Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tea: meatballs in Dutch-influenced gravy with chips

The magpies have been back at the dead rat. There was even a seagull near it when I knocked off; we don't usually get them here, though there's some who hang around over on the park like a gang of errant teenagers. I expect one of the local foxes will come across it tonight and drag it off under the hedge to get stuck in in peace

[xoggoth]

Phew, moral dilemma avoided. Got a wasp nest in attic but couldn't bring myself to hurt little waspies. Seems I can just wait a couple of months and remove it when it's empty, they don't re-use them.

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been the rest of the sweet chilli chicken bits, once again in a wholemeal bap with a bag of plain crisps

Out on the lawn, lunch for at least one of the magpies has been dead rat. Not sure if the crows have dropped in yet; one came swooping across to land somewhere on the roof above me while the magpie was feasting, then flew away, curving over the lawn on its way. I think they're aware of it, but any visits have happened while I wasn't looking

[NickFitz]

Turns out the dead rat hasn't vanished - it's moved about ten feet further away and, whereas it was stretched out pointing towards the flower bed with its tail straight out behind it, it's now curled up. Still looks very dead. I suspect either somebody's dog dragged it but was called off, or perhaps the crows and magpies have been at it

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Wednesday.

Today's dream was some sort of entrance exam.

Grey.

Dark.

Dreary.

Damp.

Sunless.

Cool in here at 18.1 deg, 20 deg in the kitchen, 17.5 deg in the leanto.

1021 mBar, 30.15 in Hg, 765.8 Torr, 14.808 psi, (down a tad from last night), 77% RH (GDR hair), 75% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 16th of June 2019 NF was passing on wisdom from observations of his time at Age Concern in the 1980s, whereas BR14 was busy getting zenchuries and palis while moaning about it.

Woke this morning pain free from the back, got out of bed, unplugged the batphone charger from the plugblock & voila! out it fecking goes again.

So free of pain for a whole 37 seconds.

More ibuprofen gel and 400mg of tablets to make up for it.

Him next door has turned up for the first time in months, along with a small skip which he filled yesterday. Must be getting ready to sell the place.

Walk (abbreviated) walked in the wan sunshine eventually replaced by light rain.

"They"'ve been cleaning the gutters on the hill up to the Ivy Tower. Who'd have thunk?

Along with replacing the inadequate underroad culvert with something a bit more reasonable.

Lunch: scrambled egg, 400mg ibuprofen etc.

Entertainment: Y&Y waffling on about the HS2 debacle and someone whose house got stolen <click>.

Freecell score: 95%, running average:86% (85.7%).

Vacced the downstairs, principally the living room, junk room & kitchen/leanto since my back won't allow me to cart the cleaner upstairs.

Turns out that exactly 10 years ago, I also had a bad back, almost to the day.

More book.

Tea: there was tea.

Entertainment: PM. More tory bollox. It's never fecking ending.

[xoggoth]

I admit it. I had it for breakfast.

[NickFitz]

There's a dead rat in the middle of the lawn, on the hedgerow side of the flowerbed

The dead rat has vanished

About twenty minutes later, it was gone. It was definitely dead, as it lay out in the open for at least twenty minutes before that, not moving; I looked at it through the binoculars to confirm what it was, and its fur was all matted the way dead things' fur goes. And now it's just gone

I assume either a fox or cat or something has dragged it away, probably into the hedge, or a passing human has got rid of it somewhere. There are a few people who head out to work around that time in the morning, so it could be one of them noticed it and decided to remove it?

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Grey start today, and getting windy late morning through to late afternoon. Currently 11°C with a high of 17°, and the barometers have bounced back at 1012/1020mB

There's a dead rat in the middle of the lawn, on the hedgerow side of the flowerbed

[ladymuck]

Morning all, local time 1010

Cloudy but dry, although thunderstorms and rain forecast (it being monsoon season and all that). Currently 28 degrees ('feels like' 34) with a high of 31 expected.

Just finishing breakfast by the Chao Phraya river, watching all the comings and goings. Definitely a working river! Then off for a local tour that the hotel offers free to guests on a Wednesday morning.

[NickFitz]

After knocking off and before attending to cooking, I got a bit further through the Swift Data tutorial I'm following

The opal hunters were much as usual; I think we're getting near the point where I came in though

And later, S1E2 of Secrets of the London Underground in which they visited North End, aka Bull and Bush, the never-completed station beneath Hampstead Heath which was repurposed in the early days of the Cold War as the control room for the flood gates on the deep Tubes near the Thames. They talked a lot about how secret and unknown it is, though I've known about it since the 1980s, having read about it in Peter Laurie's book Beneath the City Streets. I always look out for it when I'm travelling on that stretch of the Northern Line

And then some more of H.G. Wells' short stories

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea: chicken madras with rice and naan. Very tasty

[NickFitz]

Oh, I had the first standup with the new team this morning - they'd forgotten to send me the invite yesterday. Reference was made to future work once the MVP is done "after April" so I suspect I may be getting an extension when my contract ends at the start of February

[NickFitz]

Lunch: sweet chilli chicken bits in a wholemeal bap with a bag of plain crisps

So far, this week has been much less busy than I might have expected. I suspect it'll continue that way; I don't really have a huge amount to do on the old project, and what there is tends to depend on other people getting other stuff done, like deciding on organisational stuff and so on. Can't complain

Long meeting due later this afternoon though, in which things will get properly planned out. Maybe there'll be an unpleasant surprise or two in there for me

[ladymuck]

We have indeed had a thunderstorm. Sadly the cloud cover is too low for the lightening to cause much excitement.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Tuesday.

Grey.

Cool.

Wanly sunny.

Drily damp.

18.2 deg in here, 20 deg in the kitchen, 17 deg in the leanto.

1013.5 mBar, 29.928 in Hg, 760.18 Torr, 14.699 psi, (up from 1008 last night), 77% RH (GDR hair), 70% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 16th of July 2019 I was watching a documentary about the Apollo program: 11, 12, & 13, involving what to do if your rocket is struck by lightning, whereas NF decided to keep the sun out by leaving the curtains closed & WTFH wasn't looking forward to the heat of the day.

Walk (abbreviated) walked in the sunshine.

Lunch: baked spud etc.

Entertainment: Y&Y <click> Well it's a phonein with all that implies.

Freecell score: so so.

Tea: there was tea of sorts.

Entertainment: PM.

Colonel March of Scotland Yard E25: The new invisible man (1956).

Scotland Yard: The White Cliffs Mystery (1957). Murder on an express train.

JoP. JoP.

The Human Jungle "Enemy Outside (1965)". Read book instead.

Rise of the NAZIs: Part III: Barbie gets his comeuppance.

Maigret's Mistake (1994). The one about the doctor.