grendel

Ah a wonderful trip to work this morning-----NOT, M25 Dartford crossing- bridge shut due to high winds, so southbound traffic using the east tunnel, 17 miles of tailbacks from the tunnel down the A2, I hit the back end at rochester at 6.30 am, from there it took me 2 hours to get to the slip road to the M25 - I didnt get out of first gear at all. on the slip road it took a further 30 minutes to make the next 30 yards, and it would still have been an hour to the tunnel, except joy of joys, they re-opened the bridge, so at 9am the traffic started moving again, 3 1/2 hours to do the 61 miles to work. during that trip, I saw some horrendous driving, articulated lorries cutting across 3 lanes at right angles to the traffic flow, cars zipping in and out, lorries leaving it to the last few yards of sliproad to pull off the main carriageway, effectively parking in a lane empty in front of them until a big enough space was left for them to get in, or just sticking their nose in leaving the trailer blocking a lane (which by this point of the slip road the 3 lanes going past the junction had cars travelling at the limit, suddenly encountering this rear end of lorry blocking the lane. it was chaos, all due to inconsiderate drivers

yes we had the same a week or so back, last time it was down for about 10 minutes.

I have noticed many lorries have a blind spot, just off their passenger side when you are about half a car length ahead of them, on foreign lorries this will be when you are overtaking them, they can pull out too soon when you are not yet clear - seen it done several times on the m25, some have small mirrors to show them under the door, but once you are in front of the mirrors they cant see you any more.

yes we have all learned to steer clear of you and your little tooter

I do love the way they emphasise she teaches yoga though.

we have a section like that in Canterbury, two roundabouts only a few hundred metres apart, traffic from the left filters into the middle lane (left lane is a bus lane) traffic from the right and straight across goes into the right lane, if you wish to turn left at the second roundabout, you need to cross the centre lane and get into the bus lane right by the roundabout. everyone else turns right at the roundabout (there is no straight on) but do they let you through, do they heck. I remember one obnoxious car driver blocking me all the way to the roundabout, (i had been indicating all the way) and then hooting me when I pulled onto the roundabout in front of him and promptly took the left turn right across his front bumper (bet he realised why i had been trying to get in the left lane then...) once i had to go right round the roundabout to take my exit.

many years ago I could (sticking to the legal speed limit) get from Ashford to Canterbury in 20 minutes, nowadays now that they have extended the 30 and 40mph limits its a good 35-40 minutes drive, the reason they have extended the limits- well there are houses along the road, so it has to have a maximum 40mph limit - for the first 5 miles out of town, (these houses have drives that exit to the road, not one drive is less than 200m long) where the old road was national limit almost all the way (60mph- single carriageway) there are now just 2 stretches maybe a couple of miles in total where it is national speed limit, the rest is 50mph (or slower).

lithium batteries are generally 3.7V so charge at 5v ish (ie straight off USB)

Hmm, well perhaps I should build myself a trireme, complete with ramming prow, now I wonder where I can get willing rowers....

simple - its up to both skippers to avoid a collision. probably by making their intentions clear to the other well in advance

I never realised you were quite so old - did you meed william the conqueror

which leaves the niche markets open for the smaller businesses.

that is a pretty close match across the splice, cant wait to see the finished product.

in Ashford, kent their market went into decline when it was moved from the old cattle market site at the edge of the town centre by the station, to the outskirts of the town in one of the industrial estates. ok the cattle market was dominated by the smell of excited cattle and sheep. but once it was moved it was too far out to walk to, and rapidly lost custom and traders, yes they have a few stalls now that are in the pedestrian areas, but not a patch on the old market.

several of the old market type stalls attend the boot fair I visit on Sundays, some of the boot fair bits are a bit like the second hand tool stalls at the market used to be,

my dad worked for BR and sealink, ending up as ports manager.

though I did think that asking you to name all of Freddie Mercurys cats was just a tad cheeky

All that and a fellow Ransome lover, what's more to want. I can attest to a similar upbringing, the winter we moved house and had to burn the whole line of conifers down the side of the house as we couldn't get a coal supplier. The ice patterns on the inside of the bedroom windows. We didn't have a car, my dad worked for British rail so we had privelidge tickets and a number of free tickets, so we travelled by train, and car ferry, we had no telly, so it was book reading and listening to the radio. Holidays as such were rare, one trip to Scotland, and a night ferry to Holland, sleeping on the boat, stick out in my mind.

Mike

Robin, I suppose my first thought would be to investigate where this area should be draining to, there must be some form of scuppers here to allow sea water to drain when it splashes up, so first thought is why are these not doing their job and why is a puddle forming, is it a case the ballast trim needs to be adjusted to stop a puddle forming- or what. then are the drains for this area blocked? in short, investigate the causes not the effects, you need to find why the water is sitting there, as any puddle will as you rightly say freeze and thaw, and cause damage, if it is freezing under your teak, it will be expanding and trying to pull the fittings out of the deck beneath. I do understand that at this stage its more about stopping the drips, but if it can be arranged that the water does not puddle in that spot surely that will achieve the same result.

thanks and

wax sticks come in all sorts of colours - https://wlcoller.co.uk/?product=crayola-wax-crayons

another 6 years for me in Kent, they have just put the age up from 60 to 65. by the time I get there it may well go up again.

yes the one I linked to has a 5 m pixel camera that takes a photo of the backlit slide (the backlight approximates to natural light.)

Phwoar, that looks lovely.