test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tonight's TV was more of the RAF thing, in which they bombed the crap out of Yemen

And then I finished Between Two Rivers, the final chapters covering the subject of war, and then back to Ennigaldi-Nanna the High Priestess of the Moon in Ur and museum curator, together with other examples of what we know of the day-to-day lives of women in Mesopotamia. It's a good book; it's strange to think we know the names and daily activities of ordinary people - schoolchildren learning to write, smugglers dodging duties by hiding tin in their underwear, even priestesses (not high) running sidelines as BTL landlords - who lived thousands of years ago

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Friday.

Grey.

Wanly sunny (using imagination: actually grey).

Dry.

Chilly in here at 14.2 deg, 12.5 in the kitchen, 13 in the leanto.

1002.5 mBar, 29.6 in Hg, 751.94 Torr, 14.54 psi, (down from 1008 last night), 60% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 3rd of January 2020, Brillo popped in, my funny rock was identified as a bit of ancient coral, being black with embedded white spots, NF had finished off the M&S pate after 3 days of trying, WTFH was in a quandry over proposed solutions, whereas LM was with HWMBO & his kids who were watching that dancing prog & making a racket whilst doing it.

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

The raking of the lawn then continued since it's dry which makes the moss easier to handle. A further lot of binbags met the garage.

Lunch: brunch: later than usual due to the above.

Entertainment: thing at 13:45 about Albert Einstein. Goodness me, this Jew Science turned out to be The Real Thing, unlike the Reich Science which never got anywhere due to potching about.

More raking of the lawn: this bit is much younger than the stuff higher up the garden, so much less moss and thatch to get out: barely a binbag full.

Next: moss killer & lawn fertiliser, though it will require rain before that's applied & rain afterwards to do the needful doings.

Then more raking once it's turned black.

Now sitting down with a cup of coffee in a vain attempt to recover from the exertion.

Tea: soup etc.

Entertainment: UFO Hunters warbling on about Area 52/Dugway Proving Grounds. The Truth is Out There but it certainly ain't in that programme.

Terminator: Dark Fate (bits).

What on Earth? on Blaze: Owens Lake California: dried out by Mulholland stealing all the water to send to LA. Plane crash on Greenland photographed by NASA: ?B17 crash on Greenland? er, no, it's a B29: the one they tried to fly off but it caught fire instead, the remains are still there. Satellite image of the Sahara showing black marks: turns out to be lakes fed by ground water: remains of Lake Mega-chad apparently. Texas body farm. Some weird thing in Tibet/China: unknown.

Mysteries from Above: Ocean Mysteries thank feck there's a different narrator on this one. Italian plane found off Malta. Spiral of bubbles off Australia: humpback whales feeding. Regular holes of unknown origin on the deep seabed: unknown cause. Something else so uninneresting I've forgotten.

[WTFH]

Morning all off to the airport shortly

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Grey day for a change, but still mild: already at 10°C and trying for 16°. Chance of a shower or two this morning though! The barometers are noticeably down at 998/1006mB

Apparently today is the day of completion of the sale of the house in Liverpool where my Mum used to live with extended family (her own mother having died when she was a child), and from where she was married. She inherits 5% of the sale price so that comes, via her estate and Dad's estate, to my siblings and I. But there are some cousins who were close to the great aunt and uncle who lived there but weren't included in the will, so we're going to share it with them. And once that's done, I believe it's the last bit of business re the estates of our parents, and my duties as executor will come to an end

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Dull and overcast. Currently 13 degrees with a high of 18 expected. Rain forecast this evening. Barometer down to 1009 mBar.

Sunrise 06:01; Sunset 18:16

Much excitement at the news of Heathrow being closed today due an electrical sub-station fire. Looking at Flightradar24 earlier there were two helicopters loitering over the area for BBC and Sky News. Funny how the news on the radio is focussed on the airport being shut and very little about the 100k homes also without power or any detail about the fire itself.

[NickFitz]

Sainsbury's (Not-as-Big) has been gone to, and the relatively few items of shopping I needed (and they stock) obtained

Coming back, I found that not only had "my" parking space been taken by a Range Rover, but the only other acceptable space had been occupied by a Ford Ranger Wildtrack! And the other more distant spaces round the lawn were also full. So I had to park in the small car park round the back of our block

On the bright side, one of the magpies showed up and hopped right past me as I was leaving the car with the shopping, about a foot away, so I was able to get a really good look at it. Amazing iridescent colours on the back and tail feathers

Anyway, I now need to spend the next however-long getting up every couple of minutes to go to the window and see if one of the offending vehicles has left yet. I don't remember the Range Rover, but the Ranger has been here before and was only visiting

[NickFitz]

Much excitement at the news of Heathrow being closed today due an electrical sub-station fire. Looking at Flightradar24 earlier there were two helicopters loitering over the area for BBC and Sky News. Funny how the news on the radio is focussed on the airport being shut and very little about the 100k homes also without power or any detail about the fire itself.

Yes, it's weird how the news is always "OMG people are stuck in an airport!" while ignoring the wider issue that led to them being stuck. Maybe journalists do a lot of flying, and get stuck a lot too when they're covering wars and revolutions and so on, so they automatically think of that first?

[ladymuck]

Anyway, I now need to spend the next however-long getting up every couple of minutes to go to the window and see if one of the offending vehicles has left yet. I don't remember the Range Rover, but the Ranger has been here before and was only visiting

You need to set up a camera and have it ping you when it detects movement in that parking space.

[NickFitz]

Lunch: a bacon bap (white); no sauce, but lots of butter

And while I was eating that, the interlopers departed! So I popped down and brought the Corolla back to its rightful spot

[NickFitz]

You need to set up a camera and have it ping you when it detects movement in that parking space.

It would be handy, but I'm not sure the neighbours would be too keen on having all their comings and goings observed! And it's just the side of the drive round the big lawn, not a car park as such, so there'd potentially be a lot of false positives from people walking past, sunning themselves on the lawn, and that kind of thing - not to mention the occasional fox wandering around

In related news, Google recently updated their satellite imagery. So now the Corolla can be seen on there at its current location, having appeared on StreetView about a year ago

But this does mean that both the Corolla and the Super Monkey Car no longer appear where I used to park them out the back of the old place, the Orion having been visible there for as long as there's been Google Maps