Quick daily posts

[Serinde]

Well, here's your (virtual) chance... just step right over to the Stash & Grab!

[SteveM]

I'm a very security minded person so now that we're home from our holiday I can finally say that I've been on holiday the past week. Thus the bats in our bedroom as the house that we were staying at inexplicably didn't have a screen door for the door that led to a small deck off of our bedroom. We had it open to let in the cool night air and got more than we expected. We got to watch plenty of other wildlife too, including a doe and her pair of speckled fawns that came by a few times during the week.

I'm not into golf, but the course did provide an opening in the trees to this view from the house, including the chair that I sat in to stitch.


Now, to help explain our geography consider these three features. On the right is a red area that is a cinder quarry into the side of a lava cone. In the middle is a butte with a fire lookout tower on the top. We were staying in a house located in the forest just this side of the butte. Of the far left with snow on it is a mountain.


More mountains are visible whenever you can get out of the trees.


We planned this vacation many months ago and were thankful to be able to go on it and do many of the things that we normally do, though we did have to forego some of them.

[Serinde]

Pretty spectacular.

[wendywombat]

Wow look at those mountains!

[Serinde]

Ok, what exactly has happened to Craft Creations? Is there anywhere else I can find aperture cards in any other colours beside white, cream, green and red??? I might have to rethink what I'm planning for a wedding card...

[Mabel Figworthy]

Serinde, Craft creations were taken over and I am in a right pickle because I used to get all the aperture cards for my kits and workshops there . I wrote to them several times and they kept telling me they would be adding more colours and sizes to the catalogue, eventually having the whole range again, but after well over a year by now I'm not holding my breath.

As I am beginning to run very low on some of them I really need to source some new ones; the best option so far seems to be PDA where you can choose apertures and where on the card you want them; I got two of their, erm, "card cards", for want of a better term, showing all the types and colour of cardstock, so I could choose the best ones for the kits. They are quite a bit more expensive than CC used to be, however, and i don't think you can get one-offs, as you could with CC - there is a minimum order per type of card.

I haven't looked at this for some months so not sure of the details but I'll try and get round to actually ordering some soon.

One last note, a stitching friend ordered some aperture cards from them and sent a couple to me to try. They were good, but some of the cutting on the aperture of one of them was just a tiny bit rough - a very minor niggle, but I thought I'd mention it.

[wendywombat]

Hobbycraft have a pack of coloured aperture cards. Only a pack of 4 online but maybe in the actual store there could be a more variety.

[richardandtracy]

We had an interesting time yesterday.
Came within half an inch of having the house flooded.

OK, that sounds more dramatic than the reality.
Yesterday afternoon it started to look dark and rumbly. The humidity has been 75%+ for over a week and we were desperate for the weather to break. Anyway, a low lightning count thunderstorm came over us, and travelled quite slowly dropping a deluge on our bit of North Kent. I had the flood boards out in readiness for rain I didn't really expect.
Anyway it came. And came and came and came. 10 minutes in, the flood boards were in use as the road flooded over the pavement and reached our house floor level. And continued up for an extra 5" before it started spilling into the gardens on the other side of the road. At that point it was 12" deep in the deepest spot, and it was half an inch below the top of our flood boards - as planned.

What I hadn't planned for in our 30 mph zone, was for car, 4x4 drivers and SUV drivers to SPEED UP in the rain and travel past creating waves that cascaded over our defences into the front garden and start to fill it up faster than it could drain out. I went into the road and tried to get people to slow down, and was almost knocked off my feet buy the deluge from head to toe from one 60mph vehicle. The force was stunning, and I was utterly drenched. Could hardly breathe and was hit by a succession of fans of spray from the drivers of vehicles so important that a mere flood couldn't be allowed to interfere with their speeding. By standing in the middle of the road I got about half the vehicles to slow down to the speed limit, and our front garden drainage caught up with the excess. So, I went in and found an extra piece of plywood and had to use 4 breeze blocks to wedge it across our pedestran gateway so the waves didn't wash it away. This was then enough protection to stop much vehicle induced water flowing over the top of our defences faster than it drained away. By this time at the back of the house the water was 10" deep and flooded right through our garage - all the sort of thing we are ready for, though the 50cc mopeds look a bit odd wth their foot boards awash while in the garage.

When the rain finished, I had a bath, and you wouldn't believe the amount of silt I washed out of my hair from the times I was drenched from head to toe by those car drivers. It formed a layer over the bottom of the bath. How I wish I had a speed camera to get each & every one of those stupid drivers the fine they so richly deserve.

The sandbags in the coachworks next to us were overtopped by every car, and the poor guy's office was an inch deep by the time the rain subsided. None would have got in without the selfish speeding drivers.

However, we were well off compared to others in the nearby town, 15 houses flooded and parts of the local Walmart owned Asda had its roof come down, and the shop was closed. Heaven knows what my work is like, last time we had rain of this intensity we had hundred yard cascades into the building at every roof gully ( there are six), and we had a 4 acre indoor lake. We were fortunate that the shop floor supervisor turned the power off before the lake became live - the welders need lots of power and a short circuit to a lake probably wouldn't draw enough current in comparison to them to trip the breakers. Having 415 volts in a lake would be lethal.
I return to work tomorrow with interest...!

Regards,

Richard.

[Serinde]

You need to inform someone(s) -- local cops, local newspaper, BBC, lots of people -- this is disgraceful. The drivers didn't probably think about the damage they were doing to your home and your neighbours' (probably thought it a bit of fun -- amusing the kids in the back?), and the cost of setting it right again, but they knew absolutely what they were doing drenching you. Quick thinking by the shop super the last time...

PS:

OK, that sounds more dramatic than the reality.

Nope. And I wish they could have been fined, too.

[richardandtracy]

This was the second flood we've had that has reached the point where the water reached the level where it gets over the camber in the road (we're on the inside of the bend and the drain in front of our house can be overwhelmed) and we really do need flood defences.

The house was built over 100 years ago, and the road has had so many new surfaces on it in that time that it has been built up by a good 10 inches from its original level, and more like 15" on the far side of the road. Our front gateway has a step down from the pavement to our garden path, and then the step up into the house is the same height as the pavement step. The net result is that the pavement outside is the same height as our house floor, and if the water reaches the garden wall, it's deep enough to flood the house because our tiny 3ft long front garden won't absorb much water. 5" deeper than needed to reach the garden wall and it's deep enough to go over the camber on the outside of the bend and start filling up the large area of the front gardens on that side with no further risk to any house until the acre or two over there is filled 6" deep.

In the deluge in May 2018 (when SE England recorded over 42000 lightning pulses in a 2hr period according to https://www.blitzortung.org/en/live_lig ... php?map=12) the gardens on the other side absorbed a phenomenal amount of water without any increase in depth in front of our house, but were within an inch of completely filling, so I was preparing for emergency measures at that point.

I think I need a higher board at the front of the house. The brickwork of our garden wall is 16" high, with cast iron railings on top. I think if I make the garden gate board that high, it'll be about as good as we can get. We shall be re-roofing our garage next week, and in doing so we are also extending it so a leaky old shed we call 'the rat shed' will be demolished and become part of the garage. This part will have a breeze block wall at least 18" high, so we will be able to do away with the dry stone wall we have across the path at the back of the house (waterproofed with a sheet of plastic) that is the flood defences by the back door. We will then have a second board down the sideway next to the house, and that should then protect us from any flood less than 16" above house floor level.
We will keep it so our garage floods. This area is needed to absorb water so the road flood depth reacts somewhat more slowly to the water coming down in torrents. It'll give us enough time to make sure we notice & get the flood boards up.

Regards,

Richard.

[Serinde]

We get on average about 1400mm of rain a year, but it's measured out unequally across the months. This year, it really rained in Feb, but Mar and Apr were atypically dry and sunny, and August has been dry and cloudy (very humid) so far. Occasionally we will have a cloud unzip and the road will become a stream, but we have never flooded. Luckily. However, we need to do something about the driveway, which becomes an alarming puddle just by the front door... Suspect compaction is the problem under what's left of the gravel.

[richardandtracy]

We are in a fairly small microclimate zone (a band about 5 miles wide running North-South) where the long term average rainfall is 575 to 590mm a year (23 to 23.5 inches). This area extends north across the Thames Estuary into Suffolk & Essex. This level is low enough for meteorologists to define as 'Arid', or one step less dry than a desert. And with our population, according to an article I once read in the 'National Geographic' magazine, we have slightly less rainfall per head of population than that notably wet country, Egypt.

At my Dad's last house in West Devon, he averaged 1525mm of rain (60") a year over 27 years. There was another place 3/4 of a mile away and the owner there averaged 2110mm a year (83") over an overlapping 25 year period. It just shows the importance of local geography when close to the west coast of the UK, he was in the wrong place and we were in the right place.

Regards,

Richard.

[SteveM]

We only get 36" (914mm) a year. But 50 miles to the west they get 88" (2230mm) and 100 miles to the east they get 10" (250mm). The dramatic difference is the ocean in the west and between here and the east is a mountain range running north-south which causes a rain shadow on the east.

[Serinde]

Younger Son's portfolio for his gas fitter's course has passed. On to the practical in 10 days.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Congratulations!

[wendywombat]

Younger Son's portfolio for his gas fitter's course has passed. On to the practical in 10 days.

Fantastic!! Well Done E/S!!

[Sojourner]

Ermmm. Creeping back into a little corner after an absence - had some (continuing) health issues, along with Churchill's Black Dog.
Anyway, back again, started a fuchsia pattern cushion cover, which is very colourful but not really my thing, so, life being too short, have got back with the Bayeux scene, and thinking to continue with Betsy Morgan. One thing I've found, as I'm sure others on here have, stitching is very soothing, and takes one's mind off all the current life-changing stuff. Camino walking obviously suspended for foreseeable future, right now I can't even get enthused about walking in England, but at least have plenty to fill the time (allotment full bore with beans, courgettes and tomatoes)
Will post a pic of progress on Bayeux soon.
ATB S

[Serinde]

Don't creep. No creeping necessary. Glad to see you back. Real life gets in the way all the time. And that Black Dog has an awful lot of puppies, let me tell you. Thank heaven for gardens (harvested first broad beans -- 5 pods! -- yesterday). Shall look forward to Bayeux update in due course.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Welcome back Very sound policy to stitch what you enjoy - it's meant to be our hobby after all. Looking forward to seeing the Bayeux updates!

[richardandtracy]

Welcome back.
I always feel Churchill's dog should have gone over the rainbow years ago.

Joking aside, this year has not been a good one for people's mental health and everyone needs to be extra cautious and understanding.


My job for the day was to remove ivy from our garage roof. Sounds simple. Thing is, the ivy had got rather out of hand. It had grown 20ft along the garage, full width hanging down one side and up onto the coachworks on the other side. The main Ivy stems, 8-10 of them, were between 2 and 3" in diameter. And the composted stems, leaves etc had formed a layer of soil 4" deep across the roof. Into this mat of soil and roots, 7 or 8 Holly seedlings had germinated and grown to 4ft high under the canopy of a large Holly which hung down to the roof over a large area. Anyway, most of that is now heaped up on the ground and will be shredded tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be ready to replace the corrugated bitumen board roof with steel roofing later this week. And, with any luck, the garage will be a bit more watertight when I have finished.
Tomorrow, my other job is to buy 18 roof joists for the roof. The current timbers are only half the depth they need to be for it to be safe for someone to stand on the roof - whoever put them up really skimped on the job, and I now need to put it right. The new timbers need to be 195*47mm (approx 8"*2"), the current ones are only 4*2".

Regards,

Richard.