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Squirrel watching the above

Spring is here

Travelling Africa with an EV ...

7825008-6bbd8c4de1c03dc60020bc43642ddf30.mp4

I just came this on another site, and it makes you think about how things are today. Kids just don't know what it was like for us older generation 😁 CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL BORN IN 1930's, 1940's, 50's, 60's, 70's and Early 80's !!! First, you survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, your baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. You had no childproof lids on medicine ..medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when you rode your bikes, you had no helmets, not to mention, the risks you took hitch-hiking .. As children, you would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a van - loose - was always great fun. You drank water from the garden hosepipe and NOT from a bottle. You shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. You ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but you weren't overweight because...... YOU WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!! You would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach you all day. And you were OK. You would spend hours building your go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out you forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, you learned to solve the problem . You did not have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no text messaging, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........YOU HAD FRIENDS and you went outside and found them! You fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents you played with worms(well most boys did) and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. You made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although you were told it would happen, you did not poke out any eyes. You rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Local teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing you out if you broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. You had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and you learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

I'm inclined to say that the owner was partly at fault, tor taking a decent car to Halfrauds for service!

Seeing as it's late on Friday evening, here are some topless chicks to entertain ... PG [partial nudity]

Same the world over... They get promoted to the point of incompetence then move on before the trail of destruction they leave behind gets noticed... Whilst the rest of the good ones who know what they are doing get overlooked and kept out of senior positions in case they identify the incompetence of the people above them. Cynical.. me??? Hell yes!!!

Car's just passed its MOT today with no advisories 👍 Interestingly the front brakes didn't even get a mention, despite the VW Main Dealer 'strongly advising' that they needed changing this time last year 🙄 (8k miles ago - I did check them at the 5k mark a week before our trip up to York 'coz I didn't want them needing changing while we were away, and they were fine then). Think that'll be the last time the MD sees my car as upselling switches me right off. Gaz Edit: Just picked it up. Chap at the garage said my GTI was 'spot on', and added '.. they're good cars, yours is a lovely one.' Aww, shucks!

Going away for a short break tonight, had the day off today to get ready for it. Last night the Mrs asked what I was doing tomorrow, seems my reply of "washing and cleaning out the car and loading it up for the break" didn't trigger this morning, as she took the car rather than the van to work! 🤐 Plus side: No jobs to do and a day off Negatives: Car is a mess, and when she gets home in 30mins it'll be chucking it down (rain just started, forecasted to continue past 9pm), and she will probably ask why I haven't done the 20 or so tasked she had in her head she never told me about

Chiffchaff in the garden

This just made me chuckle, they make adverts like this anymore.

Does anyone remember those halcyon days when you could unscrew a plastic cap from its bottle and remove it cleanly? Nowadays, the cap is, more often than not, attached to the permanent ring on the bottle after you have broken its seal and unscrewed it. It is really annoying with things that you drink for the bottle, or wish to pour part of the bottle contents out (the cap can get in the way of both). It is possible to rip the cap clean, but you are left with an annoying bit of sharp prong sticking out from the retained ring! Grrrrrr.

Turkish sausage: Followed by chicken shish: then baklava, which I forgot to take a pic of 🙄 Gaz

Sad just watching the apparently deaf dumb and blind highly paid senior people that were heading the Post Office or Royal Mail or department or divisions of them Anyone that now employ them maybe need to consider are they fit for purpose in any position they hold. I do hope that come time some might face investigation into any criminality eventually from within the management.

Petty I know by comparison but on a more local level . . . parking at the local hospital. Had to go for an X-ray, a walk-in service so you’ve no idea how long you’ll be. No good calling ahead as they won’t know either just how busy they’ll be at any point. Park up, walk to meter, not working. Next meter is. Reckoning on 15mins to X-ray department, waiting could be 30mins, X-ray then back to the car, could be done in an hour. However if I’m 5mins over . . . . so let’s pay for 2 hours, £2:50. In the end, in and out inside 40 mins as no one else in the department 👍 Robbing b🤬ds these car park managers, printing money. Can’t pass the ticket to anyone else as it’s got the registration on it. I know it’s only £2:50 so no big deal, it’s the principle; wouldn’t mind if the hospital saw the money rather than some company who do nothing to earn the fees 24/7/365

Baking potatoes (Vivaldi) in the oven, pre frozen cottage pie mix (with quite a bit of red wine in it if I recall correctly-or was it me that had the red wine in her?). Cheese grated in prep for topping and hopefully in about 90 minutes I should have a Cumberland pie to last me 2 days (or one day and a late supper )

.. and fixed, looks like someone cracked the oil filter housing by overtightening at the last service or something along those lines. Anyways, fixed for now, car will be swapped tomorrow. Replacement is a business grey Kodiaq from 2018, 110kW 4x4, 5 seater, leather, DSG, nav, LEDs, heated front and rear seats. Should be an interesting swap.

In squirrel terms, is that like the bloke that lost his hard drive with all his cryptocurrency on it?

and a golden oldie

A writer's dilemma ... PG [mild, suggestive]

@Lady Elanore, the problem is that your comparisons to date are mainly of inert foodstuffs (I understand foodstuffs are one of your passions) but those proffered to date can offer some benefits on consumption whereas Trump has no such redeeming feature. A better comparison would be a 'rotten egg' but even that falls down when you realise it only does one foul smelling emission while Trump's foul emissions are constant and never-ending. From an Australian perspective I offer as a comparison, a member of the Bufonidae genus, the Rhinella marina or more commonly known as the Cane Toad. It is an introduced species that is extremely poisonous from spawn, through tadpole to adulthood. It is seemingly invulnerable to any counter measures to prevent its spread and has been held responsible for the actual and imminent extinction of many indigenous species. There is considerable resemblance , it is also useless at the job it was introduced here for, which was to eat the (also introduced) destructive sugar cane beetle. It is also an extreme pest in Florida, so the comparisons seem endless. A small hope: Members of the Australian ibis (Threskiornithidae) families (colloquially known as 'bin chickens') have been observed goading cane toads into exuding their poisons then washing them in the nearest water, killing them, putting the corpse on its back and eating from the more vulnerable underside. We can learn a lot from nature.

Why would you want to insult walnuts like that? When you open up a walnut at least the contents look like a brain.

Not a bad end to the day..........

Prawn risotto: I'm in danger yet again of eating too healthily. Luckily Mrs Gaz is out tonight and there's a big bag of cheese puffs in the cupboard, so dietary balance will be restored shortly. Gaz

Fish pie for us, with a bit of broccoli for colour. It's another of those meals we should have more often: Gaz

Yes here too

Going with the earlier Mash discussion, tonight it was Bangers & Mash with veg & proper onion gravy.

Seeing as fingers are in play ...

I am nom nom'd out

I add myself also here ... car is brilliant. Made a round-trip of south east europe of 3200km only two days after getting the car delivered and I actually started learning the ropes as I went 🙂 And fairly economical as well, returned an average of 12/13 km/lt (say, 7 to 8 l/100km), considering not exactly economy run speeds ... There is still loads more to go .. but so far all good. I was shocked and horrified to learn it had its first 'service' done at 30K km ... modern engines oh well. I booked it for a check regardless, while I need to select a 'new' VCDS from Gendan, mine which I got from them 10 years ago became outdated (like most things, alas, I am still struggling without CDs 🤪). Will continue reading and reading ....

He'll need more than Weetabix The cover on this phone is to protect the floor, not the phone

Maybe there is no reason not to with a DQ200 0AM . Different with wet clutch DSG,s. Just do it, what is the worst that could happen?

And all these executives simply move from one high paid job to the next even-higher paid role. Adam Crozier was at Saatchi & Saatchi, the FA (how appropriate) Royal Mail, Whitbread and presently head of BT Group. Paula Vennells worked her way through the Post Office to become CEO and made such a fine job of it was appointed as a non-exec board member of the Cabinet Office. Having left the PO she then became chair of Imperial College Healthcare but resigned a short while later. And having trained for holy orders and been ordained she was in the final three shortlisted to become Bishop of London 😱 Do any of the headhunters that recommend these people never look at what they’ve left in their wake or simply offer them up for a new role and await their commission.

You've seen an electric hybrid? Here's another sort of hybrid ...