test please delete

[DoctorStrangelove]

Meanwhile on the lawn a few minutes ago, there were NINE magpies ditzing around in and near the flowerbed!

Most I ever counted was 14 at the staff car park at Ye Olde Sloughe of Desponde on Ye Hill. They were flying about in a flock so the count may be inaccurate, just like my memory.. IIRC that carpark security chap popped his clogs 6 months after he retired.

Morning.

Tuesday.

Dry.

Sunny. .

Blue sky.

22.8 deg in here, 24.6 in the kitchen, 23 in the leanto, 23.4 in the saltinghouse (it was 30 last night).

1011 mBar, 29.85 in Hg, 758.3 Torr, 14.66 psi, (down from 1013 last night), 76% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 31st of March 2020 AndyGarbs, Brillo, LM, NF, WTFH, and wattaj popped in, with much discussion of editing PDFs and extracting data from password protected versions of same. NF thought it rather chilly at 9 deg. .

More raspberries and a few gooseberries picked. Lots (as in a few) dark brown butterflies darting about in the garden.

One patch of lawn seems to be taken over with some weed or other, may have to do something about that.

Little yellow privet hedge duly cut. Didn't bother using the hedge trimmer, just tested a few of the many shears in the shed.

One of the repaired (welded) Lidl (tm) shears ain't much good, the other seems to work ok, as does the small ancient shears inherited from my grandfather. It's funny how much better his old tools are compared with the modern crap.

It's very hot out there in the sun so now I'm relaxing with Yet Another Mug of Mediocre yet Consistent coffee.

Book.

Tea: soup etc. Nice Hot Soup. Entertainment: PM. Nonsense about UFOs on Blaze.

Alice Roberts Digging for Britain on BBC2.

Forgot about the Outback Wreckers, so that's pencilled in for 21:00 on Blaze. Goodness me, the cars on that island were really rusty. One of the chaps on the island was actually named Bruce. Just to keep things clear. . And they made AuD300 on a scrap Ford F100 thing which had a 351 V8 in it, plus the inevitable Holley POS. Another lot bought an ex police car: V8 again, but fuel injected so less likely to spit fire back through the carb. Since it hasn't got one.

Just been blocked by reddit for "security reasons". .

[ladymuck]

Damp from early morning torrential rain. Sunny with wisps. Currently 24 degrees ('feels like' 26) with a high of 34 expected. Barometer down to 1021 mBar.

Sunrise 04:44; Sunset 21:23 BST

Sometime in the 3 o'clock hour the distant sound of thunder woke me up. By about 3.30 am, the storm was making its presence very well known. Pretty much directly overhead for a good 30-40 mins, lots of thunder and lightening plus a lot of rain. I had to get up and close windows to stop my flat getting wet.

Something about thunderstorms at night always reminds me of a scene in a Famous Five book I read as a kid. If memory serves me correctly, in this story, the kids were sleeping in (I want to say but could be wrong) an abandoned house or shed somewhere and there was a thunderstorm. A crack of lightening illuminated a figure standing at a window staring in at them. A second crack a few seconds later, and they were gone. In the morning there were footprints outside the window. Always spooked me.

Anyway, at coalfaces 2 and 3, I have lots of meetings today.

HWMBO is on his way down to stay for a few weeks. Parts of the tube network have given up already and the Elizabeth Line has flooding issues. I'm sure he'll get here eventually.

[xoggoth]

Off to arty thing soon. Looks like few coming, would have cancelled if no showers had given me more advance warning.

There's a bloke opposite who spends much of his life just sitting in his front garden, really annoying as he sometimes seems to be staring up at my bedroom window. Maybe he's a gay gerontophile.

[NickFitz]

Lunch: a ham bap

I did think of making ham toasties, but I haven’t got any white bread. So I’ll bake a loaf of that this evening, and I can make them with the rest of the ham tomorrow

Rather Simpsonesque here now, and just about to hit 30°C

[sadkingbilly]

afternoon
CBS and rather warm (27C) here today.
only 49% wet though, so far, so good.
Lunch was Pasta, Pine nut, Parmesan and Pesto* with EV oil.
made up a big batch in anticipation of 'the heatwave'
rather pleasant in this weather.
stay cool maaaaan.


I wonder if that'll Prevent Piss Poor Performance???

[xoggoth]

Reasonable attendance at arty thing this morning. Too hot for messing around in garden or walking, I'll go for me walky in the evening again.

Just looking at Sussex news, there's a man being sought for an 'indecent act' in Brighton. Oh dear, looks rather like me. It wasn't, honest!

[NickFitz]

For tea, I rummaged in the freezer and came up with something I didn’t remember. It turned out to be tomatoey sausage casserole from the other week, and it was pretty nice with some chips

To go along with this, a thing on HBO Max about Swedish Border Control. It’s basically the same as all these border programmes, except they don’t get much in the way of Chinese people bringing in frog fat, and probably wouldn’t mind if one did. I don’t think Sweden has the same biosecurity issues as Down Under

[ladymuck]

HWMBO arrived. I was just clocking off as he turned up. Waitrose delivered a selection of groceries and he prepared a very nice gazpacho.

He's been watching the football so that means I'm now on my second match this evening. The commentators for the earlier one that was aired on ITV were terrible. The current match is on BBC and they seem slightly less awful.

[NickFitz]

In A Canticle for Leibowitz, another six hundred years have passed, technology has been redeveloped to the extent of space colonies existing… and, of course, they’ve reinvented nuclear weapons and may be about to use them. So now the monks of the Abbey are considering heading to space, though at least the sacred relics can now be taken on microfilm

Far too hot here now. The bedroom is still nearly 27°C and there’s hardly any breeze to help the 24° air from outside to get in

Goodnight all

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday apparently.

Dry.

Sunny.

Blue sky.

24.2 deg in here, 26.5 in the kitchen, 24 in the leanto, 26.5 in the front bedroom.

1010 mBar, 29.83 in Hg, 757.6 Torr, 14.649 psi, (up from 1009 last night), 75% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 31st of March 2020 wattaj posted, LM posted a lot (OM), and AndyGarbs posted. No one else bothered. .

I was going to type something but it took so long to get here that I've forgotten what it was.

Further to "Canticle", it may be of innerest to know there's a followup book "Saint Liebowitz and the Wild Horse Woman". I bought it decades ago but have yet to read it. It was finished by another writer after the premature demise of Walter M. Miller.