WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Tizer]

How quiet Burnley General hospital is on a Saturday....

When I took my Dad for a pre-op interview at Exeter hospital on a Friday afternoon it seemed empty when we came out at about 3.30pm. We hardly saw anyone as we walked down corridors trying to find our way out. A `ghost ship'.

[Stanley]

Ian, if you look back a couple of weeks or so I had the same problem with my annual appointment, the unique number I entered didn't work. However I was lucky and got an appointment very quickly on the phone. I rang complaints and perhaps that made a difference.
They also gave me ownership and the bill for a property in London... It took four weeks to get them to send me mail absolving me from any responsibility, again done through a complaint. Perhaps their system is overloaded.

[PanBiker]

No doubt about that Stanley they still haven't replied to my complaints about the erroneous energy usage figures in my gas and electric accounts. On a similar thing to "your" London property, My account sometimes resets to 3, Roberts Street, a property we bought for Sally's mum Louise when she first moved to Barlick. I set up the boiler maintenance account for her and it occasionally reappears on my BG account. She hasn't lived there for 8 years and the property has had more than one owner since! I have changed the info myself and rung them up numerous times in the past but the info is still reappears from time to time from some buried database field probably. I don't get bills for that so I'm not worried, it's just not right.

[Tizer]

It reminds me of our problems with the courier UPS who kept sending us bills after we'd retired and no longer used couriers. Multiple causes - failure to register all the times we'd told them to terminate our account (a common problem nowadays), presumably wrongly booking items to that account, and not checking whether the account was active. Companies are failing to reconcile data across their many databases and it means you can't get yourself deleted from their system. We're still getting post for Mrs Tiz's parents redirected from their old address to us even though we've told businesses several times that they've moved to a nursing home.

On a different note, you might have heard the news this morning about dredging rivers to minimise flood problems and assumed from what you heard that it's all going well. Here on the Somerset Levels the locals are annoyed because it's going only slowly, with about 10% of the work done so far that needs to be completed by end of September. If they don't get a move on it'll be far from finished when they have to stop for winter. They started late and seem to have under-estimated what's involved and how confounding factors can set them back. For example, there is Japanese knotweed on some of the banks of the River Parrett so they have to kill that before they can dredge those stretches.

[Stanley]

Nothing is simple.... They sold all the equipment, abolished the drainage authority and left it to get worse for almost 20 years if my information is correct. A big backlog!
The fact that I lost my shepherd's whistle which always sits in my right hand pocket! I have an el cheapo plastic one hung round my neck at the moment but would rather have the metal ones. Good old Acme have my order for three metal ones.....

[David Whipp]

If they're waiting to kill the Japanese Knotweed, it'll be a long time before they dredge.

I've thought it for a long while, but my attention was drawn yesterday to the continued tidiness of Greenberfield Farm.

Despite extensive building work (they're putting up a large new cow shed), the farm remains immaculately tidy. This is a stark contrast to the scrap heaps surrounding some other establishments. The Hartleys do a very good job.

Here's a picture from a couple of months ago.

[Thomo]

I believe that the original farmhouse is now an exclusive "let" but even so the Hartley's have always been good farmers. David you are right about the scrapyard appearance of some farms, there is a good example at the top of White Moor.

[Tizer]

I hope the new cow shed has a green roof and not one of the white ones that some farmers install here. The white roofs can be seen from miles away and are a blot on the landscape whereas the green roofs blend in well. I wish there was an obligation to fit the green roofs.

[PanBiker]

However it turns out, they have dug a very big hole on the ground to start with, quite a big plot as well when we walked past the other day.

[Stanley]

Tidy farms are such an asset! Simpson's at Bancrofts is another good example.
What grabbed my attention was a back storm. I could do without it at the moment!
Later, 06:00. Met a mate on my walk and got the latest rumour and gossip. Who knows, some of it might even be true! Wellhouse Springs are moving into the Skipton Road premises. Hartleys have bought the rest of the site for a new factory, word is that Morrison’s will build supermarket on the Coates site. 7 illegals found at Freddy's in the drugs raid. In one ear and out the other until there is evidence but isn't gossip and rumour interesting....
Question, why is it when your back is bad you keep dropping stuff on the floor?!
Oh, and one bright spot in my morning, when I put my waistcoat on I found my old metal shepherd's whistle in the pocket! I shall be whistle centre of the North when the Acme whistles arrive!

[David Whipp]

I can firm up some of your mate's gossip, Stanley.

Albert Hartley's are due to move into part of the Legget and Platt site (Wellhouse Mill); I think it's correct that the wire manufacturing and warehousing will occupy the newer buildings on the site of Wellhouse Mill.

There's a lot of activity behind the scenes with various consultants preparing detailed plans for a foodstore on part of the Crownest Mill site (which got outline permission a couple of years ago). I haven't seen Morrison's name on any documents. Part of the Crownest site won't be used by a foodstore nor by Hartleys under the current proposals.

Nothing illegal found at Freddys; as reported in the papers, the raid was one of several carried out across Lancashire and beyond leading to the arrest of (I think) 7 people at other locations.

So, as far as I know, there's a nugget of truth in some of what you've heard.

(Personally, I miss Gladys Mary, who always had the most up to date and accurate information about anything happening in Barlick. A very bright and perceptive lady.)

[Stanley]

Didn't she always call her dog the same name? (and used multiple leads....)

[David Whipp]

When I lived on Fountain Street, Gladys sometimes called round at tea time after buying fish and chips from the Rainhall Road chippy. She'd sit herself down at our dining table on a bench seat I'd made with integrated storage beneath.

Sometime after a visit from Gladys, we thought the house smelt a little higher than usual. Thorough investigation revealed a wrapping of newspaper with a half eaten fish stuffed in the bench seat...

[Stanley]

Did you ever hear the no doubt apocryphal story about the divorced wife leaving the family home? She is said to have filled the hollow curtain poles with frozen prawns..... Another version has her spreading grass seed on the carpet and watering it....

[Stanley]

A current pic of our MP in the BET. His tailor must be doing well and Mr Stephenson evidently has no need to use a food bank, he's getting quite chubby!
How many things have to be done to set my world in order before today's adventure!
The fact that the nurse at the hospital said that eye patches were a source of possible infection and should not be used. Directly opposite to what the surgeon said.... Ah well, safer to ditch it!
The PE cover cartoon, "Should I keep the engines running?" gets a mention on Today in the report on the unfortunate demise of our World Cup hopes.... From what I hear, Suarez beat Roony, is it really as simple as that? Does it all depend on personalities?

[Thomo]

Given that Gisburn Road has a high volume of traffic, most of which is fast moving, there have been two incidents in the past week that did not result in a serious traffic accident involving injury or loss of life, just damage to property. Last week a car failed to stop when exiting Edmondson Street, crossed Gisburn Road, somehow managed to miss the lamp post, telephone box, mail box and concrete bollards and demolished the front of a shop that is set well back without either hitting anyone or being "T" boned. Yesterday afternoon a runaway UAV crossed the road and demolished the entire garden wall of a house on Westfield Terrace. Only a rare piece of luck on both occasions prevented disaster.

[Cathy]

David, ahh Fountain Street! Myself and Marilyn were both born at number 16 (and two others). I remember it being quite steep.

[David Whipp]

Referring to the last two posts, Fountain Street not very steep unless you're a tiny tot... unlike Gisburn Street where I moved after Fountain Street, where there's a steep slope down onto Gisburn Road.

We lived on the crest of the hill facing Bolland Street to the front, with the allotments and Stocks Beck to the rear. It must have one of the most open views of a terraced house in Barlick. The front pavement had (and still has) stone flags with a lovely big one right outside our front door.

Apart from when there was a service at St Joseph's, there was always ample parking either right outside the house or on Bolland Street at the gable end of the church.

One day, there was a knock at the door. As I listened to the visitor, I noticed the car wasn't where I'd parked it... just as I registered they were asking if that was my car down the hill, against the wall on the opposite side of the street...!

I mustn't have put the handbrake on properly. Luckily, it had steered itself across Gisburn Street instead of shooting out across the busy main road, as is the case with the two recent incidents mentioned by Thomo.

[Pluggy]

You can't beat Queen street for steep (although it doesn't really have a road down it)....

Cavendish Street is steep enough, A run away car down there would probably flatten the garages next to John Street

Fountain Street isn't even interesting freewheeling on a bike down.

[Stanley]

How long a night can be.... I remember Eileen saying posture was a bummer after she had her retina done...

[David Whipp]

Hope you don't mind Stanley, but I noticed you'd uploaded a post op picture in the gallery.



Here's hoping for a swift recovery.

[Cathy]

Fountain Street isn't even interesting freewheeling on a bike down.[/quote]
Thanks Pluggy... I remember as a 6yr old i accidently let (?) my bigger sisters skooter go flying down Fountain St, it wasn't a pretty sight when it crashed at the end, and I was in big trouble. It was steep to me.

[PanBiker]

Some time ago in another thread I was asked if there was a way of tracking Doc when he sets off on his maritime quest. I came across this on the Burnley and Pendle Facebook site. Not looked into it fully but looks to have potential. Of course Doc may not want to be stalked!

Live Ships Map

[PanBiker]

Gobsmacked! I ordered a couple of perspex sheets yesterday for my current Amateur Radio construction project. I ordered from a firm in Essex round about tea time last night. I went with that particular supplier as they offered free postage, projected delivery date of 25th June. Postman has just delivered, 21 hours from when I placed the order!

[Thomo]

Much like flightradar2 only Maritime!