Quick daily posts

[richardandtracy]

Obviously speaking from a position of in-depth knowledge...

Regards,

Richard

[Serinde]

I follow a podcast where two guys, Adam and Chris, discuss modern technology and faith - this time one of them tried to describe crochet to the other (don't ask...)

Adam: "It's kinda like knitting, I think."
Chris: "I think they're different right?"
Adam: "Knitting has straight needles and crocheting has like a hooked needle."
Chris: "Oh my gosh how do you know this?"
Adam: "You might just have one needle or maybe you have two needles, and you end up with a scarf, basically."

[rcperryls]

I follow a podcast where two guys, Adam and Chris, discuss modern technology and faith - this time one of them tried to describe crochet to the other (don't ask...)

Adam: "It's kinda like knitting, I think."
Chris: "I think they're different right?"
Adam: "Knitting has straight needles and crocheting has like a hooked needle."
Chris: "Oh my gosh how do you know this?"
Adam: "You might just have one needle or maybe you have two needles, and you end up with a scarf, basically."

Carole

[rcperryls]

I was fascinated watching this video of a pumpkin carving for Halloween. Thought some of you who carve pumpkins for Halloween would be interested to see this

Incredible pumpkin carving

Carole

[richardandtracy]

Had a surprise last night, after we went to bed.
At 10.20 pm our power flipped out. And it was just us. We found that it was the kitchen ring main, which connects to the garage power. As I am still dealing with the garage roof, I immediately thought it was leaking and dripping onto the electrics.
As it was pelting down, I put my coat on and my gardening crocs and stepped out of the back door. Into water 4" deep.

Our new flood defences are not ready yet. Anyway, dashed to the front door to find our frront garden was half full, with water pouring in the front gate having overwhelmed the drain. Put up the defence there and went back to the back garden, and built a drystone wall there and made it a bit more watertight with some heavy plastic sheet. Our little drain at the back could then cope with the leakage through the wall and it rapidly dropped to half an inch deep out the back. The water on the flooded side of our defences peaked at 5" deep at the front and 9" deep at the back.

After it started to go down, I went into the garage to see what might have caused the power to flip out, and next to a totally submerged SDS drill, was an extension lead plugged in and the end on the ground. If that hadn't been there and not tripped the power, we could have had the house flooded! I'm going to have to check all my tools this morning. Ho hum.

Well, that was a surprise, I can tell you. Maybe I need to put in some form of sensor/float switch to warn us to put the defences out, because we had no idea the rain was hard enough to do that.

Regards,

Richard.

[SteveM]

Never a dull moment is there?

I seem to only clean the gutters out when it is pouring down so hard that they are overflowing.

[Serinde]

Holey Moley Andy! The Rain gods were looking down on you -- it might have been 3am, and you wouldn't have known about the loss of power! Still, scary enough!

[Mabel Figworthy]

What a night! But glad that that providential short circuit or whatever is the right term woke you up.

[richardandtracy]

Yep, it was luck. An next time we may not get lucky. Not quite sure what to do about it. What is more, this is the first time the rain intensity has been high enough to be a problem at this time of year. It's usually a summer thunderstorm type thing. The weather patterns are changing, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I would love to come up with a self deploying defence, but the water is usually so laden with silt that it'd gum up before deploying.. I shall have to think on't. Having the defences permanently deployed and taking them down to go through would be a first rate pain, especially as the wear and tear would make them ineffective pretty rapidly.

I hope my SDS drill will dry out OK. It was cheap 10 years ago, but replacing it now would be double what I got it for originally and £60+ is getting to be a significant amount of money for a tool I don't use often. But it's the only tool that will drill 2ft deep holes into masonry, and I occasionally need to do daft things like that.

Regards,

Richard.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Good luck pondering - as is the way of things, a solution might come to you at 2am so make sure you have a notebook by your bed!

[wendywombat]

We were lucky to miss all that rain whilst travelling back but we had a horrendous drive south through France.
I hope that you dry out soon Richard and that your drill is still usable.

[rcperryls]

Interesting short video on The Ancient Craft of Tin Embroidery in China , called Miao Embroidery, from my CNN newsletter.

Carole

[richardandtracy]

That's remarkable Carole. Simply remarkable.

Regards,

Richard

[Serinde]

Agreed!

[Wise Owl]

That’s amazing, love this so much Carole.

[Serinde]

I'm currently working on a book with an author I've been collaborating with for years and years. It's nice to have a real grip on what he's wanting to achieve, especially as it's quite a complex copy edit. However, I'm determined to concentrate on it this week to finish this section. I might find time for stitching and -- maybe even -- weaving.

[Mabel Figworthy]

I might find time for stitching and -- maybe even -- weaving.

It's important to give your mind a rest every now and then - makes you clearer-sighted when you come back to the complicated copy-editing job (which sounds like it's interesting as well as challenging)

[Serinde]

Mabel, it is very interesting (rise of aristocracy in Europe from middle ages to 19th century) and a topic you might have thought studied to death. But not so! And more complicated than one might think. He writes very lucidly, so it's easy to keep the gist of the argument in my head. The difficulties are in following the inserts around the edges of the pages (and occasionally onto the back as well as new pages a, b, c... making sure that *1 isn't confused with *2, that all the new footnotes are in the correct spot. Whew!

[rcperryls]

That does sound interesting as those periods of history are my favorites. From your description I can imagine it must be complicated, especially if covering all the different countries and regions of Europe. Can't imagine all of that in one book. I agree with Mabel, important to give your mind a rest periodically. Perfect excuse to sneak in an hour of stitching or weaving.

Carole

[wendywombat]

Best not to disturb the Editorial thought process.