Simon G

Winter has now officially arrived! During this mornings 2 hour 6 mile walk, we got a view of the Lakeland fells and there is a dusting of snow from about 2000 feet upwards. According to some forecasts we may even get some more snow at sea level overnight! The morning was rather drizzly, but we decided to go out anyway. I wouldn’t say the walk was especially pleasant given the drizzle, but at least we have had the days exercise. Now having a quick cup of tea before a Zoom meeting with my brothers over some family issues. Fortunately we aren’t the sort of family that falls out at all, so it should all be sweetness and light.

Evening all, Today’s walk was shortened to about 1 hour as I had some documents to review before a Zoom meeting tomorrow. It was pretty breezy and cold outside! Documents duly reviewed so I was able to work on my layout remediation. About 2 feet of track was soaked in warm water and lifted. I was able to easily reposition it and test with one of the locos that didn’t like the original track and it was fine. It will be refixed with PVA tomorrow. It now seems that we will be home alone at Christmas this year. We have decided against travelling south to visit my mother and it isn’t practicable for our sons to visit us. At least we will be able to watch what we want on the TV!

The control panel and a separate panels of switches is now all complete, and everything works as it should, which is nice. By using diodes, I can set the three way point correctly when setting the points for any of the 4 yard roads on the right on the layout. Likewise the track feed to the double slip is controlled by the points on the outer track leading into the yard, ie the double slip is powered by the inner controller most of the time, except when the road is set for a train to enter or leave the yard to/from the outer loop. I am pleased with how it works. I am less pleased with some of my track work. Most of my locos can go round both loops OK, but some have problems. In particular, I have 2 Bachmann class 37s, and both struggle to get round the curves. My Bachmann 44 and 57 have no such problems! On careful checking, the curve radius isn’t consistent all way round on one quadrant which is where the main problem is. I think I will have to try and lift the track and make the curve radius consistent. As the track is held in place with PVA, a little warm water will allow me to lift as much or as little as I need, as Peter suggests. Peter, I was lucky to retire at 60 and 6 months, so have just reached state pension age, not the big 70!

Happy birthday to GDB. We got out for the morning walk as planned. The 5 and a half mile walk should have taken about 2 hours, but was over 2 hrs 30 after meeting some friends while out. Net result was that we had a very rushed lunch before my monthly Cancer Group Zoom meeting. The meeting was rather dominated by a poor woman who couldn’t get her microphone to work, so we couldn’t hear her, but she could hear everyone else. She obviously has issues with technology as last month, she couldn’t get onto the meeting at all, so at least it is going in the right direction! Now sat relaxing with a cup (or two) of tea.

I must confess to never having heard about the stale sandwiches. As there have only been 4 pubs in St Bees for at least the last 40 years, I am wondering which one it was, and think I have a good idea! My youngest son worked as a barman there for a short while. On his first evening, a man came in and asked for a pint. My son was about to get a glass down when the man said that he couldn’t use that particular glass, as it was Frank’s. No problem, he used a different glass. Ten minutes later another man came in and was greeted by everyone as Frank. When he asked for a pint, my son duly served him, using his own glass. Frank was very impressed that he knew which was his glass without asking! It is very much a locals pub! Calm and dry today, so we should manage a few miles this morning.

Our walk was duly walked, and it was pretty breezy too. The sun did make an appearance while we were out, and shortly after returning home, it was chucking it down again, so we were pleased we had timed it right. Some measurements have been done on potential track misalignments, and a section will have to be lifted and relaid, as I got the curves wrong. Not a major problem as it is stuck down with PVA, so can be easily lifted. Part of the afternoon has been spent trying to log on to a financial website, where they text me a code to authenticate the logon. The trouble was that by the time the text arrived, the logon screen had timed out - repeatedly! This has prompted me to review my mobile provider, and I have now started to switch to one that gives a better signal in the house, unlimited phone minutes, more data and for over £1 a month less than the current one. Oh and I now get 4G data rather than 3G, not that I tend to use much mobile data anyway. Should prove to be a useful afternoon’s work.

Morning all, The early morning rain has given way to a breezy cloudy day. We will probably venture out soon for today's constitutional. It will be shorter than yesterdays 6 miles I expect. This afternoon I plan to do some checks on the alignment of the track on my layout, as there are a couple of areas which some locos dont seem to like. I am also adding some extra lead weight to some small Hornby locos to improve their traction.

Thanks, so will I! It has just occurred to me that I haven’t had any alcoholic drink for about 2 weeks, so I will definitely have one tonight. Just back in from our walk that was postponed from this morning due to rain. The last 30 minutes of the walk was rather wet again though. Next on the agenda is tea and birthday cake, as Mrs G baked the cake this morning as we couldn’t go out.

Sadly no view of the fells from our house, as we look out to sea, with a small hill behind us. This morning's planned walk has been postponed as we currently have rain, which wasnt forecast by the BBC. Annoyingly it looks quite nice about 2 miles out at sea! I have recently listened to some Curved Air, after it came up as some random music on my Echo Dot recently. I dont think I had listened to them since my school days. They produced the first coloured vinyl LP that I ever saw, as all the others were still black on those days. Thanks for all my birthday greetings!

After yesterday’s walk, we settled for a shorter 6 mile walk today! I was ready for lunch after that. A bit of garden work was done in the afternoon before I just got too cold. I had a call from my mother this evening wishing me a happy birthday. Sadly, with her suffering from dementia she had got the wrong day! Only one day out though, so she was a day early. Better than a day late she said when I told her!

My car also has a stop start, and when the battery packed up last year, the new one was about twice the price of a normal battery. Any savings I had managed from the use of the stop start facility were more than wiped out by the extra cost of the battery. I don’t see stop start as being worth having now.

I have duly paid for my gluttony last night when I ate the reduced chocolate eclairs, tea cake etc. Today turned out to be a nice calm sunny day, so we went out for a walk this morning, which by the time we had finished also included part of the afternoon. Three and a half hours in total, so probably at least 10 miles, taking the back roads up to St Bees lighthouse, and then back by a slightly different route. I am now rather weary! The later part of the afternoon has been spent closing an account with National Savings and Investments after their interest rate on the account was slashed from 1.15% to 0.01% in one go. Once the money is cleared into our bank account, we will find a new savings account. It certainly pays to keep a close eye on these things.

The wind and rain of this morning persisted for most of the day, but we managed to get out for a short walk, albeit pleased we were wearing full waterproofs. This evening we went into town for the weekly shop. We prefer an evening shop as the supermarkets are so much quieter, and also there is the chance of getting some bargains. We came home with too much bread to fit in the freezer, plus some teacakes, doughnuts and chocolate eclairs. Cue my occasional gluttony! Since returning home, I have eaten a toasted tea cake, 3 slices of bread and jam, followed by the 2 chocolate eclairs. I could have had more, but that really would have been greedy! I am now feeling happily replete. Goodnight all.

Morning all, It is persisting down here just now and very breezy with it. I may just be imagining it, but 2020 seems to have been about the windiest year I can remember. Todays walk will only take place when the rain has eased, and then any paths will be sodden and muddy, so it will be a road/lane walk, although some of our usual lane walks will be flooded too, from experience. I saw a great caption from the Ennerdale Brewery website recently. It said "Because if ever there was a reason to drink, it is 2020"!

Morning all, We have the same unpleasant breeze as NHN, not surprisingly, so it feels bl@@dy cold outside. A walk may be walked later, but the padded trousers will be found from the wardrobe first. We keep trying to make the walks longer, but I dont seem to be getting any fitter as a result, just more knackered. I suppose it is called getting older.

Morning all Lovely sunny day here but cold. I have spent an hour outside cutting and splitting some logs, and when I came in my hands were freezing, although the rest of me was warm from the work. Later I plan some gardening and then a walk, so as to make use of the rare nice day.

Greetings all, I haven’t been here for a few days as I have been under the weather. Nothing COVID related, just feeling grotty and an unpleasant ear infection, caused by a large buildup of wax. Both issues seem to be abating now, the latter with the use of Otex ear drops. I don’t think that things have been helped by my general state of mind with the new lockdown, only this time in winter, so I won’t be doing a lot of gardening this time round. The weather here for the last week has been pretty carp, with high winds and frequent heavy rain. I suppose that a second lockdown was inevitable, but it does seem that the lower infection rate areas are suffering because of the higher rate areas. IMHO, the main cause of the high rate of infection is simply a minority of people who are simply too stupid or too selfish, so that the innocent majority suffer as a result.

As NHN says, it is bracing in these parts today. For the third morning in a row, we were woken up by the rain hammering on the windows. We have actually managed a walk out this afternoon, so we wrapped up in full waterproofs, so of course it didn’t really rain on us while we were out. It has made up for it since though! This morning saw my three monthly visit to Sister Drac in advance of my next meeting with consultant. The woman I got is normally pretty brutal with a needle, but today was quite miraculous as I hardly felt a thing. I did have to wait over 20 minutes past my appointment time in the waiting room, which was filling up quite quickly at the time, but social distancing was being observed. In fact, for about 25 minutes, not one person was called from the waiting room, so I can only guess that all the staff were having a mid morning coffee break or similar.

Morning all, it has been very wet and windy overnight, and while the rain has given way to brightness, it is still very windy. Half an hour was spent outside this morning, and that was enough! There is great relief in our lane this morning, as a small puppy has been found after he went missing on Friday evening after apparently being frightened by fireworks. A lot of time and effort was spent yesterday with people looking for him, and the owners even got someone with a drone to search. The news has just come through on our WhatsApp group that he is home safely, but no mention yet of where he was found. I was into every sport I could possibly try at school, but mostly rugby and cricket. My size helped at rugby and I was quite good at it, but nowhere near as good as no 2 son who played for Cumbria at Under 16 level. Our best coach was actually the chemistry teacher, who was also Welsh and very much into “total rugby “, so we were coached in a most innovative way which helped us beat sides from many schools with a much larger pool of players to choose from. Despite not having large forwards, I recall that we were never pushed backwards in a scrum and were invariably fitter than most sides. Cricket coaching was nonexistent, so my abilities as an opening bowler were only developed after I left school. All I did at school was to try to hurl the ball down as fast as possible, with no thought as to variation, swing and seam etc.

Believe me, it is very tempting!

Morning all, Absolutely foul here so far today with incessant wind and rain, although the rain is showing some signs of abating. Like others on here, I shall be watching rugby for a good part of the afternoon/evening. The morning has been spent balancing the books from the MRC account in advance of a possible Zoom AGM next month. Books are now balanced, but a narrative is required to go with them to help explain what has been a turbulent year financially as well as in other ways!

Morning all, Yesterday's lawn mowing took rather longer than planned, as my venerable lawn mower decided to fall to bits half way through! A couple of bolts had worked loose, then came out, so the fuel tank/airfilter/carburettor assembly almost fell off. The bolts werent located despite a good search, so other bolts were found to secure the assembly back again, and the job was finished. As the metal deck is also rusted through is a couple of places, I think that a new mower is called for. The old one has done pretty well as I reckon it is over 30 years old. Calm cold and dull here so far today. Despite this, some outside tasks may be attempted.

If you Google the earwax method removal technique in the adverts (as I did!), you will steer well clear!

My bread maker is like that. After many years service, the drive belt failed, so I called the manufacturers (Morphy Richards), who could only offer to sell me a new machine, and when I didnt want that, they tried to sell me a bread cook book for my non-working machine! A spare belt was procured online, then I tried to fit it. Taking the machine apart was just about impossible, and as the belt drive system was underneath and protected by a plastic surround, I just took a small grinder to the plastic. Old belt duly removed and new one fitted. As the belt is underneath and hidden from view, I now just run it without the plastic surround in place. Early start this morning, so we had completed the Morrisons and Aldi Grand Prix by 8.30, so it was home for a late breakfast. Since then, the lawn egdes have been strimmed in advance of hopefully the last lawnmower cut of the year.

Mention of the 204 bus takes me back a bit. It’s route took at past the Brunel University campus, so I used it frequently in the mid 1970s. Another bus from Uxbridge towards central London was the 207, which was known locally as the banana bus, as you waited ages for one, then they came in bunches! Nice sunny day here today, so an afternoon walk has been completed. I was almost too warm in my coat. I contacted Electricity North West today about the complaint I raised on Sunday following our latest power cut. They had closed my complaint without either resolving the issues I raised, or telling me. I was not pleased! It has now supposedly been reopened and escalated to the next level. Others in the lane have raised complaints as well, so hopefully they actually do something to improve our supply long term.