Reply to: test please delete

[ladymuck]

Afternoon all

Dull and overcast. Damp. Currently 14 degrees with a high of 15 expected. No rain forecast but I'm not convinced. Barometer up to 1030 mBar.

Yesterday was a busy one. Into the office for a 9.30am meeting. Left at 2pm, which turned out to be a good move as it took me over 45 mins to drive the 18 miles from Heathrow back home, most of the delay being at a roundabout where the A4 meets the A30 that is a notorious bottleneck when heading eastbound on the A4. I had to be at Hedonism Wines for 4pm to meet friends for a tequila, mezcal and sotol tasting. This was much fun, with over 20 products to try and some rather generous pours being offered. Then we went to Hoppers for dinner, which was absolutely delicious.

A bit hungover today. A three egg omelette has been had for brunch which was a very good decision.

Idiots are letting off fireworks despite it not being 5th November. They were doing it last night too, despite it not being November at all then

Diwali

[NickFitz]

On the lawn, two magpies were stood facing two squirrels, within a foot or so of each other. It looked like a standoff, but then one of the squirrels started chasing the other and the two magpies turned around and started wandering and pecking at the lawn, as they do. The squirrels carried on chasing each other hither and yon, occasionally causing one of the magpies to move quickly out of the way when one got close, but apart from that they all just went about their business. Shame the crows aren't so easygoing

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Cloudy out but with some shape to the clouds rather than a flat sheet, leading to small gaps hither and yon and thus sunny spells, albeit brief. It's currently 14°C and expected to soar to 15° soon, while the barometers have reversed course, heading upwards to 1019/1027mB

[WTFH]

Morning all

S’murky out, and damp in the air, but it’s not raining. The morning perambulation has not happened yet.
New coffee machine arriving later.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Saturday.

Dry.

Grey.

Sunless.

Chilly in here at 15.5 deg, 16 in the kitchen, 14 in the leanto.

1025 and a tad mBar, 30.274 in Hg, 768.96 Torr, 14.869 psi, (up from 1024 last night), 70% RH (LIdl electric).

Meanwhile on the 27th of November 2019 it was universally grey, wet, cold & unpleasant, whereas NF had supplemented "The Wire" with an ep of "Edge of Darkness" from 1985.

[NickFitz]

Tonight's major motion picture premiere was The Witch, a Korean film in which a young girl escapes from a secret research facility and is taken in by a farming couple. Ten years later, she enters a TV talent show and is recognised. It's good, this. Bit of Jason Bourne, bit of John Wick, and some Matrix-style telekinesis for good measure. It ends on a cliffhanger because there's a part two…

And then a rewatch of The Northman (2022) which is excellent. I must mention, however, that scenes of Vikings carousing in their Great Halls always remind me of the time in the mid-1980s that I went to a Dumpy's Rusty Nuts gig in the former music hall upstairs in a pub in South Wigston. I had never seen such utterly depraved behaviour before and I haven't since, but that's what knocking around with bikers gets you

Finally, a couple more episodes of We Own This City (TV Mini Series 2022) which is a good way of winding down from The Wire, being an accurate depiction of the utter depravity and corruption of much of the Baltimore PD in more recent times

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea has been Sainsbury's "hog roast style" pulled pork shoulder with apple sauce and stuffing balls, with chips. I bought the pork thing primarily because it was on special offer (aka Nectar Price) to me in particular, and it sounded worth a try. It was pretty nice actually; don't know if I'd bother again, but I might

Idiots are letting off fireworks despite it not being 5th November. They were doing it last night too, despite it not being November at all then

One pleasant thing today was opening the banking app and seeing that Halifax hadn't taken a mortgage payment despite it being the 1st. I paid it off too late in September to prevent the direct debit last month, so it went out then got refunded a couple of weeks later when they'd completed their processes. But this month and, I hope, for many more, neither rent nor mortgage are going to anyone!

[xoggoth]

Walk with loony lady 3 earlier. Not too bad, tho one muddy bit. Just had one of those scam loft insulation calls. Maybe HMRC is all a scam, tax does not really exist.

[NickFitz]

Are these crows crows or jackdaws?

I recall watching a crow crow chasing a squirrel along the grass & up a tree on one of my walks.

I like crows & jackdaws.

Definitely crows - I've had the binoculars on them before

The crows were back, browsing either side of the big lawn, while a squirrel was wandering around halfway between them. I thought it might be a different squirrel, but it casually worked its way round until it was close to one of the crows then made a run at it! The crow flew off, followed shortly after by the other. So I don't think we've seen an end to the feud yet

Lunch has been a Pukka sausage roll, re-baked in the air fryer. They're pretty nice compared to some shop-bought sausage rolls, though not as good as Greggs

[DoctorStrangelove]

Are these crows crows or jackdaws?

I recall watching a crow crow chasing a squirrel along the grass & up a tree on one of my walks.

I like crows & jackdaws.

[NickFitz]

Incredible scenes! One of the crows just chased one of the squirrels (presumably the same one as they've previously argued with) all the way from the larger art deco block, across the drive, and across the big lawn until it scampered into the relative safety of the central flower bed, under the roses

This wasn't just the crow swooping back and forth in its general direction as I've seen before; it was flying along, matching the squirrel's pace, right above and behind its head, occasionally changing angle to thrust its talons to within an inch or so of it

I don't know what that particular squirrel's done to annoy them, but the crows really aren't happy with it. For a reference sample, there was another squirrel just across the lawn past the flowerbed, and the crows completely ignored that one. So I'm pretty sure it's a personal inter-species beef with that particular squirrel

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Grey day again, and also fairly mild again, being 11°C with a promise of 14° for a bit this afternoon. The barometers are down a bit more, though again not very significantly at 1012/1020mB

I had a nice lie-in sans any kind of alarm or scheduled activity. Might pop out this afternoon, depending on whether I can be bothered

[xoggoth]

Another cr*py night sleep. At least had a nice erotic dream. Plumber came earlier and fixed the loud hum problem. Prob ll3 walk later, if I can think of anywhere not knee deep in mud.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Friday.

Grey.

Sunless.

Dismal.

Chilly in here at 16 deg, 16 deg in the kitchen, 14 deg in the leanto, 12 deg in the saltinghouse.

1020.5 mBar, 30.135 in Hg, 765.43 Torr, 14.8 psi, (unchanged), 68% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 26th of November 2019 much fish was consumed by various denizens, whereas NF informed us of the advent of the online Amstrad CPC games emulator which he found adequate but not up to emulating the Real Thing quite yet when playing a game written by his mate Sean back in the day.

Shirts in the WM.

Shirts out of the WM & pegged out on the line. Slow drying day.

Smalls in the WM.

Smalls out of the WM and pegged out on the line.

Cottons in the WM.

Freecell score: 95%, running average: 79%.

Cottons out of the WM and pegged out on the line.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the grey gloom.

Lunch: there was brunch.

Freecell score: 93%, running average: 79%.

Shirts in off the line, slightly damp, iRoned & airing upstairs.

Some cottons in off the line & iRoned: airing upstairs.

Smalls in off the line & airing upstairs.

Cottons in off the line at 16:45 & met the TD: cleaned the spiders out first.

Tea: chicken in white sauce etc. Nice enough.

Cottons out of the TD & roughly iRoned: no water emerged from the TD though.

Entertainment: book. other book. other other book. other other other book.

Tina Turner 2000 concert.

Some mad buggers exploring disused metal mines in Wales. Fecking mad as a box of frogs looking at the state of some of that timber.

More Tina Turner.

Fleetwood Mac The Dance tour 2000. Don't know half the songs.

Perused various sites about VLF (very low frequency) radio receivers: for some reason I remember an ancient Practical Electronics article from the late 60s about "whistlers", "Chorus", and "Sterics" which are all low frequency radio generated variously by lightning and stuff interfering with the earth's magnetic field.

Having found half a dozen circuits I'll now do nothing with any of them. .

[NickFitz]

Tonight's viewing started with a new Traffic Cops

And then the major motion picture premiere was Apple's The Instigators (2024), a decent enough yarn involving an attempted heist on a corrupt Chicago mayor which, inevitably, goes wrong in various entertaining ways

Then I found time for another chapter of Casino

I decided I don't really need to go shopping tomorrow, so I probably won't, or at least not in the morning

Goodnight all