Today I shall be Mainly...

[Big Kev]

Made it to Dartford today DBA2EF18-4971-4B41-8990-9B5DD3C00DFA.png

I used to work in Dartford, very close to where you ended up. West Hill Hospital (opposite end of town to East Hill funnily enough).

Bob used to work near Dartford, he worked at the technical services at the old Littlebrook power station for 18 months .

Wow, it's s a small world, I was based next to Littlebrook Power Station when I worked for National Grid, late 1990s.

[Stanley]

I was the first wagon through the tunnel when I delivered steel for both North and South ventilating plants. Do I qualify for this conversation?
Today I shall be making a new eccentric, another of the faults I have found with Margaret's engine. I must have been having a bad day when I did all this sloppy work! Serves me right.....
Apart from that having a walk later.
Love that pic of the tree Kev. I think you got that one about right!

[Marilyn]

Hubby and I trimmed our Agapanthus plants this morning, the dead heads filled the Green Bin. That gets collected tomorrow. Looks nice and tidy out the back now.
A long walk was had as well. We bought a carpet cleaning machine, so had to watch a YouTube video on how to work it. The small instructional booklet was totally useless. We have a much better understanding of how to work it now

[Sue]

Morning

I gather its due to rain most of the day with a small window early afternoon. We shall use this small window to walk to the post office as we have a letter to post to our neighbours in France. We like to keep in touch as they are voluntarily doing so much to look after the house. The post office we use is about a mile and a quarter away but it is a spacious shop , light and airy and plenty of room to queue without getting near anyone. We shall then do a round trip via Woodland Road through Turner Brothers and up to Dell road. Its just over 3 miles the round trip and a good excuse to try our new walking boots. I hope the path isn’t too flooded.

Yesterdays walk along the old railway bridle path resulted in a deviation because the path was extensively flooded at the bridge under the main road. We thus made a detour, and feeling adventurous wandered in a couple of directions before planning a new route entirely. This resulted in a 5 mile plus walk along cobbled wooded paths, tarmac roads and ancient very very muddy tracks . There was one very steep climb which resulted in both of us panting somewhat. As I said yesterday I logged our mileage into our virtual walk to Paris, so we are now in the centre of Dartford. Perhaps our short walk today will take us to the new shopping complex there.. By the way Kev, Bob was there in 1995-6. He was involved in making equipment to take samples from the reactor at Trawsfynnyd power station .

So what have I today, well this morning I have a pilates session at 10.00 followed by a slow relaxing yoga session 11.15 till 12. Then it will be an early lunch so we can walk in that dry window. I have little else planned. I am hoping the backing paper for my whale applique arrives. I had to reorder as the last package seems to have gone missing. If not then the I feel the next chapter and assessment of the Introduction to the Celts is called for.

Have a good day all.

[Stanley]

As usual you have it planned out. This afternoon could be quite good, it's tomorrow and Wednesday that are going to be a bugger. They still have the amber warnings in place and we are right in middle of the area.



I want the new eccentric to be dead accurate so I stopped early as I had got my stock too hot to get a good measurement off it. No rush, it can cool off until tomorrow.

[Big Kev]

Love that pic of the tree Kev. I think you got that one about right!

Thank you. It's a very photogenic tree, it was just point and shoot with my phone. I will be going back with the DSLR when the sun is out

[Wendyf]

I've been out to collect a prescription for Colin from Colne and bought 6 bales of shavings from the mill at Laneshawbridge. Next job....

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[Stanley]

Exhausting just looking at those bales.... How times change. My next job is to have a short walk round the Green.

[PanBiker]

Trying a different method with my hand baking:

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

While it is rising I will take a trip round to the post box with my poo stick. As mentioned elsewhere in the medical thread the new testing kit for the bowel screening program is a lot easier than the old one.

[Sue]

3 miles today, we areVIRTUALLY at Aldi opposite Tilbury docks t

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[Marilyn]

How does it work Sue? ( you have an Ap, take your phone for a local walk, and it transfers your distance to the virtual walk?)
Is this a free thing?

Hubby had a text from our neighbour sometime overnight to say they have had to rush off unexpectedly as his father has died...could we do the bins, collect the paper and keep an eye on their place? ( no problem!) the only thing we can’t do is collect the mail as they didn’t want to wake us to drop off the key to their letterbox.
( we knew his father was elderly and had been in poor health for some time, plus had Alzheimer’s). Very sad all the same.

[Stanley]

Margaret's eccentric, surgery for diabetes tests at 10:00, veggie shopping on the way home and then a late second sleep. That'll take care of the first half of the day.

[chinatyke]

Margaret's eccentric...

We're all a bit odd!

[Stanley]

Yes but we work, this eccentric doesn't do it's job and so has to be addressed.
Then there is the small matter of storm Christoph. (LINK)
( In case you can't open that China we are forecast to have two days of very heavy rain and there is a danger of flooding in low lying areas.)

[Sue]

How does it work Sue? ( you have an Ap, take your phone for a local walk, and it transfers your distance to the virtual walk?)
Is this a free thing?

Hubby had a text from our neighbour sometime overnight to say they have had to rush off unexpectedly as his father has died...could we do the bins, collect the paper and keep an eye on their place? ( no problem!) the only thing we can’t do is collect the mail as they didn’t want to wake us to drop off the key to their letterbox.
( we knew his father was elderly and had been in poor health for some time, plus had Alzheimer’s). Very sad all the same.

Our site is free. There are many sites,, some you pay and receive all sorts of certificates and medals of achievement but we are not interested. You download the app and register. You choose a walk and there are many all over the world so its actually a good way of sightseeing. The route has several places of note and when you arrive at those places there is information to read about the place . Our first place is Canterbury. You count your steps or measure the mileage in what ever way you want. I have another app called footsteps which I have used for a few years now so when we get back from our walk I trace our route on that to get the distance. Those are the images of routes I sometimes put up. There are too many hills round here obscuring reception to use an app that tracks your walk as you do it. We tried it and found we were always a couple of miles out due to loss of reception. You log your distance into the world walking app, and then add whatever number of those you wish to the walk or walks you are doing. You can run or cycle it does not matter.

Having entered your miles on your walk , you can zoom in on the map to see where you are. Once I managed to get street view but don’t know how I did it, so now I just put the address in google earth to see the street view. Its just bit of fun, but does give you a bit of incentive. I know people who are being sponsored for charity fund raising on different .

Bob chose the route but I think it would have been interesting to chose somewhere in a country we do not know or would never visit.

[Sue]

Morning

There won’ t be any walking today, its heavy rain all day. Yesterday we did our round trip to the postoffice, just over the three mikes and having logged it on our virtual walk we were surprised we were nearly in Gravesend. Only another 60 miles to Dover, thats rather a lot of walks for the winter, especially as the choice reduces by the day with footpaths and fields flooding. Hard paths are so tiring to walk on. Anyway our short walk yesterday gave our new boots a trial run. Mine have quite a different feel to them being higher at the ankle and more rolling on the sole. I was delighted to see Karrimor boots are made in the UK. They were in the online sale at a very healthy reduction in price.

As well as the walk and pilates etc, we completed another section of the jigsaw and I started my second Celts assessment. Its looking very interesting. It will be more of the same today plus a double pilates and yoga session this evening. Otherwise I may have a play with my new art medium BRUSHO, powdered dyes that can be used to creat a variety of effects on watercolour paper. The backing paper for my whale applique has still not arrived so there will be no sewing of the table runner.

Have a good day all, stay safe, stay dry

[Stanley]

The rain hasn't stopped here Sue.... I have had over two hours in the shed being very careful and dealing with a broken cutter and a jam up but all is well, I have got through the morning.



Here I am at knocking off time, I shall finish cutting off the stock with the hacksaw and then face the end. We then need a set screw, an assembly and a test..... All goodies in store.

[Wendyf]

We are heading for the Cancer Care mobile unit in Morrison's car park to get Col's line flushed, hoping Carleton is still passable....

[PanBiker]

Best of luck with that Wendy, the ramper is a given for flooding with heavy rain.

[PanBiker]

There are too many hills round here obscuring reception to use an app that tracks your walk as you do it. We tried it and found we were always a couple of miles out due to loss of reception.

Do you not get a signal from GPS round your way Sue? I have never experienced loss of signal on any of the the hill and valley walks I have ever done. Different matter if you are relying on the terrestrial mobile mast network of course. Check if your mobile can use both GPS and the GLONASS satellites and enable both on your phone if it has the facility. There are a lot more Russian satellites up there than the US GPS network.

[Wendyf]

Best of luck with that Wendy, the ramper is a given for flooding with heavy rain.

There and back ok Ian, I checked first. The water level is still OK but rising fast. Ramper goes quickly once they open the sluices.

[Sue]

There are too many hills round here obscuring reception to use an app that tracks your walk as you do it. We tried it and found we were always a couple of miles out due to loss of reception.

Do you not get a signal from GPS round your way Sue? I have never experienced loss of signal on any of the the hill and valley walks I have ever done. Different matter if you are relying on the terrestrial mobile mast network of course. Check if your mobile can use both GPS and the GLONASS satellites and enable both on your phone if it has the facility. There are a lot more Russian satellites up there than the US GPS network.

I used an app, map my hike, that was when we lost the signal so I just found an alternative, FOOTPATH. Which is rather good as it shows all the paths and tracks across tge moors and you can look at it in several formats. Yes we get GPS thats what we used on Sunday when we had to keep deviating, but it doesn’t track your total mileage does it and how far you have climbed . I rather like the maps we can get from footpath , showing ascent etc .

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[Stanley]

Glad you had an uneventful trip Wendy, but sorry for Col's sake you had to do it!
My medical adventures were on a far lower and different scale. My trip to the surgery for bloods was good and all the tests were fine. The lady told me I am under active consideration for a vaccination as we speak. She says that she is sure the ladies arranging it know my circumstances but she'll have a word with them anyway.
I came back via Town Square and did essential shopping for TCP and Cod Liver Oil followed by veggie shopping, then back home and a late second sleep. I have just got up and will do some cooking now.Thank God Barlick is largely free of flood threat being on the watershed. It must be a bugger living somewhere like Hebden Bridge.

[Marilyn]

Mr Febby cleaned the carpet in our extremely large lounge room. The carpet came up a treat.

Hoping to get out for a walk later as it is a beautiful sunny day, but we can’t go just now as all doors and windows are open whilst the carpet dries.

[Stanley]

Today looks like a quiet day. No shopping needed, no social or medical appointments and a clear task in the shed. Lovely, just how I like it.