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Jan 31, 2024 10:02:05 GMT
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The other factor must be the solar, If you can use free solar to warm it up during the day and it stays warm with the new insulation surely this will help? looks like they have done a neat job, Those push fit copper fittings are good, I've used a few recently much quicker and easier than soldering especialy if you have a wet system . the copper fitting are crimped with a 1000 pound crimping tool apparently . my solar power per january day is ... considering the very shallow angle of the barn roof , that's better than i expected .
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i agree with all the above , time will tell how viable it is .i do have a back up plan .
it is very noticeable that if i get the hs to 15c then turn it all off at 630 pm , with the open fire going the house stays warmer for far longer now the walls are insulated .
decorators coming today apparently !
had a 300 to 700 watt drain all night ,turned off the the pump, although it was not running ,just in case , and the fridge and freezer , but still there , i wonder if theres a cold weather heater on the panel inverter ? i will try to track it down .
RR
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Jan 30, 2024 19:50:51 GMT
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Interesting stuff on the heat pump, I've been reading around these recently with a view to getting one in the future. There is an argument that it's more efficient to leave it running constantly (at a lower temperature when you don't need/want it) so the heat retains in the thermal mass of the building, which there should be plenty of given the construction. Does the system have weather compensation? yes steve , ranging from 50 c at -10 to 32c at 25c i think it is .
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Jan 30, 2024 13:49:06 GMT
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I don't know what you use for wood splitting Robert, but I've got one like this and combined with a good sledgehammer it will split just about anything. i use this mark ,
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Jan 30, 2024 10:29:21 GMT
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MMMMMMM Crunchy icing ,darn, now i want another cake ! so..... continued mayhem here ,had the insulators here on monday , they finished plastering ,very very smooth . And also the attic insulation person , who i will admit created a bit of mayhem heaving boxes around the attic , and breaking a few things , and then putting boxes down on the new insulation telling me it was ok to crush it , and it still works fine , of course now all the load was on the new insulation it wasn't all bearing on the rafters , and pushed down between the rafters so open up the cracks in the landing ceiling .. not so impressed . i mentioned it to the plumbers who came the next day , and a lot of eye rolling and yup hes like that took place , and i should mention it to the decorators and they'de smooth it . so yes , the plumbers came on tuesday , and now i have a new heating system , i was quite lucky , some of the plumbers had real pride in thier work and it showed .. some really nice detailed work , also they were co operative to work with me and my ideas , like for instance they were going to run pipes along the kitchen cieling , along from where that new plastering is , and i said how about we used the pipes in the box on the other side of the wall , and then drill through wall above rad ,they said those pipes maybe tee'd off , so off i go get the compressor we pump the pipes and theres no T , so they can be used .. and so we have a nice clean kitchen ceiling .. little details . of course the internal tank and pump flux capacitor cabinet had to go somewhere , so i evacuated the pantry of its mass of cupboards .. in the end i took out 4 wall cabinets , ikea , and a tall tower , and one worktop cabinet , and the work top , so just the washing machine in there , then the behemoth could go in .. its all gone a bit Enterprise/Poseidon in there ,,,nice . old rads all hoofed out , wont miss those ! one slight problem caused by the wall insulators was they left this T into the sink and bath drain horizontal , so it flooded the floor , but i managed to chisel the beam above it enough to angle it up a few degrees , and that fixed it ...then bought a proper plug for it on the wednesday . another really odd thing was , my two sets of screwfix tank insulation , i put on , you know ,,the red ones , just disappeared .....poof...gone ! very odd . So you may ask ...whats it like having a heat pump robert ? well it was a bit of a shock .normally i use 4-6 units a day , my first day with the new system was 19 units !! which instead of say 5 x 30 pence 1.50 a day ....is 5.70 a day . my reaction was despondant , as i saw this as unusable . hs temperature was 14c-16c , and water temp at 50c. however , if yuo look at the next day, the 25th , i use about 6 units !! whats..going..on..! well whats going on is , 24th , all rads were on , system totally cold , no sun for panel power , and hot bath initiated all three 3kw water heters to kick in . so 25th i turned off hot water , shut down unused rooms , and also had some sun . 26th, bath day again , turned on hot water,and left it on during bath , again a high reading , so next bath day , yesterday ,i followed a new method , i left the 500 watt water heater on all the time , then 45 mins of main water heating just before bath ,then switched it off again . this worked well , and would have been better if i had not had a laundry the same day . bear in mind , i am not now burning 4.5 litres of heating oil a day , at 60-80 pence per litre , not using the 3kw immersion heater for 45 mins on bath day , and not using the ryburn water pump all day . on the other hand , if i ws using this new system to keep the hs at 20 c , and water at 60c all day, the cost would be truly horrific . maybe the summer panel revenue will balance it out ? who knows , voyage of discovery, as usual . in other news , got on with the astra a bit .. all fully mounted , and pipes connected , i just have the very awkward safety condom to fit once i have checked for leaks . one the pantry was finished i could reconstruct the worktop in there ,and re fit a cabinet .. firstly i scraped the worktop of years of scum .. then cut round the pipes . fitted in nicely .. i found this... sadly missnamed , since it is not nice on the tongue.... AT ALL ! so i tried it on the wood instead.. noice , i think with the panelling in white ,that will be fine . oh yes put up a shelf as you can see . what else ,oh yes , chopped up some of the big bits of ash , so much easier thn fruit wood .. since i only have one room that is usable until the decorators come .. i am using the big fire every night , and its working well . i cannot remember whether i already showed you all this , but i am so proud of it here it is again ....maybe ... a rock i hit once wit the tip of the pick axe , just split perfectly down the middle , lovely colours inside .. so thats my fun so far this last week or so.. i'll leave with gabby doing her 'will i fit' in here game .. regards robert
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Last Edit: Jan 30, 2024 10:32:41 GMT by ivanhoew
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Jan 23, 2024 11:46:20 GMT
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i so know that feeling Alex , absolutely brilliant triumph of determination and intelligence .
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good point chaps , one of the eco4 things they will do is fit ventilation nodules in every window and around the house to allow permanent venting in a controlled way , apparently this is part of the overall design .
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Jan 21, 2024 11:34:10 GMT
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GOOD morning companions , ONCE again time has flown by ,with ,actually,a fair bit going on . lets have a look at the pictures what i took .. oh yes ... i had just bolted down the vice , and made bits , then that evening it was pretty blimmen cold , and gabby decided to practice for her "longest cat in the world" (under 3 years old class) competition . ..... i think she may be in with a shout ? now one of the problems with it being minus 273 kelvin , is i have to turn the well water pump off ,due to the fact the black plastic pipe with the check valve in it , where the old lister pump used to sit , freezes rock hard , and i don't think the new pump in the well will react happily to no flow for 10 minutes . the reservoir is quite big , i guess 6x4x6 , but unfortunately after a few days it ran out , luckily it had warmed up a bit so i ran the pump for an hour and drained about 6 ft out of the well , but still not enough pressure to fill the cold water tank for the hot water feed in the attic . i was bemused by this , i thought , hmmm we have a full reservoir, why is the pressure low ? luckily mr tvr popped round , and with him up at the reservoir , i could blow compressed air into the hose pipe and see if i could clear any debris in the pipe , i did not do much, but he said a few bubbles appeared ,this encouraged me to go to the 1.5" cast iron pipe the hose is connected to , take off the hose fitting , and open up the big tap . IT flowed reasonably for a few seconds , then went phuut PHUUT a few times , then a bit of brown muddy water came out , then a few more phuts ,then much better flow, and after shutting it off and running indoors i heard the tank filling in the attic with gusto ! problem solved . my theory is , there's a 90 metre long tube , with water at top and bottom and big load of air in the middle , it then acts like a brake pipe with no real pressure at the caliper until all the air is out , not to mention the weight of 90 metres of pipe water is not there either . ONE interesting discovery during this drama was that gabby , far from being the pretty little airhead i thought she was , in exactly 5 seconds worked out how the get up the stepladder into the attic .. and then got back down again ,after a cobweb check .. i came over all proud parenty for my little Mensacat SO , back to the astra , i welded and hammered the patches , made the end piece , and then started to make the vertical plate to cover the end wall of the wheel well .. i looked at this after cutting it out , and realised i had created a 7th dynasty Klingon Bat'leth . obviously it's much cruder than the later more evolved designs .. there's one from the 47th dynasty , or "Sea of Blood " period , as it was known . luckily i have a Klingon 'Blood cousin' , i had swapped blood oath with many years ago during the battle trials on Rigel Seven , he having nicked my ear lobe with his Bat'leth , and me having managed to kick with maximum force in his Orbs D'amour , or, in Klingon , his "PTACH BAH NFFFRARGH" obviously this created a lasting bond of brotherhood , as i mopped up the ear blood, and he adopted the fetal position ,we swore eternal blood bond , and so it shall be . ANYRDUP , i digress. I thought i'd send him an interspacial communication , or 'Interkling' to see what he thought of the design .... his reply , after seeing the thing , was, "BHOK NAR CHRESP CHUK NAG NOR KAK" Which,roughly translated ,means , "May you grandmothers eyes feast the ravens of your ineptitude" i thought this was fair . I welded it all in and seam sealed and painted it all too .. NOW,IN other news , wednesday morning i was rudely awakened by a car plunking down the drive , i staggered downstairs in my old mans dressing gown of purest dark blue towelling , and said to the chap at the door "did i forget an appointment" in my gentlest manner . it transpired he was here to do the internal wall insulation , and two big vans were about to arrive with the rest of the team ! i pointed out that i had no idea of this , and i had not cleared out all the georgian cupboard ,window surround ,and other period features ,i was going to do beforehand . a flurry of phone calls later , and chats with builders , we concluded they would start with the top of the house and i would get going and start on the old bits to save . i had enormous fun trying the find all the hidden filled in screw heads i had put the giant window frame together with ,using a tiny screwdriver to chisel out the filler , so the cordless drill could then undo them,but i got that done , then started taking apart the very old original cupboard in the corner .. as you can see , just as i removed the frame ,all in one piece i am very happy to report , the entire mass of two inch thick lime plaster decided to fall off the wall on top of me . So i thought hey , if i remove all of it , then the insulation with take up less room ! er ,well , that turned out to be 10 bags of lime to clear up ,,,60 lb bags , so 600 lbs of lime to drag out . next day i then did the same to the area around the front door too , so another 300 lbs of baggage to drag out .. boy oh boy that plaster was thick ...THICK ! while not doing that i had fun removing the built in book case , any furniture that wes in the way , pipes is the bathroom , you name it i was running around doing it . Then thursday afternoon , i get a call from the organiser in charge , "oh robert" , she says ,,brightly , "the cavity wall injection people are coming at 5"...."Er what , 5 pm today" , "yes" ,she chirps beguilingly .... "is that ok ?" she solicits ...."yes fine no problemo" i say .....teeth may have been gritted , a bit like the roads here. so down come a blimmen great 7.5 tonner , blocking the drive , at 5pm , the night is pitch black ,and minus 2c , and then ensues a game of farm tetris to get the builders car out , and van back in . Mission accomplished the injectors get cracking , and decide there's a solid section where the chimney breast is.... i point out, no , i have had a camera in there and its a continuous cavity . they drill a hole and find that lo it is so , and haul out their equipment .a few holes get blocked inside , and they start injecting their tiny polystyrene balls and pva into the cavity , every now and then i point out holes its coming through inside ,and they point those up , and carry on , they then start pointing bits on the outside where its coming out too . i realise its perfect weather for polystyrene balls..since IT'S now -2.7c. they have to use a big blow torch to stop the injector freezing up , while up a ladder 30 ft in the air , the chap is using a v heavy gear drive hilti hammer drill with one hand boring holes in and putting the injector in , i'm standing on the ladder foot to stop it sliding away , and the other bloke is pointing away for all hes worth . its very dark and we have two 60 watt light bulbs and a head torch or two .luckily the chaps find out a battery led small light that sits on the oil tank and helps a lot . we get to 7:30pm and they are off up the drive , and i can get some supper .VERY COLD. so far so good .. several rooms are now done by mid friday .. and i did get my tank in place and start making feet for it .. next week i have the walls chaps back ,and, at some point , the decorator , the carpenter ,electrician , the loft insulator ,and maybe even the entire air source heat pump crew in , so that should be CHAOS .... turned out the email to me warning me of all this was sent to another robert by mistake . I'm finding myself waking up at 2 am , and then fretting , but soon it will all be over and i can get my house back . i know its unlikely , but just in case anyone is drooling over the chance to make dire warnings about all the things being done ruining the house , and it turning into a tepid tea bag of a damp nightmare ....SHTOP ! i am well aware . time will tell if it works or not , and if not i can fix stuff . the only way you get to qualify for this program is if you have the whole package , its called the kardashian approach protocol. hasta luigi .. regards robert
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Last Edit: Jan 21, 2024 11:53:25 GMT by ivanhoew
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my father put the h120 engine , with twin webbers, in his sunbeam alpine , and it pulled 6500 in 4th overdrive ,which at the time felt pretty fast ...stonker of an engine .
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Jan 10, 2024 20:08:39 GMT
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Well, brace yourselves for an enormous emotional and mental adjustment.. , yup... the space time rubber sheet of continuumniunnum has a steel ball on it , and all that you know and trust to be reality will be warped almost as much as a book on ethics co authored by trump and his russian friend. . yes its true , i'm doing car stuff !!! ok ok , not that exciting really , its welding and big tank time on the astra . my plan was to put the big 95 litre tank in where the 42 litre one was , but now i have decided to put it on the deck , leave the wheel well empty , and then i have the option of putting the tank back in the well if i find that 76 litres (95-20%) is not enough . first i wanted to weld up the perforation fest that is the well ,see.. basically all the drain plug areas are eaten away , so i have, as you can see, cut off the rusty bits , then the only metal i could find locally was 2mm thick stuff , so i have cut out the patches .. Howevahh ... i also found a goodly amount of rusty disconnect from the back edge of the well to the rear of the car , so cut out that area too , and made a plate which i bent over the edge of the bench to fit . it needed folding over a bit to meet the well floor , and it was too thick to do without it being held , so i broke out the big vice , and bolted it back down on the bench , then i could use the 32 ounce hammer to welt it over a bit .. here's a clearer pic of the fold i made in it .. hopefully i will be able to weld it all together tomorrow , then prime, seal, and paint it, and start to work on making the tank mounts and plumbing it in , good thing is there's about half a tank of gas in the big tank . regards robert
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Last Edit: Jan 10, 2024 20:12:29 GMT by ivanhoew
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Happy New Year mate, I've said many times previously, I love your writings, and the cake looked stunning, just hope it tasted as well for you, Nigel interestingly enough Nigel , it was a bit bitter on the first taste , but it then got sweeter and now its a transcendental icing, marzipan, and cake, trilogy of heavenly delight . darn it , i only have a 1/4 left !
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that is excellent i agree reminds me of when i first started the temptress and totally coincidentally a friend drove past shouting "its alive !"
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For the last 18 months I've been happily following in awe at your Fun on the Farm. But I'm not sure how to feel about the Panettone, hopefully the next update of mud, rivers and cold should have things back on track. I assume Robert has two Strings (circuits/branches/) of solar panels. The two green lines indicate the energy they have generated throughout the day, with the blue being the total energy generated at any point. But I could be wrong, normally when graphs are involved I miss something obvious. exactly that , my panels are on quite a shallow angle so will be better the higher in the sky the sun is , but its exciting to actually be able to see how much leccy is coming down the line . there are 15 410 w panels so a string of 8 and one of 7 . it is cold in here right now , prob about 14c . i was out and came back too late to bother making a fire .brrr. battery voltage is 104v , so whats that about 4 to 5 24v volt batteries in a row ,i'll start searching lol. regars robert
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Thank you for the nice comments chaps , and DR , you have reminded me of my favorite 'Allo allo' , quote ever , where rRene asks Maria to meet him in the cellar , and she goes.... "Bhuuut , Rrrennee , ah ahlwayyz ghett dhurteee in zee zelllaarrr ! " and he say's... "Aye Knoooww Marie , aye knowww. " with a smirk .. BEST LINE EVER Well, its minus god knows what centrigrade outside , so i had better get reporting , having been a fopping pantywaister on the updates front and no mistake . where were we ? oh yes , christmas meal report was last of my piffling drivel , so what did i do after ? , pffft , no idea .... lets look at some pics to see .. oh yes...... maintaining my customary standard of pictures that look like they've been taken through a brown bottle at night , in the dark , with a dernier 10 sheer silk stocking over the lens (left by one of the 'convent of the dissolute abbess' girls) here's my newly dug out area for where i back the mini in to get into the barn ,,so its less muddy on its wickle tyres .. as i suspished , there's concrete under that grass , i do look forward to when the ground is firmer and i can bring the digger down for a scrape . speaking of which , for a good 5 days there was an absolute water fall , you could hear from the house, running down those steps . according to people who have lived here for 45 years , its never been this wet , and water is coming out of the ground in places they have never seen , i said probably my fault , all my life wherever i go , unusual amounts of wetness occur ....they, didn't, laugh . i also have to announce , my cat 5 cable is in the duct !( i can't remember if i already said that but hey , ageing , i'm embracing it ) i gave myself a fast track tutorial on fixing on the cat 5 connectors ,oh that was fun , but went well ...and i whopped that old bt home hub into the playbarn and we had connection ,i did a speed check .. couldn't believe my eyes , so did another one .. WELL ! i did check to see if the cable was glowing , and looked for a line of steam rising out of the Mariana trench , but no , all was cool , bearing in mind my best speed at my old house ws about 7 mb . i was impressed . i went and had a lie down. Now started the fun game of trying to get the inverter dongle to talk to the app on my phone ... i quickly realised my i phone 6 was not going to cut it, app wise , so found a SE 2020 for 70 quid, locally , and spudded off and got that as my christmas pressy. I ran, RAN , up to the playbarn , whooping gleefully at my new found phone modernosity , anticipating instant app gratification , and a long intimate chat with my inverter , the solar panels one that is , not my multitude of inverted friends ,who , as they age , appear to be becoming more and more hermitlike and glum , omg don't get me ...oh .ok . where was i ? i oh yes , ranting ...as usual ... right then , basically the app was pants instructionswise , not helped by me putting in the wrong password , for ages then mr tvr came round and helped my geriatric brain through it , and we realised that the app itself had a setup section , instead of tying in addresses and stuff , i just followed that and lo and behold we had comms !! noice ! HOWEVVAH ! previous to this success , was the reason mr tvr came round , and that was to bring his drain lid tool around to see if i could finally cure the river running down the lane ...again. Lets go back , way back , into a time before time , when the drains worked ..... there are two concrete drain lids , one either side of the track , then another one 45 metres down lane , then another 45 metres down lane ,then the water comes out in the field and down the stream gulley . now i had just cleared both top drains , but the water was still coming out of the second one , like this .. a torrent ....some of which then ends up pouring down my drive ...which is approx half way from the too top ones and the middle one . the middle one has been blocked for ages , but its down hill from me so no bother unless the river on the lane freezes ,then it's fun . Trouble is, the middle one has a metal lid that was rusted in , so we were going to try to hoick it out with the tool , but it didn't fit , then M had the idea of hitting the lid with a big hammer downwards ,for which, considering his very bad back and twisted demeanor , was an act of heroic VC awardness . boing , boing, it went , i realised that was my tinnitus back for another weeks visit , but suddenly the lid started bouncing in the frame . hurrah ! i got my hooky crowbar in the water inlet slot ,poicked the lid up enough that m could get a lever in the gap and we had lid liftage par excellance . yup ,,full of rustic by-product and no mistake , put a sunlamp on that mass of biomatter and you'd ah had a new protozoan lifeform in no time ! i set to with the post holer , flinging 'stuff' all over the rd , and in no time it was a big deep drain chamber to be proud of , bit like when you drink that milky lumpy stuff getting ready for a back door inspection probe ...er.. so I'm told . unfortunately the top drains did not then immediately clear , so i got out the screwfix drain rods kit , and after a fair bit of plunging , we had evacuation , bit like , er, no ok enough of that . one slight conundrum was , although all drains were flowing out , the metal lid drain was just sitting there ,a foot or two down from the lid , just still water !!! ..baffled i put some washing up liquid and some white flour in the top drains , and it appeared at the bottom drain , but not in the middle drain !!! this..made..no..sense .. so we gave up , put the lids on , and had a cup of tea. next day i went and checked , and now the middle drain was empty and flowing nicely ! so i guess another blockage we didn't get with the rods had washed through . so a massively successful day and no mistake .so nice not to have a river full of leaves on the lane , it's actually worth washing the spud . in other news , i actually got asked out to a party ,and at said party i was given a panatone cake ,which i put out for the birds , only to see this ... yup the little porker ate the cake ! a whole 1/4 of it , and it's not good for her !!! so that was binned , grunty little fat blimper . on thursday , i decided to have a play with the big fire , i had bough a bag of triples , big coal bits like so ... and wanted to see what they performed like , so made a wood fire and added chunks of 'Titanic spec' coal chunks .. (by the way i should add , i did not don bib style overalls ,with one loose strap , black up , cover myself in coco channels "Homobenji Body Oil" , wear a off set flat cap , and chew on a cheroot while singing ole man river , swing low sweet chariot , or any other totally innapropro hollywood stereotype like behaviour .) i am delighted to report to the group , the fire was a monumental success .. so much so that i could sit in the tv room , with no wood burner on , and be warm enough , basically the open fire once it got going was enough to heat the whole ground floor . it even heated the wall in my bedroom , and created some strange smells upstairs , walls that have never been warm ..were. and that's about it , got back last night at 10 from another supper , and the car was well frosty .. and that's after i had driven 4 miles home , rds were not icy yet though . i am now hooked on solar power app graphs ... regards robert
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Last Edit: Jan 7, 2024 15:12:22 GMT by ivanhoew
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very neatly done phil .
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nothing very exciting, but just to keep on the process of recording it all , i did a little bit of clearing yesterday , the area beside the swiss chalet had to go . it was the usual collection of thick bramble, black thorn, and general debris , so i went through it with my clippers and cleared the thinner stuff .. have a dekko .. here you can see the thickness of the brambles .. and just to maintain a bit of car content , here's a dirty spud on the last shopping trip .. Happy new year to all my readers , and commentators , the support and advice i have had from you all commenting and joining into my nonsense has made a huge difference to my year , which has not been the easiest , and i appreciate you all , thank you . regards robert
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If there was, like Bentley have their "percentage power reserve" gauge, a gauge that indicated "percentage road holding capability", at a standstill, switched off, with the handbrake on I think a Landy would never have the needle sitting on 100%... having driven a total of 5 miles in a s3 , at round 45 mph , i would equate that speed in the landy to around 130mph in the 1972 turbo mini... they both felt like the last 30 seconds in a crashing biplane .. .....cheap fun !
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Dec 27, 2023 10:11:03 GMT
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Thank you Chaps , i hope you all had a loveley christmas So, for all those Chinese schoolgirls barraging me with questions about ,of all things ,the outcome of my christmas lunch/super , i thought i'd better put you all out of your misery and make a report . Mission one was to hoick the 12 lbs of turkey out of the fridge , and give it a rinse , only to read the instructions that say "do not rinse the turkey" oh well , good start then robert... you noodle . Plonked in the dish , and sprinkled with salt and garlic granules after a drizzle of olive oil , then a bit of tin foil origami as i tried the plait three sheets into one , luckily i had the kitchen door shut , other wise i'd have been ....wait for it.....wait for it ........ three sheets to the wind !!! ahahahahaa...try the veal I'm here alll week . So i successfully negotiated the foil fest , with only minor burns from high voltage foil friction interface problems, effectively creating a giant capacitor ....and whopped it in the oven of clickfullness , switched on and stood well back ... Thankfully , i did not immediately break into my robotic Herbie Hancock "Rockit" dance routine since , there was no CLICKING... AT ALL ! Ahhh ....peace in our time. Bouyed , i set the timer for 2 hours , total cooling time was supposed to be 3h 22m so i thought that would allow me to asses the level of cremation i had achieved . Unfortunately , after lounging around reading my book , i thought hey , i'm going to have a nice hot bath in the tub of plenty , you know , the one with the high roll top edge and enough water to nurse a school of baby dolphins in . I had a nice soak and no mistake , and totally missed the alarm on the cooker going off ! Pox. Hmm i thought , as i stood there trying to work out with my 43 watt light bulb of a brain cell , when did i put it in ? As many a man faced with an unwanted pregnancy has thought before me , i mulled it over with a sense of dread , was my wurkey facing imminent carbonisation or would i spend the next week doing a rerun of my multi bathroom event of earlier in the year !!! The world needed to know !! I took a gamble, and stick it on for another 30 mins , , and checked it then , and all was well , it was not half turkey half pencil , and looked a bit pale but ok since the foil was still on . Now i left the foil on for a bit longer , and then for what i guessed was the last hour stuffed in a load of chipotles and bacon and potato hexagons as i could , then it was back in with the foil off for another hour , and came out just right .. I put the rest of the victims back in the oven for a bit longer , then got too impatient and pulled them out before the pots got quite brown enough but that was ok .. With my peas done i had the full ensemble ready , along with my red grape juice i braved the sainsburies hysteria for earlier last week .. Found some dusty old china to put them on too . I think it's from the Spong Dynasty . So off i toddles with my plate full to watch the Dr who/donna noble trilogy, of which i managed 2 , just as well cos the third one was trully awfull ! Now it was Cake time ,since i had forgotten all the rest of the tradition ...satsumas , the nuts , the after eights , you name it, i forgot it ! So, re the cake , as you'll remember with the whole Marzipan saga , i had to meet my contact at a specific time ,in a field next to a small shed , in the rain . This went well , a tall slim woman stood very still in her satin black 4" court shoes , in a long rain coat,and Fedora , and i walked up to her and whispered the pass code phrase , "Small Maroon Glove " She passed me the package, and walked gracefully backwards down the path , i don't really know why she was walking backwards , because just as she got to the gate ,she got her heel caught in the cattle grid, and took an awful purler backwards , heels kicking up and giving me a prime view of her eu de nille cami-knickers ! well.. Really . By the time i got there she had gathered herself up ,jumped in a jensen interceptor,the 440 one, and roared off ...blushing . I may have at this point doubled over, snorting loudly, as i gave in to a fit of hysterics . It was the work of a moment to jump in the turbo spud and whizz the 7.41 miles home , and get cracking with the cake of yumminess . I decided, instead of sieving the icing sugar , and whisking the eggs , i would see what happened if i dragged out my kenwood chef, off freegle , and just put it all in the bowl and set the machine on kill. The one and only time i have used this machine was when i adapted the dicing spinner drive to spin a mercedes toothed wheel, and made a mount for a crank sensor so i could watch the wave forms on my oscilloscope under varying speeds . .. So it was all a bit of an unknown , but hey ,let's switch it on and see what happens .. ........bountifullnessnosty of perfect icing ! Well ! stuff my boots and call me sherbertdibdab the raven headed iron legged pole dancer of beiruts baazar district , if it didn't create a creamy mass of perfect icing ! akin to the cheek of the Snow Queen ,but without the attitude . By this time i had rolled out my illegal Marzipan contraband , or , as it is apparently known in the black market, "Golden dream" (sorted) , and spathered it all of the cake ... Then i got my big knife and layered on the white stuff with abandon ..turned out ok .. Then I realised i had forgotten the ribbon , so found one , and this cake is so huge i had to cut the ribbon lengthways in half to get it round the fat thing . Upon finally actually eating the plumpness , i am not too displeased with my level of "Golden dream (sorted)" and ice queen cream, evennness .. it's not perfect, but it's not too bad .. So , all in all , i weathered the Christmas experience , and came through it all with a nice meal and a wood burner blazing, and some cake ... things could be worse . regards robert
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Last Edit: Dec 27, 2023 14:30:39 GMT by ivanhoew
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Thanks WB , right back at ya !
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Dec 24, 2023 20:32:27 GMT
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Ah, those naughty convent girls, you need to put them over your knee and smack their bottoms! #inthecornermark . ##facingthewall.
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