test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tea has been a lamb shank in red wine gravy with chips and peas

And I forgot to put the mundane laundry on this morning, so that's on now

[NickFitz]

The only telly tonight was yet another police thing on C5, this time following detectives as they nicked a burglar in Norfolk

And I've finished Part Three of Caledonian Road

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Friday.

Grey.

Dark.

Sunless.

Drizzly.

Chilly in here at 15.4 deg, 15.5 in the kitchen, 14 in the leanto.

1014.5 mBar, 29.958 in Hg, 760.94 Torr, 14.71 psi, (up from 1013 last night), 61% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 7th of January 2020 there was much discussion of monitors, curvy monitors, dual monitors, etc. with advice sought on how to get shot of a 26" colour tv and a 21" CTX crt monitor, whereas eek popped in, along with BR14 (who got an Om), plus LondonManc, plus SimonMac giving a review of Jojo Rabbit whatever that is.

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

On the way back I bumped into Howard The Engine Driver (Retired) & asked how his Mrs was (she being in a home the last time I saw him), turned out she was buried last Monday (oesophageal cancer). Ooops.

Lunch: brunch.

Entertainment: R4 thing about how the world is going to hell.

Freecell score: 100%, running average:82%.

Feck. The battery charger for the electric drill just burned out. Nothing lasts. Now I'll have to find another powersupply to press into use. Fecking annoying. The thermal fuse in the transformer has probably opened. Oh, now it's cooled down it works again. Well there's a thing. .

Another afternoon of labouring down in the garage: the cabinet is reassembled & shimmed so it's level on the floor. The CCTV and PIR lamps from next door's car port duly extracted, though two of the lamps are still there coz I can't get the mounting screws out, so that'll wait for next week. Not that the fittings are worth anything, it's just the principle of the thing.

Duw duw, there's odd then: found what used to be a letter box from a substantial door down in the shed, feck nose whence it came, but it has a name plate "Alfridscombe", searching for which reveals that it was in "Union Square, Neath": I have no idea where that is or was, though the "Union" bit implies that it might be near the Workhouse.

Tea: Brains' faggots & peas etc. Nice enough.

Entertainment: PM. Waffling on about tulipe as per normal, though some of the tulipe isn't normal it must be said.

Abandoned Engineering: Basketball arena in Vilnius Lithuania that held the 1988 match CCCP vs the septics. The septics won. In extra time. Clipstone Colliery, Notts: segment about The Manic Miner and The Great She Elephant, two people I cordially detest. The Sterick sky scraper in Memphis Tennessee that was on a 99 year lease of the ground which led to it being abandoned until some jiggery pokery in 2023 resolved the issue. Some collection of decaying ancient wooden buildings in Malaysia assembled by some princeling or other, who came to London & dropped dead in the Noughties.

What on Earth? on Blaze: identifying Jack the Ripper from satellite, yes, really. Kominsky. Strange object in the Az desert: part of the blimp look down radar chain. Shaka Zulu as cause of abandonment of south African townships in the 1880s. 337 Whales killed by toxic algal blooms. Object on antarctic ice field: no it's not a fecking crashed UFO, might be ice.

Mysteries from Above on Blaze: giants: the Badlands Guardian: natural feature. Entire programme is unutterable bollox that makes the Ancient Aliens nutjobs look almost sensible. FFS. Giant snake skeleton in France: it's a fecking art work. Giant footprint in south Africe: fecknose, but it wasn't made by a giant since the rock is granite, formed kilometres down.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

It's doing the high gauzy cloud thing again, so the sunshine is there but not dazzling. Mild enough at 10°C, and soaring to 18° later. The barometers are much the same at 1010/1018mB

Off to do the shopping in a bit and later, it's a trip to the bike shop to get the handlebars adjusted

[WTFH]

Morning all
TFIF, etc.

Light rain overnight, and on our walk earlier, but it is clearing now.

[sadkingbilly]

Morning happy campers
Thought i'd pop in and say hello.
Got two calls yesterday from evil tempters trying to prise me out of retirement again.
There's only so much I can do around home now due to my skeleto-muscular issues (entropic degeneration*), that I might be tempted, if only to pass the wonga on to my young gardener/handyman, thus keeping capitalism alive and well in my little patch of merrie England
*old age.
** i could still adjust handlebars on a sodding pushbike though. NF - you're letting the side down, shame, shame.

[DoctorStrangelove]

** i could still adjust handlebars on a sodding pushbike though. NF - you're letting the side down, shame, shame.

Particularly since Lidl(tm) have a bicycle repair kit on current offer, along with all the cleansers and lubricants a bicycle rider might desire.

Paging Bicycle Repair Man!


Must not go to Lidl on Sunday. Must not go to Lidl on Sunday. Must not go to Lidl on Sunday.

[sadkingbilly]

Particularly since Lidl(tm) have a bicycle repair kit on current offer, along with all the cleansers and lubricants a bicycle rider might desire.

Paging Bicycle Repair Man!


Must not go to Lidl on Sunday. Must not go to Lidl on Sunday. Must not go to Lidl on Sunday.

[NickFitz]

Shopping done!

I went to Big Sainsbury's, where I haven't been in a few weeks. In my absence, the hot food counter has been removed with a couple of stands for the hot food, already bagged and put out for self service. It's not as if the people on the counter were great conversationalists, but it seems a shame nonetheless

I suspect they've reduced the number of them putting things in the ovens out the back too, as only one of the stands was stocked by the time I was leaving around half eleven, and that just with the easy stuff like pasties. Back in the day (i.e. four weeks ago) the counter would have been full of things like sweet chilli chicken thighs by that time. I'm not so keen on their own brand pastry-and-meat things, so lunch will be a Pukka steak slice instead

[NickFitz]

** i could still adjust handlebars on a sodding pushbike though. NF - you're letting the side down, shame, shame.

I've looked at the service manual for this model and these handlebars are on a fancy modern headstock with the gear changers incorporated into the brakes and so on. By all accounts (i.e. a few YouTube videos), getting everything adjusted perfectly can be a bit of a sod if you don't know what you're doing, given the internal routing of the cables. It's not just loosening a clip, sliding the headstock up a couple of inches, and tightening the clip up again - if it was, I'd have done it myself

Anyway, I've paid the bike shop a load of dosh for this bike, and part of the deal is that they'll adjust it at no extra charge and make sure it's all spot on and good to go according to my personal requirements. No point buying a dog and barking yourself