I would just like to say

Dippypud said:

Morning all ...

Dull and dreary t'day ...rain forecast ...

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Same ere

Stanleysteamer said:

Only liking this cos it's the roolz.
Men are bad at going to the docs, unless the problem is with their eyes or their wedding tackle, so I have heard.
So have you been boozing to damage your liver?
(Only joking!)

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I quit drinking in 2003 but I have been taking an immune suppressor for seven years. They take their toll. At least I managed a couple of hours sleep last night! Waiting on the call from the docs now. I maybe off line for a few days.

Morning.
@My Old Landy get well,relax & do as the doctors say.

Dull, dreary and WET 'ere. We are promised a favourable change next week so I'll wait and see.
@My Old Landy I suppose two hours is better than none. Now, be good and follow all their instructions to the letter and remember we're all rooting for your very speedy recovery.

I am happy to say I don't have to go in to the hospital Although my blood results are not good, they can deal with it through the GP

Morning All
I am back from Holland (now preferring to be called "The Netherlands").
Super time cycling, did over 150 miles and stayed at 2 different camp sites.
We reprised an earlier tour we had taken with my deceased friend and I placed some of his ashes at each of the sites.
One place was a family-run roadside Café and they recognised us (from 2017!!! ) as soon as we walked in.
They commiserated with us for the loss of our friend and accepted the "Monty-Python" Dead Parrot Sketch T-Shirt that he had bought for the husband. We were intending to deliver it in 2019, but my friend died and then Covid etc. etc.
They kindly asked if we would like to leave some of his ashes in their garden and they took photographs. I was very humbled (there were "manly tears" shed).
So he is currently located in 2 camp-sites, a roadside café, Delft Town square and along the LF1 cycle route. I have some of his ashes still and I shall inter them here in my Garden.
I have a horrible chest-infection (I hope it isn't covid) so I am off to my bed with some Lem-Sip.
It is good to be back.

DanClarke said:

Morning All
I am back from Holland (now preferring to be called "The Netherlands").
Super time cycling, did over 150 miles and stayed at 2 different camp sites.
We reprised an earlier tour we had taken with my deceased friend and I placed some of his ashes at each of the sites.
One place was a family-run roadside Café and they recognised us (from 2017!!! ) as soon as we walked in.
They commiserated with us for the loss of our friend and accepted the "Monty-Python" Dead Parrot Sketch T-Shirt that he had bought for the husband. We were intending to deliver it in 2019, but my friend died and then Covid etc. etc.
They kindly asked if we would like to leave some of his ashes in their garden and they took photographs. I was very humbled (there were "manly tears" shed).
So he is currently located in 2 camp-sites, a roadside café, Delft Town square and along the LF1 cycle route. I have some of his ashes still and I shall inter them here in my Garden.
I have a horrible chest-infection (I hope it isn't covid) so I am off to my bed with some Lem-Sip.
It is good to be back.

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Glad you are back home safe and sound!
Quite an emotional rollercoaster of a trip by the sounds of it. Get well soon

My Old Landy said:

I quit drinking in 2003 but I have been taking an immune suppressor for seven years. They take their toll. At least I managed a couple of hours sleep last night! Waiting on the call from the docs now. I maybe off line for a few days.

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Best of luck then!!!

My Old Landy said:

I am happy to say I don't have to go in to the hospital Although my blood results are not good, they can deal with it through the GP

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That's GGGGGRRRRRRRRREAEAEAEATTTTTT!!!

DanClarke said:

Morning All
I am back from Holland (now preferring to be called "The Netherlands").
Super time cycling, did over 150 miles and stayed at 2 different camp sites.
We reprised an earlier tour we had taken with my deceased friend and I placed some of his ashes at each of the sites.
One place was a family-run roadside Café and they recognised us (from 2017!!! ) as soon as we walked in.
They commiserated with us for the loss of our friend and accepted the "Monty-Python" Dead Parrot Sketch T-Shirt that he had bought for the husband. We were intending to deliver it in 2019, but my friend died and then Covid etc. etc.
They kindly asked if we would like to leave some of his ashes in their garden and they took photographs. I was very humbled (there were "manly tears" shed).
So he is currently located in 2 camp-sites, a roadside café, Delft Town square and along the LF1 cycle route. I have some of his ashes still and I shall inter them here in my Garden.
I have a horrible chest-infection (I hope it isn't covid) so I am off to my bed with some Lem-Sip.
It is good to be back.

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Glad you enjoyed your trip and made it back without incident!!
Do look after yourself

Well this a.m. has been a bit of disaster.
Feckin groundworks!
I sepnt a lot more time and more thana fag packet trying to work out how much concrete to mix to do my little job.
Had to feck about between metric and imperial cos metric has soooo many feckin 0s in it!!
In the end i decided a barrow load of muck would be OK. I only had a 35 kg bag of ready mix which wouldn't be enough AND it was old, so I went for it with raw ingredients.
I can mix a perfect Bechamel sauce by eye, with no need to measure ingredients, and it comes out smooth as the proverbial, but can I mix concrete? Can I feck as like. Well not unless it comes ready mixed.
All was going fine until I decided the mix was just too dry and I added more watter.
Too much feckin watter. Suddenly looked like a dirty bottom of a river. Oops! (Was the polite version). So I poured off what water I could and added more cement. (I can hear you all laughing from here!). Kept on mixing. (all this is killing my back by the way.) Eventually decided it would have to do so went over to me 'ole and tried to pour it in and spread it around.
Er,....... two things.
One,....... nowhere near enough.
Two.....it became obvious to me that the gravel I had used consisted of bits that were far too big.
I never thought about the size of it, and it'd prolly have been OK if I was making a big fat slab, but trying to make summat 2 to 3.5 cms deep, some of the lumps of gravel were that big!
So off to my heap of sand, which I think may have been part of the problem cos it lives outside and a few inches below the top it is quite wet. 4 more shovels of sand and one of cement, mix that up and chuck that on top of the rest. Spread it about and hope for the best.
And no. I decided against the mesh. That would have only made things worse.

So, lesson learned, get the right feckin gravel and be more careful with the watter!! I think had the gravel been smaller the quantities would have been closer to correct as well.
I will sit back and wait for all the "You din't wanna do it like that" type remarks. Which I am sure will all be totally correct.
Hot today again, today's and tomorrows rain have been put off to cover the next two days.
I'd better tarp my mess over I suppose!
Have a nice day folks!

Stanleysteamer said:

In the end i decided a barrow load of muck would be OK.

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Well its like this, sounds like your calculating went out the window at that point. You did add 25% to your calc?
You should have.............................................. to late.

Hey its done, if you are short which would be best, then now you have a base, some sand to top up and level no big deal.

It will be all right on the night as they once used to say.

J

DanClarke said:

Morning All
I am back from Holland (now preferring to be called "The Netherlands").
Super time cycling, did over 150 miles and stayed at 2 different camp sites.
We reprised an earlier tour we had taken with my deceased friend and I placed some of his ashes at each of the sites.
One place was a family-run roadside Café and they recognised us (from 2017!!! ) as soon as we walked in.
They commiserated with us for the loss of our friend and accepted the "Monty-Python" Dead Parrot Sketch T-Shirt that he had bought for the husband. We were intending to deliver it in 2019, but my friend died and then Covid etc. etc.
They kindly asked if we would like to leave some of his ashes in their garden and they took photographs. I was very humbled (there were "manly tears" shed).
So he is currently located in 2 camp-sites, a roadside café, Delft Town square and along the LF1 cycle route. I have some of his ashes still and I shall inter them here in my Garden.
I have a horrible chest-infection (I hope it isn't covid) so I am off to my bed with some Lem-Sip.
It is good to be back.

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Sounds like a great trip down memory lane, which was enjoyed as I am sure your mate would have preferred you did.

You are just worned out and need a good rest. see ya later, or tomorrow fully charged.

J

Afternoon folks.

Well another cracking day here. Put some more silcone on the bloody loo if it leaks now then so be it, its only a little and as a wet room dont really matter. Sorted the loo out in the annex that I sacrificed and now it holds water, can be flushed but not as designed.

Check the friends Merc over for levels etc took me longer to figure out how to get the bonnet open, who puts the secondary catch in the bottom part of the big grill emblem? Mercedes do.

So the pool is a horrible 30, as we have another stupid O clock airport pickup (early hours Thursday?) I have downed tools early.
We will do a shopping trip at Metro around midnight before airport, its so much nicer at that time of night.

Feels like a Saturday for some reason, seem to have lost track of days this week, Oh well I am sure the days will catch up soon, I will be right 1 in 7 see if I care.

J

marjon said:

Well its like this, sounds like your calculating went out the window at that point. You did add 25% to your calc?
You should have.............................................. to late.

Hey its done, if you are short which would be best, then now you have a base, some sand to top up and level no big deal.

It will be all right on the night as they once used to say.

J

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Strangely the "barrow load of muck" was not as offhand as it sounds. To be precise it was 8 shovelfuls of gravel, 4 of sand and 2 of cement. Which did happen to be a barrow load. This I had calculated would fill my 2.8 metres by .80 metre hole to a height of about 2 cms. and not more than 3.5 cms. So now, I didn't add 25% to my calc. What would that be for? To account for general lack of precision in using shovelfuls or for most peeps general idiocy? Including me!!??
TBH, I once used to help my ex S-i-l quite a lot and have mixed barrowloads of muck for him in the past. I did the mixing and he did the brickying. Not with this mix I hasten to add.
And I also managed to mix 50kgs bags of readymix, ten off, for the footings for the poles for the polytynnel and they were all fine too. (Used a small mixer for that.)
I think the adding the water mistake was down to lack of recent practice, and the size of the gravel was down to us having bought in a shed load to put down on our parking area and in gravel areas around flower beds.
If I didn't have the back problem I think I would have dug out a load of the existing sand and made room to put down a proper slab. But mixing in a barrow hurts my back nowadays.
Thanks for not taking the p!ss unmercifully!!
And yes, if you use the wrong flour in a Bechamel it can come out too thick/thin and not taste so nice!!!

Oh and yes the deer came in last night, so early we got pics of them in colour on the trail camera. Us having repositioned it about 90 degs to the left.


Cheeky fecker!!

there were also weird pics taken during the night obvs in b/w and we have no idea what triggered them!


We've blown them up a bit and gone through them until we felt like UFO hunters!
Might have to alter the setting on the camera to take a pic faster.
Stepson sent us pics of his allotment on the outskirts of Paris which has been devastated by boar. Poor lad! (He's only 49 till August!) So it could be worse!!

marjon said:

Afternoon folks.

Well another cracking day here. Put some more silcone on the bloody loo if it leaks now then so be it, its only a little and as a wet room dont really matter. Sorted the loo out in the annex that I sacrificed and now it holds water, can be flushed but not as designed.

Check the friends Merc over for levels etc took me longer to figure out how to get the bonnet open, who puts the secondary catch in the bottom part of the big grill emblem? Mercedes do.

So the pool is a horrible 30, as we have another stupid O clock airport pickup (early hours Thursday?) I have downed tools early.
We will do a shopping trip at Metro around midnight before airport, its so much nicer at that time of night.

Feels like a Saturday for some reason, seem to have lost track of days this week, Oh well I am sure the days will catch up soon, I will be right 1 in 7 see if I care.

J

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Your life is so busy, busy, busy!!!
No wonder you need a calendar!!
30 degs? Jeez!
Ours is at 22. Swimmable for me but not for W.
The Pergola, near the pool, on the top of which I was going to fit some sort of solar panel to heat it up with, is apparently falling apart. Some of the decking planks have rotted and the uprights which are bolted to the base are now leaning somewhat. So much for tanalised timber! But TBH the pergola has plants growing all over/up it and I suspect this means there has been a lot of damp there should not have been. Pain in the rear as it was such a pain to get it over here. You can tell we don't use it hardly at all.
So stupid, you build a pool etc to enjoy it and we work so feckin hard here if we do get into the pool all we do is have a bit of a dip, get out and go back to the house. No sitting around in the shade under the pergola drinking, eating, socialising.
We keep saying, "once we get everything finished........."

Stanleysteamer said:

I didn't add 25% to my calc. What would that be for? To account for general lack of precision in using shovelfuls or for most peeps general idiocy? Including me!!??

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I always used it as to add for wetness, Is it a scientific calc I don't know.
This may get you going, But fill a bucket of dry sand add water and then pour off the water, do you have a full bucket of sand?

But as I said better lower than higher.

J

Stanleysteamer said:

Oh and yes the deer came in last night, so early we got pics of them in colour on the trail camera. Us having repositioned it about 90 degs to the left.
View attachment 268328

Cheeky fecker!!

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Lovely to see real animals in nature.

As I said a little electric fence, and a bucket of corn at the line they would come out more for your viewing. Its not his/her fault they need to eat

Stanleysteamer said:

No wonder you need a calendar!!

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I dont need a calendar, aslong as I know you need to pickup (me/us) then send the phone a date and it will tell me when, if its not got a flat battery

Stanleysteamer said:

30 degs? Jeez!
Ours is at 22. Swimmable for me but not for W.

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I am sure we have discussed this before, we use a summer cover, which is basically heavy duty bubble wrap. if we are out it stays covered, if we are busy it stays covered till later in the day, cover it at night, it soon warms up

Stanleysteamer said:

We keep saying, "once we get everything finished........."

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Know that sentence well.

keep plugging away mate.

J