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The Canary Dave

Discussion in 'Watford' started by geitungur akureyrar, Feb 1, 2014.

  1. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. Blue sky and no wind, so hopefully it will be a good outside day. On my twice yearly trips to the UK I would always return with a generous supply of tea bags. At one time you could find Yorkshire tea that goes well with our water in the local supermarket, but they are no longer available. Found two companies in the UK via Amazon selling them and prepared to send them to France. En route, then the dreaded message, "Delayed in Customs". This is like a black hole that packages disappear in, and sometimes are never seen again. After five days a message to say they had been freed, and within hours were this side of the Channel. Last seen in the middle of the night yesterday just south of Paris, but I have a message to tell me to expect them today between noon and 3 pm. I am hopeful, but not sure they will arrive. What once took three days now takes 10 if you are lucky and the transport costs are trebled. Have a good day whatever you hope for. <ok>
     
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  2. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    Afternoon all... Lovely weather here... Further painting in the attic today... Mme has insisted we use the ten year old paint that even after half an hour of stirring plants 'bits' all over the walls...

    Anyway.. Fire alight now.. And a glass of vino. And a meal to come..
    Enjoy....
     
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  3. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. Cloudy and breezy with rain forecast for this afternoon. I was right to not hold my breath while waiting for my teabags yesterday as despite staying around the house all afternoon they didn't arrive. 9.00 pm and the tracking told me they had been taken for an import scan. Released from that having discovered that I wasn't importing sausages or cheddar cheese, and at 7.15 am they had arrived at Poitiers, and have been sent out for delivery. With a bit of luck they should arrive today. Feel a bit sorry for the company trying to continue to sell over here, it must be very difficult with the unknown delivery times and increased costs. Have a good day whatever you will be doing. <ok>
     
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  4. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    Next time place an order with the Yorkie mobile if you like..... we brought in a sack of them for some local friends!

    Meanwhile a rewarding trip to the local village market this morning: 247490108_10220566139691857_7761388036699568800_yum.jpg

    All locally produced and organic..... very tasty as well....
    The different shaped aubergines are ...interesting ... too
     
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  5. Bolton's Boots

    Bolton's Boots Well-Known Member

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    What's that big thing on the left? It looks like a badly mauled haggis...
     
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  6. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    Chocolate bread!
     
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  7. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. The wind and rain we had last night has died down, but now there are leaves everywhere that have been blown off the trees. The tea bag saga is over, they arrived yesterday, and there was no import charges to pay. No one, including the sellers seem to know when they will be applied, or how much they will be. Some people have stated that they were charged 66% on the cost of the goods. Standard terms now say that if you refuse to pay and the goods are sent back, the company will not refund the shipping charges. Off to town now to get the cars MOT done. My garage went over it a month ago when it had a service and didn't think there would be any major issues. Fingers crossed. Have a good day whatever you may do. <ok>
     
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  8. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. Sun just breaking through the cloud, but with the breeze coming from the north it is not expected to be very warm. One new tyre required for the car according to the test centre, but my man at the garage who I went to see afterwards thought they were being a bit picky. Of course it means getting two, as they have to be the same on an axle, and the ones I have are no longer being sold. Unless there is something seriously wrong with your car that means taking it off the road, you have two months to get your repairs done, and a retest. Tyres have been ordered and paid for, so next week I will be able to get everything sorted for another two years. Have a good day everyone. <ok>
     
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  9. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. A clear blue sky and a slight breeze, but a definite feel of autumn when it comes to the temperature. The friend whose husband died recently, and is in no way able to stay in her isolated hamlet without a driving licence is having a house clearance sale today. Her husband was a squirrel on a major scale and there are so many of his things that will have limited appeal. He loved restoring very old motor bikes and has a fully equipped workshop where he made parts that were no longer available. A good lathe must be worth quite a bit, so I hope that she doesn't accept a silly low price for it. Luckily she has some friends who will be on hand to make sure she doesn't get ripped off. Quite who will want valves from early computers though is hard to imagine. Have a good day, and let's hope for a decent showing from the team. <ok>
     
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  10. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. A lovely Sunday morning in many ways. The teams performance was beyond my expectations, and now the sky is blue, no wind and a bit warmer. All very quiet with just the occasional farmer going home in his white van after checking on his livestock. Because of succession laws here many farms are spread out, with fields sometimes several miles away from the main farm. It does have the downside that you sometimes follow a flock of sheep for twenty minutes as it is driven to a new pasture. You learn to take life as it comes. Have a good day everyone. <ok>
     
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  11. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. Quite a change from yesterday to an overcast sky and occasional showers. The supermarket had some large cauliflowers for sale at two for €1.90, so although we cannot eat that much cauliflower cheese, they were local and appeared to be very fresh. So seasonal job is to make loads of soup that can be used for the colder days. Cauliflower, carrots, parsnips and leeks all going to make some warm tasty bowls of soup. Bag them up into two bowl portions, then on a cold day take a bag out of the freezer, pop it into the microwave, and bingo, something that you know doesn't contain E number this or that. Have a good day everyone.<ok>
     
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  12. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. Grey and clearly we had some light rain overnight, but there is no wind and it is mild. Spent yesterday afternoon clearing out a corner that had become a dumping ground for bits and pieces that I didn't want to throw away in case one day they might be useful. Looking at some bits I didn't know where they had come from, or what possible use they might be one day. At the end of it the amount of things that are to be discarded was painfully small. At least the spiders will have to start again to spin some new webs. Have a good day whatever you must do. <ok>
     
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  13. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Morning all. Bright blue sky and the man from the Météo says it will a warm afternoon. Had a close shave the other day when I went to cross the road in town, and only at the last moment realised that an electric car was bearing down on me. Despite the fact that many deals are on offer to buy one, and charging points are popping up more and more, they are very expensive still. Although charging is free generally at some time in the future government will have to replace lost fuel taxes. How far down the road that will be has not been stated, and will the supermarkets that have a charge up while you shop service still be prepared to offer it for free? It will be interesting to see just how things will evolve. Have a good day everyone. <ok>
     
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  14. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    The jury is still very much out on electric cars Frenchie - until they can produce batteries where the production is environmentally friendly. Also it is a nightmare trying to put it out if an electric car catches fire - the fire brigade are clueless on this one. The future needs to revolve more around an expansion of public transport possibilities. Unfortunately the German governments of the past ran down their railway system in order to bolster their car industry it is that which needs to be reversed. We also need to find a form of green politics which is not only relevant to those who can afford e-cars and solar panels.
     
    #21074
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  15. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    I would certainly agree that green politics always get branded as too expensive whereas when you look at the overall effects, they do make sense. Drive around France and you will see where railways once existed, but at the time they were closed down governments thought them to be uneconomic. An article I came across the other day was written by someone questioning the large sums being spent on infrastructure projects such as new TVG links, but not so much on local lines. I am afraid that in countries as large as France or Germany, the solution for those who live in rural areas will rely on the car for a long time yet.
     
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  16. Bolton's Boots

    Bolton's Boots Well-Known Member

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    Not to mention for countries as small as the UK. Look what Beeching did to the rail network in the 60s - left great swathes of the country without decent transport links. In this neck of the woods, no thought was given to improving roads and successive governments simply spent cash on 'sticking plaster' repairs to single carriageway roads that were quite obviously unsuitable for the increased road traffic that necessarily followed - especially HGV traffic. Only since 2007 have improvements started - the Aberdeen Bypass, which has been a major safety boon for residents there as well as drivers, the gradual dualling of the A9 from Perth to Inverness, of the A96 from Aberdeen to Inverness and, the one that affects me most, of the A98 from Inverness to Fraserburgh. All very expensive projects, but all very necessary. My main beef with the Green Party was their objection to those projects, on the grounds that the plans were incompatible with climate initiatives. Quite what alternatives they had to propose were beyond me - there is absolutely no hope of re-opening the rail networks that served communities in the area - at least not without Westminster controlling the Network Rail purse strings.
     
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  17. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    I agree that people need cars more in rural areas Frenchie - fortunately the sale of cars to young people in cities like Cologne is finally going down. It's no longer seen as being as 'cool' as it once was. In rural areas it's like asking which came first the chicken or the egg - the cars are needed because the infrastructure is poor, and the infrastructure is poor because people have cars. We can debate for hours on end about the most environmentally friendly way of getting Helmut or Fred from A to B but the most important thing is to ask whether the journey itself was necessary (and to try to make it unnecessary). We know that short journeys produce proportionally more Co2 emissions than long ones (the first 2 km are the worst) so for me driving down the hill to the shops several times per day is going to cause more damage than if I drove to Cologne or Düsseldorf - 30 years ago there would have been no necessity because there was a shop on the hill. But the reason why the shop disappeared is because too many people had cars !
     
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  18. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    The question is whether building new roads actually eases traffic congestion or actually increases the overall traffic (like deepening of rivers) BB. I would tend more towards the second theory.
     
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  19. Bolton's Boots

    Bolton's Boots Well-Known Member

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    Not in the cases I mentioned. Where there were no alternatives methods of transport available, they were, and still are, a necessity. However, those cases weren't exactly 'new' roads, rather they were widening of existing roads and actually have eased congestion. The Aberdeen Bypass is a case in point - driving south to eg Dundee or Edinburgh previously meant driving through Aberdeen, which invariably took anywhere between 90 and 180 minutes - the Bypass now means that stretch can be navigated in less than 15 minutes. The same applies to the A9 Perth to Inverness - the influx of HGVs on single carriageway roads which offered little to no opportunities for overtaking caused massive tailbacks - a situation that is being slowly alleviated.

    And I'd argue that any increase in overall traffic is down to increasing population size...
     
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  20. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    There is certainly a problem creating new bypasses around towns. Build it a mile away from the town and it is seen as a new boundary. The space between the town and new road gets bought up by property developers, and depending on the total area involved can bring about hundreds of new houses. This creates problems on local services, doctors, schools etc, and dare I mention sewerage. Concrete over ground that water can seep through before covered with concrete, and you need elaborate water disposal schemes. Although developers can be asked to contribute towards the costs of improving these services, in reality they pay only token sums on appeal, and local authorities that are cash strapped are looking at the income from council taxes, so don't push too hard. If you ask how the local sewerage treatment plant, or school is expected to cope, the standard reply is that these will follow eventually after the new houses are occupied.
     
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