Even though it was a beautiful day in July 1968, the stifling humidity meant that all the windows in the house were open, as well as the front and back doors. It was about 5:30 p.m. as a family gathered around the table for their meal. Just as the father was about pass the salad bowl over to his daughter who was sitting to his left and his other daughter to his right with his wife directly across from him, they heard a distant rumble of thunder. Suddenly, everyone just looked at each other and then, the …
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On Friday morning I had to go out in my little van to do an electrical job. On my return I wanted to put the van in the garage as I always do when my working day has finished and on Friday that time was noon because I was going to be dining out with E. I opened the garage door which is done manually but assisted by two large springs one on each side of the door. These springs are attached to the bottom of the door sides by steel wires via pulleys. It all sounds complicated but in fact is a very simple mechanism. However I had been experiencing difficulty with the door lifting mechanism and was having to constantly replace the steel wire on to its pulley on one side of the door. I wrote about this a few days ago. I had cured the problem by fitting a spacer which allowed the pulley to align more easily with the door. This solved the problem with the steel wire jumping out of the pulley wheel. I hadn’t noticed any wear on the wire but when I closed the door after putting the van in the garage on Friday I heard an enormous clanging sound and I knew that something had gone wrong. I wasn’t able to open the door from the outside so I went into the house and entered the garage through the cellar door. I discovered that the steel wire had snapped part of the way along its length and could not be repaired. In the past I have purchased the steel wire and fitted it myself but later I used a local guy who specialises in fitting and repairing garage doors. As his work was good and his prices very reasonable I employed him to repair the door the last time the wire broke. I have asked him back to repair the door this time too and he is coming at noon today to do so. Whilst he was on the telephone I asked him if he would be prepared to fit the roller-shutter door in the other garage for me. He said he would give me an estimate for that work when the other job is done. To be honest all I really want is to have the roller door lifting onto the brackets I have already fitted but to be truthful I would rather give him the job if he is prepared to do it as I am tired of not being in a position to do it myself. There is very little work involved, most of the electrical work is done really and what is left is mostly confined to the fitting of the door on its brackets and fitting the channels in which it rides up and down on the wall. Finally after years of waiting, the ‘new’ garage will be useable! Much work has been done on this garage when last summer we fitted windows, doors and a partition internal wall and there is still some outstanding work left which will get done when the weather is warmer.
This is a repeat of a posting I placed here a day or so back……..
Some time back I placed the Social Vibe widget here on my front page on the left to be precise and got little response so occasionally I make a request to my readers and invite them to spend just two minutes (or less) to click on the widget and answer a couple of questions. There is no cost whatsoever involved save the small amount of time it takes out of your day and in doing this you help feed a hungry child somewhere in the world. So I ask, if you’ve got a spare two minutes please consider clicking on the widget. Thank you…
In olden times many main routes in this country, (I say routes rather than roads for there weren’t many roads as such other than those the Romans had built during their occupation of this land) were dotted along their length at various places with large stones by the wayside indicating the distance ahead to the next main town. Later, wooden signposts literally pointed in the direction of the next village or town. The stones and signposts were engraved with the mileage so that one could tell how much further one had to go and how long it might take to get there. These days of course distance is no object and almost everywhere in this land can be reached within twenty-four hours. In long times past most folk simply didn’t travel far from their homes and villages, it was too dangerous to do so. There was no real need to leave their community. Nowadays the whole world is a community. We can travel to almost anywhere that is heavily populated within that same twenty-four hours and within a couple of more days, travel anywhere on this planet! We need not leave our places of residence today much as they did long ago because today we have the Internet and can communicate with people around the globe. This blog can be read anywhere in the world with the right equipment. When I first began to write here I struggled to find something to write about but now I am able to write much more having gained the confidence and experience. Today I have reached a milestone in my adventure, writing my blog posts. Today marks the 1,000th post on this site! Indeed a milestone. Well it is for me. I hope I can continue to write and that those who read my ramblings will find some interest in my content.
Yesterday was such a busy day in one way or another. I had no private electrical work again (I seem to be in a slump just now but I am not dependent on my occupational work, fortunately) so I wasn’t in any particular hurry to get out of bed. Having said that I managed to get downstairs before 9 o’clock. At the moment I am suffering a rather unpleasant condition, something many women experience from time to time. To put it bluntly I have a possible infection of the clitoris for it has become inflamed and sore. E thinks it might just be irritation caused by urine. If it doesn’t improve I will need to see the doctor. That aside, I ventured out into the cool morning air and began working in the garage. There were sheets of plywood to cut and fit. If you look at the picture I posted here two days ago you can see the rear opening (will have a door on it when finished) above which is a large storage area under which steps lead into the garage proper. It is this area that I am currently working on. Bearing in mind that the sheets of plywood I needed to be cut were 8 feet by 4 feet 5 ply and one was 7 ply making them difficult to manoeuvre around the garage with everything else that is stored there! I had nobody to assist me. All I had on which to cut the boards was a ‘Workmate‘ and an old chair! Sawing by hand takes a long time, especially if the saw is old and worn out! To be fair it isn’t a bad saw at all, it simply required the blade lubricating but it isn’t a new saw and has seen better days. I didn’t fancy the idea of cutting the 7 ply sheet which I had to do as it was needed to complete the unfinished ‘floor’ of the storage area. The other surfaces only require a thinner sheet so I used the 5 ply for them but they are not yet finished. So if I wasn’t to cut the sheets by hand what was I going to use seeing that I don’t own a circular electric saw? I did have a ‘jig saw‘ though so I used that. Admittedly not as good as a circular saw but it saved a lot of arm ache! However near the completion of cutting the 7 ply it gave up. I took it apart to see what the problem was. It turned out that the gear drive for the reciprocating arm had become flat for part of its circumference. That meant it became detached from the motor once every revolution and the blade stopped reciprocating. There was no way to fix it short of buying new parts but the machine is quite old and not worth paying for a repair. It went into the waste bin. Thankfully the heavier sheet had almost been finished with but I still needed to cut the 5 ply sheets. By hand! So with all the lifting, shifting of materials and ladders, sawing of wood and so on I was completely worn out by 5 o’clock, so much so that I fell asleep on my bed for an hour! E had been out shopping and normally I would be at home to bring it all indoors for her but she came home whilst I was asleep. Later I heard the front doorbell and when I went downstairs I found that our eldest son was paying us a visit for a couple of hours. He was telling us about his visit to the dentist and how much it had cost him. £240 he said! Gosh! I was too tired to listen much to what he was saying and I asked him if he wouldn’t mind speaking a little more quietly. He didn’t realise how tired I really was when I told him what I had been up to but after I showed him he insisted on helping me fit the sheet of plywood I had cut for the underside of the storage area but couldn’t fit by myself as it was too heavy. I told him it would do another day but he persuaded me to enlist his help there and then. It took the three of us to get it in position and fix it, passing the cable I had partly installed earlier through a hole in the centre of the sheet. That will enable a light to be fitted there later as the passageway will be rather dark when in use later in the year. It was 8 o’clock before we got back indoors and he had to go visit his wifes parents for a meal they had prepared for them both. I finally sat down at 9 o’clock after my evening meal to set up my old compter for E to use as hers isn’t working because its supply lead is faulty. Now my old computer hasn’t been used since October and that meant its virus protection needed bring up to date. We use Norton 360 on all our machines which automatically updates itself. This machine however was 114 Mb out of date! It took almost an hour to update and more time for the machine to re-organise itself! Finally it was ready for E to use. Well no actually it didn’t like the guest settings so I had to log in and allow E to use it under my log-in. No problem there, no sensitive or should I say insensitive material there for her to come across. It was 10.30 before I could sit down with this computer and write all this down. During the day I received many phone calls too which all turned out to be a waste of time but one call, later in the day was from a friend who with her husband accepted our invitation to a barbecue on Sunday. I will most certainly be glad when Sunday arrives, I’ll be sorely needing that rest!
This year, sometime in November, our little planet will be visited by a large Asteroid. It will pass us by at a distance of 201,700 miles or so, approximately 38,000 miles less than the average distance of the Moon! By all accounts we shouldn’t worry about it as it will have little effect on the Earth and is very unlikely to cause any damage whatsoever. This asteroid however could collide with us at some point in the future as its orbit around the Sun occasionally crosses the earths path around the sun. It just takes the two to be at that point at the same time!
Some asteroids circle around the sun in elongated orbits and in doing so cross Earths orbit every so often. Sometimes, they come very close to Earth itself. In January, asteroid 2010 AL30 passed within about 80,000 miles (130,000 km) of Earth. AL30 was just at 36 feet (11 meters) wide though. A greater danger presents itself in the year 2036 when the asteroid Apophis is predicted to come very close to the Earth on April 13 at a distance of 18,300 miles above Earth’s surface. Apophis is larger than two football fields. While that’s not big enough to create global devastation, it could cause significant regional damage, if it was to strike the Earth.
It is difficult to believe that we could never find ourselves at the mercy of a stray asteroid given that there are so many of them out there, comets too! In the early solar system collisions would have been commonplace but as time passed the frequency of such collisions dropped dramatically. It is just as well I guess!
Yesterday was mainly a work day, an hour or so doing a job for someone else then back home to do something in the garden, although I didn’t start in the garden until after lunch. Digging soil is back-breaking work and at the moment my back and my arms are aching probably from over-doing things lately. Today however I plan to do very little. E and I are dining out. Hopefully we shall see the waitress who is about to go on maternity leave to have her baby.
Once upon a time I often yearned to do something different from the humdrum of organised life but never managed to do anything spectacular. Going for a drink or a meal was often enough to satisfy me. These days I just cannot be bothered. I have no interest in doing things just for the fun of it, that is I won’t make special plans to do things I perhaps have never done before. The last thing I did that I hadn’t previously done was to fly in an hot air balloon but that was a prize that E had won, not something we had organised. I think holidays are the only ‘special’ events I have organised as something special to do. The older I get, the less interested I become. Maybe it is an age thing or maybe it is having the wisdom not to chase after a hedonistic lifestyle when I am content with my life as it is.
I used to spend hours looking skyward at night, with telescope and binoculars but sometimes I ‘saw’ more things with the naked eye! Looking at the stars and planets is fine but there is little action to observe unless one is prepared to stand for hours looking at Jupiter rotating or tracking the motion of its four major moons. Naked-eye observations can be more rewarding because one can see meteors streaking through the upper atmosphere and the movement of artificial satellites as they circle the Earth. Years ago there were few artificial satellites about but over the years their numbers have grown tremendously. Some have fallen back to Earth as their orbits have decayed but there are still many left up there! Not only that but there is a lot of ‘space junk‘ up there too! Pieces of old satellites, items lost from the ISS and other manned capsules and final-stage rocket sections left to find their own way home after being discarded. There is so much junk up there it is getting more and more dangerous to be up there with it and this poses a real threat to those on board the ISS. Plans are afoot to ‘sweep’ the space clean of debris but quite how they hope to achieve that is debatable. It seems there is nowhere safe from man’s pollution.
The guys duly arrived yesterday morning to concrete over my new path. They even broke down the last section of sandstone for me in order to finish off the hardcore. I had a small job to do in another town but I got back a couple of hours later by which time they were well on with their job. Whilst they were here I approached them regarding the laying of flagstones to completely surround the lawn. They seemed enthusiastic about that request as they do quite a lot of that type of work. They have agreed to do this and also some other work which needs to be done at the front of the house, more flagstones and tiles. So the way is almost clear for me to begin erecting the new greenhouse now, just a couple of small tasks to do like running out the cable which is presently coiled up and fitting the other power socket and then cleaning up the area. My eldest son has offered to lend a hand in erecting the greenhouse but whether he will be able to find the time is another matter. He has enough on his plate as it is with his rather unsocial work schedule as a police officer. So things are making progress. Hopefully I shall not need to spend much more money on the house and garden for a while but knowing me that could be difficult! Will I ever finish? I suppose not but it is nice to see improvements where they have been necessary and believe me, they have been necessary. When I look back just ten months and remember what the house and gardens looked like then and compare them to what they look like now, even though all isn’t quite finished yet, I am very pleased that I made the effort, paid out the cash and had it all done.
I will be the first to admit that I do use this blog as a platform to speak about God and I make no excuses for that. However I don’t overdo things and you will find that this blog covers many different things, most of which concern my daily life. This is the point I am making in the heading ‘Blog or Platform’? Many so-called blogs you see on the Internet major on one thing only which to my way of thinking makes them simply a platform to promote a single subject to the exclusion of everything else. I am of the opinion that a blog is really a log, a diary of events in a person’s life. This is a blog in that sense. Those whose ‘blogs’ are simply a platform for their chosen subject should really be called a Web Site. To that end I hope my blog is just that, a blog, filled with a variety of things that happen in my life, the good, the bad and the ugly! It’s funny when I think of it. When once I kept a diary, which I thought was very personal, although I don’t know why, there was never anything untoward in my diaries, now I write about events which are open for all to see! We are a funny lot us humans don’t you think? Now that people can see what I write I have to be careful when it comes to what I write. I also have to monitor any comments that might be made. This site allows comments by regular visitors, whom I’ve previously marked as approved authors, to be posted without my having to moderate them. I can carry out any moderations, approvals or un-approvals later if it is necessary. This allows my readers, those who comment, to have the freedom to post and not having to wait to see it published. Any inflammatory material will naturally be discarded and result in the author being marked as unapproved. Common sense prevails. I hope my blog serves the purpose that was intended of it and that my visitors continue to enjoy its content. Happy reading!
Well Sunday wasn’t all that good after all. It rained all morning but I did manage to chop that huge branch which fell into our garden the day before. I also managed to move the cement mixer which had been left on soft ground and had gotten bogged down. It belongs to E’s youngest nephew, a bricklayer, who is out of the country for a while. The bricklayer who is doing the job for us today is a friend of his and might find the mixer handy. It will save him having to bring along his own. I had too many other things to do yesterday so I left the garden alone. I am hoping that things will improve around here soon so we can get on with building the greenhouse. I am deliberately not taking on too much work each week to leave more time for tasks at home. Spring isn’t all that far away although theoretically we are only just approaching the end of the first month of Winter! It certainly feels like Spring lately but I fear there will be colder days ahead yet. Time has a habit of catching up with us so I feel it is prudent to do what we can while we can. Things can only improve.
By the time I returned home around one o’clock the bricklayer had almost finished the job but he had omitted to put an extra course of brick on one side as I had originally requested. Fortunately we found the extra bricks needed and he had mortar left over anyhow so he added the course. It seems you cannot trust people to do as you ask sometimes. My own job today was to run wiring beneath the ground floor of the bungalow in which I was working. I had to run an earth cable to the main gas pipe which the previous electrician had omitted to do. I discovered the need the last time I was there installing a new power board but as the work entailed lifting floorboards the client asked if we could do it after Christmas. I had to install two new power outlets too which entailed cables running almost the same route. Now this client is a great guy, not only did he have all the boards lifted but he actually went under the floor himself and pulled in the cables for me! He insisted on paying me the full amount I’d originally asked for and a little extra too! Now I thought that was remarkably generous of him but not only did he do that but he gave me a one litre bottle of the finest Scotch Whisky, a bottle of the finest Port and also a bottle of Irish Cream Liqueur! I am beginning to think he fancies me. Naturally I didn’t want him to give me all of that but when someone insists, well what can you do? I wouldn’t mind so much but my cabinet if already packed full of spirits! Looks like I shan’t be needing to buy any for quite some time.
I invite and welcome comments to old posts so if you come across anything you might like to comment on then please do not hesitate to do so. Many are the subjects I have written about and it seems a shame that any newcomers to my humble pages might miss out on being able to comment. Browse to your hearts content but remember, the opinions and thoughts I had then may not be the same as those I hold now. We live and learn.
