Today I shall be Mainly...

[Gloria]

Thanks Sue, good to know the food is okay, looking forward to it, we go late June.

[Sue]

Enjoy, where are you heading for Gloria . We come over again from May 30 th to June 18 th, trying to time a visit to meet up with a second cousin from New Zealand who is half french and married to a frenchman. They are renting a house in Brittany in early June

[Stanley]

I shall be doing a bit of cooking before going in the shed.... I want to get my chicken in the oven and than get on with making a very small engine for new great grand daughter Evie. I shall deal with the chicken after I have had second sleep but am undecided whether to cook veggies today or leave it 'til tomorrow. I suspect the latter will win and I shall have a walk and a it on traffic duty today.

[Sue]

Accidently put my message in draft but can’t find it to post it

Done it, thanks Wendy

[Sue]

Thanks Sue, good to know the food is okay, looking forward to it, we go late June.

Morning

Gloria, I just thought not all the ferries have a restaurant some only have a large cafeteria. The food is ok , but not as good as the ones with a restaurant The newest boat, the Armorique is like that. I don’t like it. The Brittania is our favourite and also the Pontaven. Bob thinks it will be the Brittania

Yesterday we finished the kitchen apart from glossing all the doors, we will run out of time to finish those . We also did a little shopping in the afternoon ready for our return. Tomorrow and Thursday are both holidays so it will be difficult to shop then, it has also been difficult to get a hotel stay in St Malo tomorrow night. Even worse there seem to be few restaurants open either, even the one in the hotel is shut. A hotel, on a holiday day, in a tourist place not serving food !

Today at last the rain has stopped and the temperatures start to increase 27 degrees is forecast for Saturday. We have things to put back on walls and furniture to replace but I think I may tackle the garden though I expect to get very muddy indeed after 4 days of heavy rain.

Have a nice day all

[Stanley]

No let up then as you prepare to leave for the UK..... I hope all goes well and that you don't end up hungry while waiting for the ferry!



I'm looking at the flywheel for the first engine. The short pieces of bronze in the kit are so wasteful, I found a bar of cast bronze in the treasure chest (A discarded riser from a casting at Dick Bonser's in Rochdale.) It was slightly too big to fit up the bore in the 4 jaw SC chuck so I put the big three jaw on and cleaned it up including facing the ends. Than some careful measuring and I bored it to be an interference fit on the crankshaft. Once I was sure that was OK I took the big three jaw off and replaced the 4Jaw SC chuck. Now all I need to do is make and fit the tiny crank pin!
Time for breakfast I think.

[Gloria]

Sue, we go on 21st June and stay in Vannes at the Golfe Hotel. Sail back on 28th, and stay at the Marriott hotel in Portsmouth overnight.

[Sue]

Just got to put pictures up, but waiting till next visit and do the ceiling above the table like the kitchen end. I painted the kitchen units 2 years ago, its taken that long to getting round to doing the rest. The wallpaper above the sink is fairly new so not being changed

[Sue]

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[Big Kev]

Looking good

[Gloria]

Looking really nice.

[Stanley]

I did something unusual, I went back in the shed for an hour on the wobblers. I have to feel comfortable about finishing them for the end of the month....

[Stanley]

I shall be in the shed wobbling and then after second sleep I shall cook my veggies for next week. I cooked my red cabbage yesterday because one thing I have learned is that red cabbage is an outlier, it needs cooking separately form the other veggies because of the colour and it is an entirely different beast than white cabbage, Needs longer slower cooking and responds well to spices and having peppers cooked with it. No overtime in the shed today!

[Sue]

Morning

It was a nice day yesterday and after restoring the kitchen to order we spent a day gardening. I weeded one large flower border but the rockery, still full of grass will have to stay till next visit. Most of the other old weeding places are now grassed over after our efforts last summer so there was only the rockery left to do.Bob strimmed tbe grass bank outside our property which is our responsibility, if not cut back visibility is difficult to dangerous at the end of the lane. He then tackled cutting down a large catoneaster bush that has succumbed to the wet weather. It was thriving in November but the continuous rain has killed it. I think my Californian lilac has gone the same way. I have trimmed that so we shall see what we shall see..

We invited Laetitia and Yves round for a beer, and their youngest, Valentine, came with them. Yves saw the massive job of pruning the catoneaster ans said he will finish it and get rid of the wood ( ie burn it which we aren’t allowed to do but as he lives at the farmhouse he looks lime a farmer and is allowed to burn things ). Yves said he will water my veggies but probably wii not need to for a bit. The ground is sodden and after next Monday they are due for another 8 days of rain, but at least the temperatures are on the way up .Last night was the first evening we didn’t have a fire apart from burning the newspaper we had been using to cover things whilst painting.

Painting brings me back to the beer they came round for. I went to get them out of the laundry room and completely forgot there was a door resting on a trestle supports where I had painted it. It was right in front of the shelf of beers. Valentine came to the rescue, being only 12 and small he was able to crawl under the door and extract 4 beer and a bottle of coke. The evening was saved

This morning we are off to buy some grass seed to fill in patches of grass that we seeded last autumn, and some hydrangea fertiliser to try and rescue a rather poorly hydrangea. . Then there is the other side of THE door to paint,( it will stay on the trestle till we return) the bathrooms to clean , towels to wash and hopefully dry outside before we pack the line away. After a large omelette lunch we shall go up to St Malo having found a hotel and somewhere we can eat this evening. The ferry is tomorrow. Its been a short busy visit and no time to go and see Roland, but not wise anyway with my throat infection which now seems to be gone. We will be back on the 30 th. Two really nice days are forecast, if we can park we may get a walk along the beach somewhere. Today, May 8 th is a holiday for VE day, and tomorrow is a holiday for Ascension Day so with sun and 26 degrees forecast its going to be very busy.

Have a good day all

[Sue]

I have now got over 4 years of a daily diary on here. I have never been a diary keeper but it would be interesting if I could extract it all to read as a single document.I don't suppose it is possible. I should have been keeping a daily copy elsewhere

[Stanley]

Morning Sue! Have a word with Ian, it's quite amazing what he can do!



Today I made the flywheel to fit the shaft I made yesterday afternoon. Then I did my measuring and sorting out for the cylinders and associated parts. Notice when boring the cylinders, I used the innate advantages of the vee block to ensure that the cylinders were bored parallel. Good progress and I deserve my breakfast!

[Stanley]

Back up after a good second sleep. Having a hot drink before veggie cooking. All is well so far!

[Stanley]

I've just sat down after finishing cooking, putting the pans away and cleaning the hob. Always nice to get it done for another week. Now all I have to do is wait for the Hermes courier....

[Stanley]

I shall be in the shed at 06:00 as usual working on my wobblers! We are making good progress and I shall have them ready for when Susan comes back to Barlick. She is going to Yiota's wedding in Bath in June and grand daughter Holly will be there with Evie the baby so Susan can give her the engine then.
All I have to do apart from that is remember to order my meat from Browns, all my cooking is done for this week. Come to think though, I fancy making another batch of savoury mince!

[Sue]

Morning

Just woken up at the hotel, its an early breakfast to get down to the port for the ferry but there is no rush as the roads will be very quiet being another holiday. It was a beautiful day yesterday and we hope for more of the same. Two black marks for the day yesterday though. Firstly a fly decided to land, squirm and die on my not quite dry paint on the door I painted in the morning so there will be some sanding and touching up to do and secondly the front door lock broke and it took Bob at least a couple of hours to fix it so that it would lock sufficiently before we left. It was already faulty and we have been trying to get a replacement for some time. However it was 6.30pm before we got to St Malo so no beach walk this trip.

Off to the shower. Have a good day all

[Stanley]

Well that's an early start Sue! I hope the day goes better for you than the fly and the lock! I am just about to go in the shed to attend to my wobblers as you eat your breakfast, Looks like light winds in the Channel so you should have a good crossing.....

[Stanley]

Work on the cylinders this morning. First I cut them down to the right overall length, 3/4". Then marked them for the central pivot stud that centres them on the top of the standard. This was where I hit trouble and made a cock-up of the drilling and tapping for the 5BA studs supplied. Lots of fun like dropping a stud and having to crawl on hands and knees to find it but in the end I discarded the 5BA studs and started again using 4BA studding. That meant enlarging the holes in the standards for the studs and that's where I ended up with the cylinders mounted and ready for further progress. Not a happy morning but I survived and the new studs will be OK. Now for breakfast!

[PanBiker]

Going to a theatre production tonight at the Unity Wellbeing Centre in Nelson, (formerly the ILP Institute). Townsend Theatre Productions will be performing "Behold Ye Ramblers" a new play by Neil Gore. Friends of Clarion and Pendle Radicals are jointly promoting the event. Should be a good night.

Townsend Theatre Productions - Behold Ye Ramblers

[Cathy]

Finally got the pluming fixed yesterday afternoon. Even tho it was the laundry that flooded, the problem was a blocked drain in the bathroom.
He also did the vanity taps, one was slowly dripping and he fixed the kitchen taps, one was noisy and shuddered .
Ah I do love a Tradesman. All good to go now

[Stanley]

Good to know you are sorted Cathy! Keep your fingers crossed now!
I shall be in the shed at 06:00 working on the wobblers.... Nothing pressing after that. I might even get round to fixing the back gate latch!