Today I shall be Mainly...

[Big Kev]

Watching the sunset from The Atom, at Wycoller, just because I can.

Image taken with my Samsung J6, an old and obsolete smartphone according to my grandchildren.

[Sue]

Watching the sunset from The Atom, at Wycoller, just because I can.

Image taken with my Samsung J6, an old and obsolete smartphone according to my grandchildren.

Lovely photo , well done old Samsung J6

[PanBiker]

Excellent picture Kev.

[Stanley]

I'm with Ruby at my time of life, I've no time for anything rough!
In the shed rescuing my project after buggering the con rod yesterday. I shall measure several times today!
Apart from that dodging thunderstorms to get my walks in!

[Big Kev]

Excellent picture Kev.

Thanks Ian, the lens quality is pretty good for a phone.

[Big Kev]

Watching the sunset from The Atom, at Wycoller, just because I can.

Image taken with my Samsung J6, an old and obsolete smartphone according to my grandchildren.

Lovely photo , well done old Samsung J6

Thanks Sue, I was quietly impressed with what the phone was capable of.

[Sue]

Morning

Busy day today. We have to walk in to Rochdale this morning to bank the money from the park train rides at the weekend. This afternoon we are back to the park. I want to water the plants I put in on Sunday, Bob wants to hedge cut. I know rain is forecast but the local forecast is not the heavy rain forecast for Greater Manchester. If it does rain, so be it, if it doesn’t I would have wasted my efforts on Sunday.. i shall leave Bob at the park and drive over to pick up our prescriptions at the chemist, then go back to pick him up. I doubt I will have time to pickle my beetroot. The jars have been washed in the dishwasher overnight and the beetroot cooked but not peeled after our friends left yesterday, but I still have to make the pickling vinegar. I have pilates and yoga 5.15 till 7.30 pm so think I may be short of time , so tomorrow may be on the cards.

It was a good day yesterday, so nice to spend 2-3 hours chatting in the garden with our friends. We also started finalising our trip to France next week. It seems France may have its amber+ Removed next week so our costs are back to ok and no quarantine. Obviously this needs to be confirmed. We are still monitoring the covid case at the hamlet. So far all is well there.

Have a good day all

[Stanley]

Best of luck with the status in France Sue, things change so quickly! I think you may be right about the rain....I think the Met Office errs on the gloomy side after the lessons learned in 1987 when Michael Fish assured the nation rumours of a hurricane were exaggerated. In a way he was right, the wind wasn't a hurricane but 19 people died.
I've done my hour and a half in the shed and have to report a second failure, you'll have to go to shed matters to get the full miserable story.



Knocking off time, I am ready to start making the connecting rod. Not a wasted morning, all good experience!

[Sue]

Oh dear, I have directed Bob to shed matters , he will update me.

[Stanley]

[PanBiker]

Chief cook and bottle washer here with Sally and Ruby off Glamping. Not heard from them today but I got a photo via Whatsapp of the grandchildren toasting marshmallows over a fire pit last night at about 9.30pm. From that I will assume that the rookie camper Ruby may well have survived.

I may well have a bread baking session today.

[Big Kev]

Not heard from them today but I got a photo via Whatsapp of the grandchildren toasting marshmallows over a fire pit last night at about 9.30pm.

Simple pleasures, how lovely.

[PanBiker]

Indeed, thankfully our grandchildren can still, (just about) amuse themselves with a beck and a stick. Ruby has mentioned that she would like to go to Leeds shopping at some point.

[Stanley]

In the shed starting to make the connecting rod out of solid.... No rush and the next engine is sat on the bench waiting for me. The Stuart Number 8.



Any walks will be wet!

[Sue]

Morning

All jobs completed yesterday, even managed to pickle the beetroot. It didn’t particularly rain much till yesterday evening, no thunderstorm just a bout of rain. Not even excessively heavy. The rain is forecast again today. I might have guessed as I have a hair appointment this morning. It always rains then !

We sent for our testing kit for our return voyage from France. Only an antigen test is needed. It seems you can now take it with you, do the test over whats app and they will email the appropriate certificate. We do not now need a test to go to France even though we are booked for one on Monday morning. Bob is keen to have it done anyway for our own piece of mind. Even though its a lateral flow test its a more sensitive test than the one we do at home every week . We have not ordered the tests for day 2 and 8 after our return as rumour has it that France’s amber plus regulations will be dropped next week and we will only need the day day 2 test and no quarantine. We live in hope. Even then we can’t be sure it won’t change again .

So it seems we will go to France next Tuesday armed with several of our free boxes of lateral flow tests to monitor our state of health there. We are still also monitoring the covid infection in the hamlet. The boy should be over it now and we have not heard of anyone else catching it . I shall check again in a few days. Meanwhile this afternoon we shall start the big sort out of the pile of stuff waiting to go . We won’t get it all n the car this time as we don’t want to tempt fate for a big customs search of the car , Brexit wise. Not that we will have anything we shouldn't have but we want to see what the routine will now be. We would prefer a swift departure from the port in France

So thats our day, hair, rain, packing and oh yes pilates at 8.00 pm . I have other things to do, always lurking in the background if needs be. Have a good day all

[Stanley]

Morning Sue, I didn't realise France could be so imminent! Good luck with it and don't set off absolutely worn out!
I have just come out of the shed and will post a pic later. No surprises or shocks.....
Later, almost 8AM.



We're half way through the process of making a connecting rod.... No mistakes this morning.

[Sue]

Morning Sue, I didn't realise France could be so imminent!........

Tuesday’s ferry is one of the ferries we have had rebooked for some months. If we want to cancel and defer we had to do it by Friday. We have thus been monitoring everything very closely for some weeks and gathering all the needed paperwork together in case. I am afraid, thinking like Boris, if we leave it any later we may hit a new Winter crisis somewhat like Australia has done. So we have decided to go, fix what needs fixing ( hopefully nothing), see a few close friends and return home after two weeks. Any further visits will go through a similar rigorous assessment. We just feel we can’t really leave it any longer. There may be hornets and or wasps nests and all sorts in the eaves at this time of year. The wisteria needs cutting back and a check that there has been no roof damage from it.

[Stanley]

You've certainly done your homework Sue and that one about the possibility of a winter surge is canny. That is definitely a possibility.
Good luck with it and I hope there isn't too much to do.....

[Sue]

You've certainly done your homework Sue and that one about the possibility of a winter surge is canny. That is definitely a possibility.
Good luck with it and I hope there isn't too much to do.....

Endless daily homework Stanley. We keep checking and crosschecking. We get daily government updates and have to search the fine detail to see what has changed. Luckily the private testing agency in Rochdale is most helpful and on the ball, answering all my email questions within minutes of me asking them. Very very efficient indeed

[Stanley]

Nice to hear of something that works these days!
Looking at a cool wet day so shed for a couple of hours and catch as catch can with the exercise. It was dryer than forecast yesterday...

[Sue]

Morning

Cool wet day forecast. It looks like similar is hitting France later in the week and into next week. Hope it dries up for our visit, though so far they have had an unusually wet summer unlike us where it has been unusually dry and sunny. Todays temperature of 14 degrees is much more Rochdale's norm.

Bob is just making a cuppa whilst I write this then we shall be up and showered early this morning as the man from our CCTV is coming to set up my phone so that we can monitor any activity whilst we are away. When It was serviced a few weeks ago they had trouble setting up my phone which was new so a more senior person is coming today sometime after 8.00 am .

My trip to the hairdressers was successful and I am now a pleasing natural dove grey colour, gone was the awful blond stage that I had to go through...just not me. Mission accomplished, a new sophisticated look as i said on pilates last night, or you could say acting my age at last. After lunch we spent an hour sorting through our stuff to take to France. Not as much as we expected, but it has resided in a pile in the spare bedroom since our last intended trip, last July. The picnic bag, flask, plastic cutlery and boxes reminded us of our ‘ great escape’ last year, as these all need to be returned to their normal storage place in France. I downloaded an Amazon receipt for the new bird table we had bought just in case we have a Brexit check. We have a few new items but have removed packaging and in the case of the strimmer Bob has used it a couple of times. We are allowed to take in new items up to a certain value , but we are supposed to have proof of value.

This morning is pilates and this afternoon I think I may have time to make a pair of shorts. It was nice to see Deborah taking last nights pilates class, now fully recovered from covid. Later in the evening I had a message from my sister to say she too has had covid, and also double jabbed. She reported the same symptoms as Deborah ie fatigue, loss of sense of taste and smell and feeling like she had a really bad cold. It last about 4-5 days. Her symptoms materialised and a positive test obtained on the morning of the day of her best friends wedding, so of course she could not go. I did wonder if she caught it at the hen party the previous week though that seems too long ago I am beginning to think catching it is inevitable although unlike Jane we don’t work so don’t have to do wider mixing in the community.

Must drink my tea which has miraculously appeared on my bedside table . Have a good day all, stay dry. The garden is looking nice and wet and should need little watering whilst we are away . Our neighbour will water the greenhouse. We ate our first tomatoes yesterday. Very nice !

[Big Kev]

Bob is just making a cuppa whilst I write this then we shall be up and showered early this morning as the man from our CCTV is coming to set up my phone so that we can monitor any activity whilst we are away. When It was serviced a few weeks ago they had trouble setting up my phone which was new so a more senior person is coming today sometime after 8.00 am .

I was quite fortunate with the CCTV set up here, it just required the scanning of a couple of QR codes. One to get the app and one to link it to the system.

[Sue]

I was quite fortunate with the CCTV set up here, it just required the scanning of a couple of QR codes. One to get the app and one to link it to the system.

Similar here, but not by scanning QR codes but manually putting in the codes , worked on my old phone but for some reason not on my new, more expensive , more sophisticated phone! So they tried going back to basics and starting again. It still did not work. It seems the person who set up the system, and of course has now left the company, used a password he did not give us. I was not happy about that as I felt he could control our system. Hence big boss coming today to sort it out

[Sue]

Correction Kev, we couldn’t scan the QR code on my phone because it was blocked by a password we did not know. They are looking at the main box now and resetting the whole system. Apparently my phone has NO PERMISSION

[Stanley]

I'd be lost with it Sue....



This is my technical level. More progress in the shed and a lucky escape.