OneGuyFromBarlick

A lovely story! When we moved to this house we wanted our double bed upstairs in one of the dormer rooms. There was a suitable room downstairs but we'd both grown up with bedrooms upstairs and so it had to be that way. The removals men couldn't get it up the stairs even though the base could fold in half so we told them to leave it downstairs. I dismantled the base and cut the fabric so we could take up one half at a time. We slept in it for one night in the dormer room then decided it was too hot up there and we'd be better downstairs and we've been down there ever since. It's much cooler in summer!

Talking of heat, have you seen the news about the wildfires raging in New Zealand?
`Christchurch fires: Homes destroyed and residents evacuated' LINK
Such fires are becoming a serious danger worldwide and a recent `Costing the Earth' programme looked at the Fort McMurray fire in Canada last year. Climate change is increasing the effects and frequency of the fires. The Fort McMurray event was shocking as this summary of the programme shows:
"When wildfires engulfed the Canadian city of Fort McMurray last May 90,000 people were displaced and well over £2bn of damage was caused, making it one of the costliest natural disasters of all time. That fire proved to be just the start of a summer of flames that ripped through California, Greece and France. An area the size of India now burns every year and climate change is blamed for an increase in the length of the fire season across the boreal forests of North America. Tom Heap visits Fort McMurray to find out how a city could be so easily engulfed by fire and to meet the local scientists and firefighters working out fresh strategies to make sure it doesn't happen again."
The podcast is available here: LINK

I once saw a full-blown wildfire in the hills behind LA and have never forgotten it. A friend of mine, an architectural historian and photographer lived in the canyons and lost his house and all his archives. You don't recognise the scale of a personal disaster like that until you have seen it at first hand. It seems as though these incidences are getting more common and all I can say is thank God that it isn't a common occurrence in Barlick!!

There's nothing new under the sun...
`The corpse factory and the birth of fake news' LINK

The pound in your pocket. The new pound coin has had a lot of exposure today Pound. a lot of which has been posted before. A little summery of its dimensions is here..'The current £1 coin is 9.5g and the new £1 coin is lighter at 8.75g. The current £1 coin has an edge thickness of 3.15mm; the new £1 coin is thinner at 2.8mm. The current £1 coin is 22.5mm in diameter; the new £1 coin is wider - 23.43mm from point to point and 23.03mm edge to edge.'
I shall miss the old coin the old thickness of 3.15mm was equivalent to .125 inches. Pile eight on top of each other and you got an inch. At 28mm you need nine to make an inch. I suppose that is what you call inflation or is it devaluation?

I'm old enough to remember the old 'half-dollar' The Half-Crown which really was worth half a dollar as in those far off days $4 = £1. A satisfying coin.

Oz. News item today saying that more than 140,000 families (covering only 2 cities) have been 'cut off' from receiving childcare benefit for failing to vaccinate their children. You can't be a conscientious objector anymore - it's 'No jab, no pay'.
Good news for everyone.
(The average immunization rate across Australia is 92.2%).

Sounds like a sound idea Cathy. I have never been able to get my head round why any parents would bring children into the world and not wish to protect them from disease when the opportunity is there.

After a year of accident free motoring my renewal notice came through the post today, almost twice what I paid last year. Needless to say, I will be going elsewhere for insurance...

Stanley wrote:I'm old enough to remember the old 'half-dollar' The Half-Crown which really was worth half a dollar as in those far off days $4 = £1. A satisfying coin.

Also I remember calling five bob (shillings) a dollar - or occasionally an 'oxford' (scholar), in rhyming slang.
It must have been $4 to the £1 for a long time for that to have entered the language. I guess inflation was not high then - as evidenced that the meat ration during WW2 was measured in currency e.g. 6d worth of sausages etc.

In earlier days the actual British crown coin, the five shilling piece, had the nickname `dollar' so I suppose this would have led to the sum of 5s being called dollar even when the crown was no longer common currency. The word comes from the German word thaler.

Which derives from the name of the town of Joachimstahl. - I knew that knowing that fact would come in handy one day. I reckon I've saved it for 60 years.

Joachimstahler

We walked down our lane this afternoon to see why it's so quiet, no traffic (lovely!) and the cause of the diversion signs. Passing round a bend I saw temporary fencing in the road ahead and knew than that the cause was...me. At that point water has been flowing across the road surface for weeks now, no matter if the weather was wet or dry. When we had colder conditions it froze and the road was covered in black ice. There's no verge or paving, just a hedge bank on the side where the water comes from and the wall of an old cottage on the other side. So dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders and motorists and also threatening the cottage which doesn't have proper foundations and some cob wall. It looked as if the water was coming from the position of a Wessex Water Company stop tap so I emailed them and they responded quickly. There was no-one working there today but they've cut a square hole in the tarmac about 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep at one side of the lane. It's full to the brim with clear water which is overflowing and still crossing the lane. What surprised us is that there are two holes going sideways in line with the lane, one on either side at the bottom of the big square hole. They're circular in section and about a foot in diameter but there's no sign of any piping, just rubble surfaces inside. I hope we get an explanation - it's a wonder that it didn't become a small sink hole when a heavy lorry went over it.

Lovely David.......
Yet again I was struck by the fact that it isn't quantity that delights me in the shed, it's the quality of what is sat on the bench at closing time. Speed is no object and it's amazing how with patience stuff grows under your hands on the bench. Lovely. I'm sure it's good for me in so many ways......

Big Kev wrote:After a year of accident free motoring my renewal notice came through the post today, almost twice what I paid last year. Needless to say, I will be going elsewhere for insurance...

£5 less than last year, sorted...

Big Kev wrote:

Big Kev wrote:After a year of accident free motoring my renewal notice came through the post today, almost twice what I paid last year. Needless to say, I will be going elsewhere for insurance...

£5 less than last year, sorted...

Is that with a different insurer or did you look around then go back to your present insurer and tell them what you wanted to pay? It's a crazy world now where a company thinks it's normal to give you a massively hiked quote then you simply say "No, I want to pay £X" and they accept it.

Tizer wrote:

Big Kev wrote:

Big Kev wrote:After a year of accident free motoring my renewal notice came through the post today, almost twice what I paid last year. Needless to say, I will be going elsewhere for insurance...

£5 less than last year, sorted...

Is that with a different insurer or did you look around then go back to your present insurer and tell them what you wanted to pay? It's a crazy world now where a company thinks it's normal to give you a massively hiked quote then you simply say "No, I want to pay £X" and they accept it.

It's a different insurer, they couldn't get anywhere near it. They tried adding a £150 voluntary excess which put the premium up, I suggested they take a look at their underwriters...

I was with Hastings Direct, they quoted me £517. I am now with Aviva, £309. I could have paid an extra £36 to protect my NCD but a read of the small print put me off of that.

Like many other areas of modern business, insurance companies are heavily into maximising profit. I can't tell you how pleased I am that I was able to ditch car-driving, there is as yet no tax on shoe leather.

On catch up again after another busy patch, so a compendium...

Please can I second the vote of thanks for Stanley's moving story? (It moved me to laugh out loud at the outside staircase!)

Today's the day when LCC start work resurfacing the A56 at Foulridge... and also the day when Yorkshire Water are scheduled to close the back road to Barrowford to make a water connection... I'll just leave that there, apart from mentioning that the water connection is for the development at the old Barnoldswick Waterworks!



This is what attracted my attention yesterday...

Mick Walsh posted this lovely picture of Ouseldale (Clough Park) on facebook and that set me off reminiscing...

In the 1980's, when Silentnight suggested giving the former Clough Mill site at Ouseldale to the town, me and the first wife and young daughter checked out the area to look at the possibilities.

We thought it would be a good idea to have a path going through to Forty Steps. At the time, there was a fence across the dale which blocked our way from checking the route.

As we straddled the fence, Val on one side, me on the other, we felt the first of several stings from the wasp or bee's nest that we'd disturbed... I do now recall that they were definitely wasps...

Val ran off screaming in one direction whilst I scooped up Emma and legged it the other way!

Eventually, we got Pendle Council to back the scheme and Pendle Re-employment Project created the park that we have today.

They also dug out the culvert that runs under the old mill site from the clough to the other side of Walmsgate.

The properties at the bottom of Walmsgate were regularly flooding at the time; cause unknown.

It turned out that the culvert had been blocked for years and had silted up. PRP dug it all out and found that a dustbin had been washed down, blocking the watercourse.
We also installed the first trash screen to prevent this happening again... (by the by, the Environment Agency are carrying out work on the trash screen soon).

Val got the privilege of walking into the culvert when the work was complete (I must have been working and missed the event). Nowadays, going in there you'd need to abide by confined spaces regulations, so I think I've missed my chance of checking out the inside of the culvert myself...

I know, I've recounted these tales before on here...

What I want to know is whether there was any sign of a CI water pipe in the culvert..... I know in theory that there must be a connection into what was the Parrock but have never been able to find it.
I have always advocated opening out that culvert and creating a water park in Ouzledale as an amenity and also as the best way of enduring free passage of water.

The kindness of the winter. I can remember 1963 and even further back, 1947. We complain about the weather but in truth this winter has been incredibly kind to us. Could it be another record warm season?

It's nice to be back! You never miss the water 'til the well runs dry. It looks as though I have to learn to use the site all over again as we have moved to what Pluggy tells me is V 7. No matter, we will still get used to it. Now I have to catch up!

Great to have One Guy back up and running with nothing lost except links to the gallery. Well done to the bloke who has done all the work and to Pluggy for bearing the weight of responsibility! It's much appreciated.

Dead right Wendy and I should have said that earlier. All right there are problems at the moment but we know from experience that they all become clear as we persevere. By the way, I've found a little anonymous button in the gallery which gives you access to search and other functions. It's at the top of the categories on the right hand side.....

I've just checked the Defra website for the latest on bird flu and was delighted to see that poultry can be allowed out again after 28th February except in certain restricted zones and high risk areas. Disappointing to find when I checked the map that we are in a high risk area centred around Colne & Nelson. It must be because of the reservoirs and the risk from incoming wildfowl and waders.

Hard luck Wendy...... I feel sorry for your hens.....