Reply to: test please delete

[ladymuck]

Afternoon all

Overcast with flecks of grey. Breezy. Currently 13 degrees ('feels like' 11) with a high of 14 expected. Barometer up to 1018 mBar.

Sunrise 05:17; Sunset 20:39 BST

Took the car up the road, came back home. Decided I didn't like the way the clutch pedal is behaving and I'd rather not push it. Informed my brother that I wouldn't be visiting today. He said Mum is in a really cheerful mood today, unlike yesterday!

HWMBO is on his way down from bonnie Scotlandshire.

The bed has been stripped and left to air, the first load is just finishing its spin cycle.

The floors have been swept but not mopped.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

It’s cloudy again, but seems a bit gloomier with it than yesterday and is noticeably breezier, though some slivers of blue sky are to be seen here and there. The current 11°C “feels like” 5° because of the wind, and the expected high is only 14°, coinciding with a sunnier spell of an hour or two this afternoon. The barometers are still tiptoeing upwards though, being up to 1008/1016mB

I ended up having a bit of a sleep-in this morning, which was nice

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Sunday.

Dry.

Grey.

Sunless.

Cooler in here at 17.2 deg, 17.5 in the kitchen, 16 in the leanto.

1013 mBar, 29.91 in Hg, 759.8 Torr, 14.69 psi, (up from 1012 last night), 66% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 27th of March 2020 DaveB, LM, WTFH, NF, and I popped in, as did Brillo.

Sleep returned following on from the 05:50 awakening, with the dream before waking involving some sort of large Septic car with brakes that didn't hold on a slope.

Walk (unabbreviated, towpath) walked in the grey gloom & cold wind, followed eventually by sunshine and cold wind.

Observed another (or the same) little yellow bird with greeny brown wings, singing away on a gate post, totally ignoring me.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: my tinnitus. Who the feck is that on the Archers? I turned it on by mistake.

[NickFitz]

No Monkey Life today as they continued their reruns of anything they could lay their hands on that had David Attenborough in it. Oh well, he’s always good

Later, I read more of XPD. This stands for “Expedient Demise”, BTW, and even the guy from MI6 is starting to wonder whether his own bosses might be making such arrangements for him

I also bought a secondhand printer's lead cutter on eBay. Back when I was in the 6th form I did a Graphic Design O Level on the side, for which we travelled down to Dunstable College for an afternoon every couple of weeks, where they had an excellent printing department full of letterpress equipment. One time the guy who ran it let those of us who had our own presses help ourselves to freshly-cast leads, reglets, and rules (leads are for normal line spacing, reglets are thicker leads, and rules are for printing lines and borders). I still have a load of this stuff which was cast in lengths of about thirty inches or so, so I need some way of cutting it to size if I’m to make use of it in my Adana 8-5

Goodnight all

[xoggoth]

After a quick call in at local fair took infirm old LL2 to one of those NGS garden things this afternoon, very nice place. We called in at art exhibition afterwards, 3 ladies I know from my art group had stuff up and had sold a few things. Don't think anyone would buy my monstery pics.

[NickFitz]

Tea was brought from KFC

Still nice out. It became quite Simpsonesque during the afternoon

[NickFitz]

Somebody’s moving into the former dogs’ flat!

He’s using a van from a local arts organisation based nearby, down New Walk; they do youth outreach projects and the like, and have a vegetarian café in their premises a few days a week. The van appears to be a work of art in its own right because it’s been painted so that it looks as if it’s spent the last forty years gathering muck in a railway arch with a leaky diesel tank overhead

It seems to drive perfectly well so it must look like that on purpose. I’ve already spotted one of the neighbours pausing to look askance at it. It’ll be quite amusing if it turns out he intends to keep it here

[ladymuck]

With the unexpected free time, I have had a very productive afternoon so far.

Jeans washed and hung out in the garden to dry in the glorious sunshine.

Went to the farmers' market for sausages, asparagus, and strawberries.

Took a bus to Ealing Broadway and got secateurs sharpened, a watch battery fitted, generic cards bought for my stash, and collected my H&B order. I walked back.

Trying to decide whether to drive Mum's tomorrow, as I didn't get to see her today, or just get the car booked in and find out what's wrong with it. The complicating factor is that HWMBO and I will be going on holiday next week so that'll be two weeks I don't see Mum.

[ladymuck]

Well. Neither I nor my brother and Mum made it to the wedding.

Mum refused to get ready and eventually resigned herself to getting dressed so late that my brother couldn't get her there on time.

I got to my car only to discover that someone had tried to rip one of the wing mirrors off. It was left dangling by the wires. I wasn't going to drive it with that hanging off so had to figure out how to make it safe. Fortunately, the garage next door to me was open and the young lad in there was happy to help. However, by the time that was done, there was no way I'd get to the wedding on time.

Why people feel the need to vandalise other people's belongings is something I'll never understand.

[NickFitz]

^^^ Shades of "The Admirable Crichton (1957)" or the one with Anthony Hopkins ("The Edge"). .

Yes, and more recently Triangle of Sadness (2022)

[NickFitz]

Afternoon denizens

Nice day out, though it’s quite cloudy; might be stratocumulus? Occasional thinner patches mean it brightens up from time to time and isn’t actually gloomy. It’s 18°C and may reach 19° for a bit shortly; the barometers are up one more notch at 1006/1014mB

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Sunny with wispy fluff. Currently 18 with a high of 21 expected. Barometer up a smidge to 1018 mBar.

Sunrise 05:19; Sunset 20:37 BST

Today is my cousin's wedding, at some fancy stately home/castle thing in Kent. Having checked in with my brother earlier this morning, my Mum is trying her best to get out of going. This is despite her regularly complaining that she never goes out and hardly sees her family.

Hopefully yea olde jalopy will get me there and back, with whatever is going on with the clutch pedal not resulting in major failure today. I did get breakdown cover included in my car insurance last time I renewed, knowing she's getting on a bit, so I'll at least be able to get home.

[DoctorStrangelove]

^^^ Shades of "The Admirable Crichton (1957)" or the one with Anthony Hopkins ("The Edge"). .

Morning.

Saturday.

Dry.

Sunny.

Cooler in here at 17.3 deg, ?19? in the kitchen, 16 in the leanto.

1011.3 mBar, 29.86 in Hg, 758.5 Torr, 14.667666 psi, (up from 1010.5 last night), 63% RH (Lidl electric).

Awakened unbidden at 05:something & thankfully returned to the land of nod until something past 08.

The dream, as usual, involved some job or other, and this one had a woman in it again. Though no dreamy smell this time.

Meanwhile on the 27th of March 2020 AndyGarbs, BR14, and Churchill managed to squeeze a post in amongst Brillo's outpourings.

Walk (unabbreviated, towpath) walked in the wan sunshine. Quite warm out there. Car with smashed driver's window observed. The chap whose door I knocked on didn't know who it belonged to, other than it had been there for a fortnight. Taxed & MOT until July.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: Moneybox. The News Quiz repeat.

Did think to start cleaning the springs in the front room office cum junk room, but after taking a couple of looks I decided to read a book instead. No idea how I'll manage to do it all again.

Tea: soup etc. Entertainment: PM. Sounds like The Glorious Leader has problems coming his way.

Pink Floyd Live: A Delicate Sound of Thunder. (1988). No Rog, which is all to the good: the less of the whiney twat the better I like it.

Maigret S4 E7 "The taste of power (1963)"

Pink Floyd: Comfortably Numb. Which was nice.

Start of "Live at Pompeii". Echoes.

Blazian bollox: Holy Marvels: lost sites. Troy. Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses Tomb. Pool of Siloam. Bethlehem (a different one closer to Nazareth).

Blazian bollox: Battle Treasures: more ancient tat collected by a military squirrel.

BBC Alba: Arctic Wars E2/6. Watched some of this with one eye. . I must have made up about 90% of the audience.

[NickFitz]

Tonight’s motion picture premiere was Send Help (2026) in which a deserving employee is passed over for promotion when the boss’s son inherits the business. But then, on a business trip, their executive jet goes down in a storm and she and the new boss are the only survivors, cast away on an island; and she’s been trying to get on the show Survivor for ages and thus is well prepared for the situation, so who’s in charge now? I found this rather enjoyable. It seemed to be veering off course a bit towards the end, but it turned out it was just going in a direction I hadn’t anticipated. Worth a watch; it’s on Disney+ if you have that

Then a rewatch of Gran Turismo (2023) which is both a good story and fun if you like motorcars racing around

Finally, another episode of Pluribus

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

The shed has been successfully removed from the pallets and is now leaning against the utility room. Tomorrow is painting day.

Jobsworths defeated!