test please delete

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Very grey start out, 16°C and no worse than 21° expected, but the barometers are up again at 1010/1018mB. There had been rain predicted for the morning but that appears to have been cancelled. Wouldn't be surprised if it shows up anyway though, as it's very gloomy

[WTFH]

Morning all
Overcast looking north, but blue skies looking south.

Last night The Wife^TM decided we needed to make apple juice urgently, since we've already dumped several hundred apples and I need to get picking. Her first suggestion was that we could use the KitchenAid shredder attachment and then the juicer attachment to make the juice. I pointed out the flaw with the volume of apples to be processed, and that we'd have to swap attachments every few minutes.
I didn't really want to use the hand scratter as it is slow and hard work.
So, after a look at out old garden shredder, I went to B&Q and bought a near-identical one that was new:

Next, I removed the white safety section at the top (3-pointed star head screws), so that we could get apples in without having to chop them fine, or having to push them through.
The other mod was to use a saw to remove about 5cm off the bottom of the chute to mean the shredded apples came out easier and didn't block up all the time.

Once that was done we checked and cut about 2 bucket loads of windfalls, then shredded them, which took a fraction of the normal time.
I got my press out and it was far easier to squeeze than normal and we got 5l of apple juice.

Got about the same volume of windfalls to go, and then I suspect I'll be picking this weekend before starting making cider.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning all

Cloudy yet sunny. Currently 21 degrees with a high of 27 forecast. Low chance of rain. Barometer up to 1016 mBar.

Packing for holiday, getting the 1227 Lizzy Line to T4. Singapore is currently 29 degrees and a 30% chance of rain.

^^^Om.

Morning.

Dry.

Sunnyish.

Cool in here at 21.7 deg.

1014 mBar, 29.9434 in Hg, 760.56 Torr, 14.71 psi, (up from 1013 last night), 72% RH.

Thursday apparently.

Meanwhile back at the ranch on 7th December 2018 the living room lights were flickering in Strangelove towers, NF had rack of ribs with Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, veteran recommended Suntory whisky, while WTFH was wondering about Xmas. In addition a replacement builder had been acquired to finish the parents' house major mods. (Minor mods such as curtains etc. are still outstanding a mere 4 years later).

Sitting outside cafe with loony lady 1 today and bloke at next table decided to start telling us about the Covid conspiracy. Apparently it's all part of Bill Gate's drive to reduce the world population.

What with Monkeypox and the recently reported Tomato Flu, maybe that Zeity chap has finally got his act together in terms of Global Domination & all that.

Shopping trip to Tesco done, dusted, washed, dried, sanitised & put away.

In a rush of blood to the brain, the washing is on since it's a good drying day.

Won't know what to do with myself tomorrow. .

Lunch: baked potato with cheese and Morrisons baked beans, bramble jelly & marmalade slices of toast, red unpippy corner yog, 0.91 pints of good Glengettie tea.

Entertainment: Y&Y, followed by the thing that's replaced Sliced Bread, today something about perfumes, TWAO.

Shirts in the WM.

Shirts out of the WM & hanging on the line.

Cottons in the WM.

Shirts in off the line & roughly iRoned: airing upstairs.

Cottons out of the WM and hanging on the line.

Smalls & t shirt in the WM.

Smalls & t shirt out of the WM and hanging on line #2 (just installed, very badly).

Tea towels roughly iRoned & airing over the banisters.

Knackered now.

Strewth it's a bit warm today, Bruce.

Towels and pillow cases in off the line, with the latter roughly iRoned & airing over the banisters.

Tea: chilli con carne with rice, stewed gooseberries and custard, 0.91 pints of good Glengettie tea.

Entertainment: PM.

Wheeler Dealers S11 E14: Lincoln Continental 1963 with suicide doors, central locking, electric seats & windows, and aircon. How the feck those doors work without the pillar is beyond me.

Bed made.

Alias S5 E11 "Maternal Instinct": yet another "hello Mum" one. .

Alias S5 e12 "There's only one Sydney Bristow": yeah, right.

Some UFO bollox on Blaze.

[Pondlife]

Morning all,

METAR EGFF 250850Z AUTO 33006KT 9999 BKN017 17/15 Q1019=

Broken clouds at 1700ft but below that is incredibly clear. So clear in fact that I can see across the channel and make out what must be the 'sails' at Butlins in Minehead.

[ladymuck]

Afternoon all (it's 1720 here)

It's cloudy and raining. 28 degrees with a high of 29 expected.

Very easy journey, transfer through Doha was a breeze and immigration at Singapore was equally simple.

[ladymuck]

An excellent way to start your hols!

How does Qatar Airlines compare to BA and others?

They used to have an aircraft daily out of Cardiff so interest to hear what they're like.

We were in business class so YMMV! Good service from everyone we met - courteous and professional. The seats were good but I feel lacked a bit of storage space. What did get me worried was their size limits for hand baggage being smaller than everything I have but I was told that it's not really enforced for business passengers. Took a gamble and used a carry on case that is the max BA will accept (huge compared to what Qatar say they accept) and it was absolutely fine.

[xoggoth]

Me Garmin Oregon packed up recently so was using OS maps on my mobile, you get a free download included with a paper map. Only problem was you had to subscribe to premium to be able to download a walked track. Found easy way round that, set developer mode on phone, copy the json file to PC and use bit of Excel VBA to convert to GPX. Only took me about an hour. Brain still works a little bit.

2 loony lady days so far this week. Now 2 days to meself doing boring things in the house revamp. Snore. Wet outside, me little puppet parrot is sat at window looking bored.

[NickFitz]

Lunch earlier was ham toasties, using up the last of that apple-flavoured ham. Nice enough, but I don't think I'll get it again; it doesn't really suit any of the very small number of things I do with ham

Before that, I phoned the doctor's first thing about the ear problem, but the best they could manage was an appointment at 9:30 with a nurse practitioner at the healthcare hub at the nearby health centre. Fair enough. I headed up there, and she asked various questions and poked and prodded my head a bit. No prescription; just orders to do things to clear my sinuses, and my earwax, and so on, and to go to A&E if I got feverish. So I'll do those things and we shall see. It does feel marginally better today though, so maybe it's going to finally clear up on its own

But going there gave me a chance to pop into the associated pharmacy for the monthly prescription, and I still made it home in time for the morning stand-up

This afternoon, we had a Teams meeting to be introduced to a thing our team is taking over responsibility for the maintenance of; there are a few things like this, small services that aren't big enough for a team of their own and which don't really fit in anywhere, so they end up with us in case anything ever needs doing or, I suppose, we feel like a break from the main thing we work on. In this case, it's actually the thing I built during my first stint at the department last year, turning up like a bad penny

And in the meantime, I also managed to wash some stuff that's destined for the Oxfam clothes recycling thingy, which I need to retrieve from the washing machine and hang up to dry

And after a week off to become decently full, the recycling bin has been trundled forth

[NickFitz]

Tea has been fish & chips from the chip shop I forgot existed for many years. Very nice, both items being freshly cooked while I waited

[NickFitz]

The car earlier was a Lincoln Continental brought over from the USA. Hasn't been taxed since November 2015, which was two years after it was registered in the UK by the programme makers

And then some eight-year-old Police Interceptors (the programme, not the police officers)

Early night now in the vague hope it might do the ear some good or, failing that, allow me to get up early enough to do the shopping first thing

Goodnight all