and today i have mostly been...

[Doggy]

Good to hear from you, young Welton. Hope they get your medication sorted out soon.
You wouldn't believe the cocktail of drugz Mrs Doggy's on and we've just learned she's diabetic.
I haven't done any 'proper' work since before the first lockdown and also wonder how I ever had time.
Mind you, I've just got a job - albeit for a few hours a week starting next month.

[Welly]

Mind you, I've just got a job - albeit for a few hours a week starting next month.

A lorriest?

Someone said there's a few* vacancies at present

[steve_earwig]

He's the lorriest My bro's been sending me updates and pictures, it's bizarre! He was up at 4 the other morning because one of his neighbours said he saw a service station (are they still called that?) at silly o'clock in the morning that a) was open and b) had no cars waiting. He was right too.

Greetings from Teh Empire of Fluff It's everywhere...

Good to hear from you Welters and that you're keeping busy and not going round the twist watching daytime tv (it happens sadly). I hope they can get you on the right meds soon. Sorry to hear about Mrs. Doggy but I'm glad they've caught it. I can see tablets in my future, I pop plenty of them because headaches/migraines but I bloody hate the things and have a hard time getting my head around taking them regularly. I'm suppose to me on Xanax for my nerves (they do nothing) and Urorec for my waterworks ("you're a wreck" - they made my dizzy). My sis-in-law has osteoarthritis and turns out to be allergic to just about anything they've tried her on so far.

Doggy, you have a j.... jo.... no, does not compute I wouldn't have time for one either, not that I did much today (just vet's, osteopath, kitten minding, spot of cleaning, chauffeuring t'wife and minding the boiler) but tomorrow I'll be donning my plumbers hat 'cos the tap in the kitchen is dripping. The rest will depend on the weather.

I remember when the only reason I changed my tyres was because they wore out, the idea of them being too old seems like a scam to me. Or maybe I was driving around on tyres that had as much grip as a block of concrete, who knows!

Obligatory cat pic: Mina wants to play (Lucy doesn't...)

[Doggy]

Not exactly starting a new career, I'll be helping out with security at the caravan storage site I use.

Some of the euro drivers have gone home, some didn't get round to applying to stay, but I think most of the guys that have jacked it in were forced to earn a living other ways during the lockdowns and discovered life, family, leisure time and don't want to go back to working 80/90 hours a week, sleeping in laybys and crapping in carrier bags. Can't say I blame them. Hourly rate where I was is up 50% with a few other minor improvements but I think I've ticked that box so not tempted to go back to dodging suicidal cyclists & pedestrians.

The tyre he could still see the date code on is 10 years old - that's a fail on a commercial vehicle, but not so for motorhomes, horseboxes et al. (Remember the fatal crash on the M5 couple of years back)?
I tried many times but could only see one that said "1717", which I took to mean wk17 2017. Final outing this weekend then I'll change them all before using it next in the spring.

[steve_earwig]

Crapping in a bag does sound attractive I can't say I blame them, it always looked a horrible way to earn a living, not dirty, not strenuous, just no life as such.

I have a feeling they checked the date codes on my tyres in the last safety test. They also checked the car against previous photos (they take one every time) to make sure I didn't fit anything that I hadn't paid tax on (yes, they're that short of cash).

...tomorrow I'll be donning my plumbers hat 'cos the tap in the kitchen is dripping.

Well, that went well Old mixer tap limescaled beyond repair, fortunately I bought one in Lidl a few weeks back so I fitted that. An hour or so? Nope, the whole morning 'til lunchtime, Completely different mode of attachment to the sink, out with the drill, saw etc. queue swearing behind the sink. It was almost there but I was doing up the hoses (we have valves on the wall Yank-style here) the cold wouldn't tighten. Gave it a bit too much and snap! Ok, I'll use a hose off the old one. Unfortunately due to the different fitting it was LESS THAN AN INCH TOO SHORT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I should have gone and bought another but I was awaiting a delivery (not cat food this time) so I had a root about, found a joiner, found an old double-ended hose, fitted that, job jobbed. Until about 8 o'clock this evening - "what's that noise?" said t'wife. PANIC! Managed to turn the cocks off but not before we had a small flood in the kitchen (all that lovely chipboard). That old hose split from one end to the other. I have the dehumidifier going but it's not doing much, mind you I did inherit it about 30 years ago New one on order.

Butternut squash anyone?


Scooter isn't happy


Might help someone... The cats get their food in sachets, we've tried tins but they only like the top few mm, the rest gets wasted. The trouble is a half-empty sachet isn't very stable, the best we could do is lean them against something but often they fell over and leaked everywhere. Or one of the cats would knock it over and stamp on it trying to get the sauce out. We usually have 3 on the go, some cats like one brand, some another, and I'm feeding Teatime with older cat/urinary tract stuff. "I know," I thought, "what we need is a..."

"...letter rack" Oh my gawd, those squashes are everywhere. Skewarsh.... I'll look like one soon...

[Doggy]

I attacked the spout seals on our mixer t'other day, thinking I'd get the o rings out, measure em up wiv my super-posh Aldi £6.99 plastic digi caliper and summon some replacements. Couldn't find any that matched the 2009 freebie mixer tap of unkown parentage, (my bro "had one left over somewhere").

So I turned the o rings inside out & refitted everything. To my amazement it worked.

Your tale of leaky woe reminded me of one of his from a winter ot two back. One of his customers fitted a DIY garden tap kit, which was fine until a really cold day when said tap and it's few mm of pipe froze generating enough pressure to separate one of those lovely new style push fit connectors on the cold pipe under the sink. This must have happened after they all went out to work so the full bore leak had all day to flood the downstairs of their terraced house. Being a modern edifice the whole block sits on a common concrete base and the cinderblock & plasterboard party walls allowed the two immediate neighbours to share the fun.

My bro, being a stickler for traditional design and construction methods, was once again proven to be 100% right in his assertion that nothing made in the last 30 or 40 years is any good.

[steve_earwig]

I could've changed the cartridge but as far as I remember they don't cost much less than a new tap but it was the chewed up square section seals around the spout that, er, sealed its fate.

Lordy! That sounds a right nightmare You do hear tales of ceilings coming down but as our floors and ceilings are made out of concrete I don't think that would happen, usually it's more parquet floors bulging upwards, destroyed furniture and tales of rivers running down the stairs. Anyway, this wasn't anything like as cataclysmic. It liberally soaked the inside of the under sink cabinet but most of it poured through the hole in the bottom where the pipes that serve the dishwasher go and there was a small river running out from under the fridge a couple of meters away - fortunately that corner is concrete under the laminate 'cos it was originally tiled. I'd already taken the opportunity of sorting out all the crap from in there while I had it out to do the tap (about 3/4 of it was distributed elsewhere, mainly the bin) so it that didn't take much drying. I'm just worried about all that lovely* chipboard swelling up/disintegrating and having to fork out for a new kitchen. The dehumidifier's been going all night but only pulled about a litre out of the kitchen and adjoining rooms, so it is working but I don't think it's as powerful as it once was.

There'll be a trip to the local hardware store later, after the vet's of course. I think I'll just replace that pipe 'cos I don't feel like pulling the tap out again. I've been DIYing plumbing since I got my first house, I've had the odd drippy drippy but that's the first time I've had anything remotely serious.

"They don't make 'em like they used to" Your brother shouldn't worry, the Victorians said exactly the same thing, although manufacturers (of just about anything) are getting built-in obsolescence down to a fine art. I take it he's an emergency plumber (sorry if you said, the memory's not so good as it was) so I'll bet he has some horror stories.

[Doggy]

No he just worked for himself since he got sick of getting sacked at the end of every job in the Thatcher era. Now he's more or less retired, just does enough to give him something to moan about.

Meanwhile we're on a really nice campsite in Welsh Wales, after an interesting* journey. Spotted puddle under one rear wheel when getting car off trailer. Brake fluid? Suspect I've snagged a damper with the wheel strap, so now we're in the middle of nowhere without transport.

It'll all look better in the morning I'm sure.

[steve_earwig]

Crap, I didn't even see that. I hope it wasn't as bad as you feared.

[Doggy]

No it was OK in the end....

Had to use the car to park the trailer and convey Mrs Doggy & I to the on-site, (I kid you not) "Moody Cow" restaurant during a Welsh rain shower, (Monsoon on steroids to the rest of us). Brakes worked fine, no warning lights, knocking noise from that corner so I'm thinking damper failure.

Next day, I called the AA, (wot I get ripped off for cos I'm too dumb to ditch the "added value" bank account). Surprisingly knowledgeable youngster from local garage answers the summons and confirms knackered left rear damper and we jointly verified a full brake fluid reservoir. This being Saturday luchtime, he recommended a local garage to supply/fit replacement shocker on Monday. So I risked driving it a bit further and found virtually no change in driving behaviour unless you accellerated hard on a bumpy surface etc.

So I decided to "recover" it home on the trailer it arrived on, (more so I could suss out the best/most cost effective replacements and swap both rear dampers on my terms).

Probably done 300+ miles in it like that but 50 years of driving old bangers on zero budget does equip you with some ability to handle these things.

[steve_earwig]

That's a relief! I guess it depends on whether you mangled it yourself, if so then the other shocker is probably ok and you'll be fine replacing it with the same. Unless OEM means silly money of course, then change the pair.

Ah, Welsh rain. When I was a kid we used to go camping in Llanberis Pass every year and rain is my predominant memory of those times. Plus huge slugs and dead sheep. Oh yes, sitting in the tent while it's pelting down listening to news reports of the Brixton riots on a tiny transistor...

I remember my dad getting pulled over by the cops on the way there one year. It seems he caused another car to crash and said car had pursued us but my dad got away. Said car turned out to be a modified Jag with huge wheels, Carlos Fandango wheelarches and a flame paintjob. And my dad's weapon of choice? A highly-unmodified Austin Maxi with 2 kids in the back. Nothing came of it of course.

[steve_earwig]

I spotted this the other day:


Do you think that PDR bloke could get this one done in a couple of hours?

Greetings from teh empire of fluff! Hope you're all doing ok. Not too much going on at the moment, today's some sort of bank holiday. I've cleared pretty much everything ready for winter and, apart from a few bits and bobs, that's it until the snow starts. T'wife brought a cold home for us to share Which was ok until she got a temperature and then she started panicking - a chap came to our house to shove cotton buds up our hooters, we both tested negative of course.

Animal-wise, Linderp the Gonić continues to destroy everything she can get her teeth into, the list of victims continues to grow. Carpets, bedding, clothes, all 5 doormats are history, she managed to eat the case from t'wife's mobile phone... Dogs eh?

Lucy's leg is almost healed, on Saturday there was just a couple of small scabs and I expect them to be gone this week. She's a lot more active than she was to start off, probably due to her being confined in a cage at the vet's for 6 weeks or so.

Almost at the top of the cat tree!

She's getting along fine with the other cats too. Playing with Mina:


Playing with Dave:


Mina managed to loose the leg protector, I've looked everywhere for it. She's saying nothing of course, when I ask her she just gives me her cute smile. Not to worry, that was only an experiment and there were more already on their way:


I grabbed one at random, the all-in-one job:

but half an hour later it was gone, so I put the other one on her:

and it seems more secure. Meanwhile I found the first one. And then Linderp pinched it off my desk and destroyed it

My cousin added the reflective tape to make them/her easier to find.

Could this be Mina?


Yes, yes it....argh hex vision!!


Charles has also been under the vet. He came in last week with a scratch on his nose. It didn't look anything serious so I left it. The next day he looked maybe a little different, hmm, not sure. But on Friday it had blown up and he could hardly open his eyes:

Nee nur nee nur to the vet's! It seem one of the "scratches" was more like a puncture and it was infected. Mirela, our wonderful vet, drained it. It must have been hellishly painful as he went ballistic. Painkillers, antibiotics and he's spent a couple of nights shut in the cat room. I said to Mirela I should have got him to her sooner but she says she's have probably just told me to keep an eye on it. We had to give him his antibiotics this morning because bank holiday but he'll be back to the vet's tomorrow morning, along with Lucy and...

12 is probably a good number to stop at......

Ho ho ho, oh dear me no

This young lady has been hanging about for a while now:


She's in such a state I've fed her but I thought she had owners. However i just found out the people who I thought owned her don't actually have a cat...

She desperately needs the vet, up until now I didn't think there was anything I could do about it, her not being my cat, but now it looks like she is they're closed for the bank holiday.

What is wrong with her mouth?


What's this, ringworm?


The worst thing is looking at her teeth

she isn't actually that old.

Because she could have ringworm and I don't want it in the house I've made her a shelter outside

I'd prefer her in the warm of course but it'll have to wait until we know she's not Typhoid Mary...

I've named her Dorothy.

So now we have thirt...th...thirt... And now we are 19

[Doggy]

I've named her Dorothy.

Wizard of Oz or Gregory's Girl?

So now we have thirt...th...thirt... And now we are 19

I fear there's no saving you.

[steve_earwig]

Yeah, it's getting a bit out of hand but what else can I do? The vet's here are overrun with kittens, cats, puppies, dogs so there's no point in taking her there and adding to their problems. She'd never get homed either, people want healthy kittens/puppies and they certainly don't want to deal with issues.

Maybe a bit of Wizard of Oz. There was a cat I used to see out the back I used to call Dotty/Dorothy, this isn't her but I thought it was a good name, there has to be a name on her record at the vet's and it's better than my wife naming her Pritti or something. Gregory's Girl? Something about football I think.

[steve_earwig]

And back down to 12 - I took Dorothy to the vet's, sadly along with all her other problems she had feline aids. I know people can and do cope with this but, with 12 other cats, we didn't think it would be sane to bring her home again, so she's gone.

I feel awful, I guess it's another one of those decisions I'll have to live with. At least she had a few days of food, somewhere safe, somebody giving a crap. Tbh I'm surprised she managed to eat anything her mouth was in such a state.

Of course it's another round of boiling towels and blankets and disinfecting everything. Fortunately I don't think any of our cats went near her and I was right to keep her outside, if not for the right reason.