SteveO

Ahhh smoked sprats. Haven't had those for many years. Last tasted at the Duck Inn, Pett Bottom Nr Canterbury, circa 1995. They used to serve 'em with a couple of thick slices of buttered home-made wholemeal bread. Not seen them on offer since then. Blooming lovely.

There has been a global drop in the demand for oil, spurred by the virus, The price collapse was triggered by a spat between Saudi Arabia, who wanted to stop pumping in the face of reduced demand and thus keep the price up, and Russia who can't afford not to pump.

It's a very small world. We are just down the road in Lympne.

Slightly off topic, but I observe that the virus has curtailed travel plans in a number of geographic areas and reduced China's economic growth by around 1 to 1.5% . This probably goes less than 1% of the way to meeting the aims of the climate change activists, yet already a UK airline has collapsed, the oil price has fallen through the floor and global financial markets have been in meltdown with trillions of dollars wiped off the value of equities. If we want to make the changes that we are told are necessary in order to save the planet, we had better make them very, very gradually.

They don't even need their own computers to do the dialling. It is quite often the case that they hack voip phones within organisations. Aided by the lazy practice of using easy to guess or default account usernames and passwords on the part of the system owners.

Not forgetting the one on the outskirts of Colchester, which also has a railway, albeit a full size one.

We have been putting it off, but today had to do our weekly shop. We chose to favour Aldi with our custom on this occasion. Just about everything we wanted was available and the shelves were well-stocked. There were 2 flavours of toilet paper to be had, but no hand-sanitiser. The only thing I needed but couldn't get was bread flour. It seems that the weekend survivalists have decided that making their own bread is going to save them. We have made most of our own bread for years so this was an issue for me. Next stop on my quest for flour was Sainsbury's, where again the shelves had been picked almost clean but I did manage to secure a bag each of strong white and strong wholemeal flour. During our visit I was, shocked to see a police car with two uniformed officers in Sainsbury's car park. When I questioned the one of the officers, he said that they had been asked to provide a visible police presence. This in sleepy Hythe, population 15,000, average age around 80.

We had both the tin bath and the outside loo. Thursday night was bath night - whether we needed it or not - and we even shared the water. Little sister first, then me, then my parents. How's that for green? I often think about that when the kids spend half an hour and a whole tank of hot water in their daily shower.

This is where all the toilet rolls went.

I thought they were only available in prison.

My dad swore by Izal. We all swore at it, but soft toilet roll tended to go soggy when hung in the outside khazi. Izal was impervious.

NikO is in the chair tomorrow. Topics are: CONNECTIONS FIRST NAMES FOOD AND DRINK NORFOK ACTORS GENERAL KNOWLEDGE LOG IN HERE;-https://www.nbnquiz.co.uk/chat/ no password required 8.30 friday

Great news for our pension funds and state pension liabilities though.

Anyone remember the Black Horse on the road between Hoveton and Horning. Old-fashioned place which provided the alternative name for Hoveton Little Broad. Did a fantastic rabbit pie, liver 'n' onions and steak 'n' kidney pud. Beer wasn't half bad too. Now a bijou executive housing development.

We had the "your washing machine insurance has expired" scam 9 times this week. All calling from a Rotherham number. They always pronounce my name wrong which gives me the excuse to say that no-one named "oglyboglee" lives at this address. After 6 goes, we blocked the number, for them only to come through on another Rotherham number. In the end, I lost patience and told them to fornicate off. I wouldn't care, but our washing machine is 9 years old, was obtained second hand, has never been insured and is probably worth a lot less than the cost of any insurance policy - legit or not.

After a tightly contested quiz last night, Mike (Chameleon) eventually won by one point. The chat room behaved impeccably - thanks Arthur! Mike will therefore be QM next Friday.

Thanks for all your help with the Chat room Arthur. Hopefully you will be able to enjoy the benefits of your work one of these days.

Don't forget folks, quiz this evening from around 8.30pm Rounds are: Missing Links Food Glorious Food Hearts Half time for T's P's G 'n' T's or whatever Flowers AKA General tomfoolery To join, go to: https://www.nbnquiz.co.uk/chat/ Enter your forum username but no password needed. Hope you can join.

Thanks for all the information, you have given me some real food for thought. I am thinking that I will raise the pump on a small platform and replace the tails with some longer, newer and more supple lengths of flexible hose. This would allow me to use the pump's quick connectors. At the moment, the connection hose from tank to pump is so short that I have to disconnect it from the tank to get enough leeway slide the fitting out of the pump. The gate valve is working well at the moment. I test its operation at the beginning and end of each season and it has given no problems. Truth to tell, I am loth to disturb it.

Thanks Griff. If I was in a wet-shed I would do the same as you, This year, I needn't have done anything at all because the weather has been so mild, but whe have had other years where the water in the basin has frozen. I am fairly nervous about this as on our previous boat, I had a pump head get blown apart by frost.

Every December I drain down our domestic water system, disconnect the pump and calorifier and bring the pump home for safe, frost free storage. This is reversed in February or March before recommissioning the boat. The calorifier is a straightforward job but the pump removal requires my undoing jubilee clips and disconnecting the feed from the water tank and the pressure receiver. The pump sits at the same level as the bottom of the tank and is only accessible by removing the base of a berth in the saloon and is right at the limit of my reach when I lean down into the space. I essentially have to do the job one-handed, which makes things very difficult, especially as I wear varifocal specs. I have put off doing anything about this, but things came to a head the other day when I nearly fell headfirst into the bilge. My question is, would it be possible to raise the level of the pump, either by constructing a platform closer to the top of the space, or by mounting it vertically on the outer side of the engine bay? This would mean that the pump would have to "lift" the water approximately 2ft worst case. I have no idea as to the pump's lifting/self-priming capacity, so don't know if this would be a problem. I attach a (poor) photo of the layout, The water tank is the white object on the left hand side of the photo next to the tube heater and the engine compartment is on the opposite side. Any advice would be much appreciated

Seems OK now .

I couldn't get on when I tried just now.

We have owned a couple of smaller Freemans over the years and seem to recall that the cabin layout was very similar, regardless of the size of the boat. I have a dim recollection that you could pull out the head-end of the dinette to give a full 4'6" width and with the extra table insert in the middle, the table top projected the same amount. On ours, the foot end didn't pull out in the same way and so things were fairly "friendly" down at that end. Even though I had to sleep with my head right above the engine air filter, i found the dinette fairly comfortable and spent many happy nights on those boats. Agree about the quality of the woodwork. Second to none.