunshine though. Before that, decorating is being done. The painting of the spare bedroom seems to have gone on forever, and we are still not half done yet. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, half will be complete, and I can move all the furniture back and do the other half. Our first grandchild is still showing no signs of wanting to enter into this world. Now 10 days overdue and counting!

Evening all, Just returned from a late evening food shopping trip. Mrs G came out of Moreasons with a load of reduced cakes, including some cream cakes, and as she doesn’t like cream, it was my duty to consume them! The fridge and freezer are both now completely full, as she found some reduced buns as well, which have gone into the freezer, and will be consumed over the next couple of weeks. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have put the bread machine today, then we wouldn’t have had to freeze all the buns! It has been very cold here along with a stiff northerly wind, making feel even colder. Rather than outside tasks, I have concentrated on the bedroom decoration today. I finished off a large can of white emulsion paint and started a new one, supposedly identical to the first one. On first evidence, it seems thinner and doesn’t cover as well, but maybe it will look better when fully dry. Grandchild still showing no signs of wanting to arrive yet. Now a week late, so may need to be induced in the next few days if nothing happens.

I have used the matchstick in a screw hole quite a few times if a screw doesn’t ‘bite’, but never thought about adding the wood glue. I will remember that for future use. Looks like a fine day so far, but is forecast to be cold and very windy. I don’t think I will be going far, and may have to resort to decorating today. The spare bedroom ceiling needs to be done now that all the prep work has been done.

Bathroom door hanging successfully completed early afternoon, with no further problems or mishaps, which was a relief. I am pleased to report that it closes perfectly. As I had previously swapped a hinge from another door, I then had to swap it back, which only took a few minutes. I had hoped also to make hot cross buns today, but the door rehanging took longer than expected, so they weren’t made. I will try to find time for them tomorrow. I haven’t tried making them before, so it could be interesting.

Morning all, and Happy Easter. The sun of the last few days has gone leaving a cool breezy day. The wait for 1st grandchild to appear goes gone, now 5 days late and counting. Mum to be is OK, but getting rather fed up with the waiting apparently! This mornings task is to rehang the bathroom door, which was necessary as the hinges were wearing and slowly lowering the door so it caught on the tiled floor. As always with these tasks, it has taken many times longer than anticipated! First I had great trouble extracting 2 of the screws out of the door, and they both broke in the end. About 4 of the 8 screws into the door jamb were no longer ‘biting’ into the wood, so I have been using a lot of fill to fill the holes in preparation for redrilling. As the new hinges are wider than the old, I have also had to chisel out a 5mm section to accommodate this extra width. This is also means that the new screw holes are not in exactly the same positions as the old ones, so more filler applied. I am now having a cup of coffee while waiting for the filler to harden off. Hopefully, the drilling of new holes and refitting will be straightforward! Given the problems already encountered, I fear that it won’t!

Morning all, It is beautiful sunny day here today, so some outside tasks will be done. This week has been a week of missed collections by the council. Our refuse wasn’t collected on Monday, so I phoned them on Tuesday to be told they would come that day. When I called again on Wednesday, they told me that they had been on Tuesday, which of course was wrong. Once I convinced them that they were wrong, they said that it would be collected before Friday. On Thursday, our recycling collection was also missed. By this time all the neighbours are ranting about the council on our lane WhatsApp group. Some one phones the council again to be told that the refuse will be collected today and the recycling tomorrow. So today they have collected the recycling a day before we expected, and the refuse collection is still awaited. Next time I am in the big city of Whitehaven, I will be going into the council office and asking when they plan to refund part of our council tax! I don’t suppose it might make the slightest difference, but it might make me feel better! Mrs G and I are awaiting exciting news from no 1 son, whose first born is now three days late. Everytime the phone rings or the mobile pings, I hope that it is good news, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The sun has finally arrived here, only about 7 hours later than the BBC forecast for the day! Until then it was still cold - the car showed 9 degrees at midday. It is now nicer. The carrot and leek bed has been dug in preparation for planting, and I noticed that my recently planted garlic cloves are sprouting. I always have trouble with carrot fly, so this year the carrots will be surrounded by, and interspersed with, the garlic and leeks, as the dreaded fly apparently doesn’t like the smell. I also had a cunning plan this afternoon, which was to grow a small area of sacrificial carrots for the fly to attack, while hopefully leaving the main batch untouched. We will see how this works later in the year!

I had hoped that today might actually be slightly warmer than usual and with a bit of sun - not so as yet! The wind has dropped to just a mild cool breeze, and it is about 10 degrees here. The sun is forecast to make an appearance, at which point I will hopefully head up the garden to do a little digging. Before doing any digging, I dont want to miss the postie, as he should be bringing me a Google Chromecast, which I recently purchased online. My so-called Smart Sony TV does not appear to be very smart at all. One by one all the apps that came on it have ceased to function, and the TV is unable to update them. The final straw came when BBC iPlayer didnt work, with a google search showing that it now doesnt work on a whole raft of Sony TVs from around 2014-15. I used to get Channels 4 and 5 on the TV, but dont now. The only useful apps on the TV now are Youtube and Netflix and the way things are going, those wont work soon! Hence the Chromecast, so that I can also use the iPad and mirror the screen onto the TV.

Your beer can appears to have been printed the wrong way round!!

A walk has now been walked, and sadly it was not particularly pleasant due to the 40+ mph winds. I don’t think that the wind has dropped below about 30 mph for the past 4 days, so it is becoming very tiresome. Part of the walk was along a newly opened stretch of footpath which is now part of the England Coast Path. It now crosses what was a very wet and boggy section of ground and is a good gravel path. The only problem is that where the path ends is quickly turning into a mud bath, due to number of people using it. We had a sign of things to come in Cumbria over the weekend. Apparently some lockdown-breaking wild campers spent the weekend near Thirlmere, and left their “camp” for others to clear up. This included not just the usual rubbish, but a number of tents and broken camping gear as well. It really annoys me that people come to the Lakes because it is such a beautiful part of the country, then seem to do their best to turn it into a sh*thole for everyone else.

Also blowing a hoolie here as well, not surprisingly given our proximity to Fraggle Rock, but no sun here, just low cloud and mist. Hopefully, Neil's sun will make its way across the water in duem course. With the wind, it still feels bl**dy cold outside, so havent ventured further than putting bins out and emptying ash from the woodburner. I think that the latter will be in action again tonight. Had a eye test yesterday in Whitehaven, which was rather shambolic, as the front of the Opticians shop was closed as an air conditioning unit had partially fallen from the ceiling. A "mechanic" was looking at it, but in my view, his actions of tugging at it were mostly likely to finish the job of its falling down. From what I could see, it was only held up by the copper pipes connected to it. I was thus unable to choose any new glasses following the eyetest. All in all I shouldnt have gone to Specsavers!

You are a much braver man than I could ever be!! It is a lovely sunny morning here so far, but still bitterly cold with a strong wind. The white horses are dashing around on the sea as a result. A walk has been walked, but next I have some outside tasks to complete while it is still fine, as the rain is scheduled for later (as is the watching of some Premiership rugby this afternoon).

Evening all, Two amazing sports games today, firstly England beating India in the second one day cricket international with superb innings from Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow. Then Scotland beating France in the last match of the rugby Six Nations, meaning that Wales win the title. The Scots really dug deep and showed a lot of character to win tonight. A very entertaining evenings viewing!

May I add my congratulations to Dom and Elise. We are now just about 3 weeks away from becoming grandparents for the first time. When we will get to see the grandchild is another matter though. Today Mrs G got her jab, although it involved a 90 mile round trip to get it. As she hadn’t been contacted by the GP surgery, we got her appointment at the nearest mass Vaccination centre, which was in Ulverston in the south of the county. It was just as well we allowed plenty of time to get there, as there was a road closure, with a diversion which sent us down a rutted pot-holed farm track which was ludicrous. If they had erected closure notices 2 miles earlier, we could have diverted via a road with actual tarmac!! Then we seemed to get held up by horse boxes, tractors etc. The vaccination centre was at the Sports Club for GlaxoSmithKline, which was a trip down memory lane for me as I worked at their Ulverston site for 4 years, just over 40 years ago. Most of the buildings I had worked in are now demolished, with onLy one recognisable building still on the site. We then went for a short walk alongside the Ulverston Canal, on a path which I had never used all those years ago. On our return journey, we saw a “convoy” of at least 12 motor bikers out for their “essential” Sunday afternoon outing. I know we are coming to the end of lockdown, but this was a complete joke! Despite all the hassle getting there and back, it was rather nice just to get away for half a day. Being nice and sunny certainly helped.

I just searched for Jonathan Scott on YouTube and found all sorts of things that I hadn’t expected! Currently listening to Mendelssohn’s Fingals Cave on the organ. A new twist to one of my favourite bits of classical music and a nice way of spending a still wet and windy afternoon!

Neil, sadly I don’t know anything at all about the organ recording of Pictures at an Exhibition, so I can’t help with the organist or organ used. I can’t even recall how I came to get the recording in the first place, except that I originally had it on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, so I probably got it whilst at University. I then digitised the majority of my music collection about 10 to 15 years ago, so at least I have it on MP3. Today is wet wild and windy again - just for a change! I can’t see us going far today