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Friday 6th January 2012
Geoff
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Saturday 7th January 2012
In the past Ganymede may have passed through one or more Laplace-like resonances
Sometime in the afternoon, I thought I would try to get to the bottom of our leaking bathroom radiator (it's a towel radiator, about 2m tall). The copper inlet pipe was leaking slowly, at the point where said copper pipe enters a valve controlling flow of water through radiator. There are two valves (surely only one's needed, you would think), one for the water coming in and one for the water coming out. Anyway, the valves themselves looked fine. So . . . there I am, with recently purchased adjustable wrench from B&Q. I try to tighten the nut surrounding the copper pipe, but it's as tight as it can go. It will loosen, but what's the point in that? So how about this other nut, the one above the valve (a picture would help here).
I loosen the nut, some water comes out, so maybe not a good idea. Then I'm not sure what happens but I mess around with the valve again and all of a sudden I've got a torrent of water coming out of previously loosened nut. I try to tighten this nut as water is going everywhere and I'm starting to panic. So, it's a closed system and the taps controlling access to the water mains are fully closed anyway, so what do you do?
 
Why, you turn the water mains off of course. So I run into the kitchen, turn the water mains off, run back up again, water still gushing everywhere, but I guess pressure has decreased somewhat. I manage to tighten the nut up and stop the water. In retrospect, it dawns on me that all that water was from the radiator itself. Oooops.
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So yeah . . . later on, I'm queueing up to get a drink at The Sun. The guy in front of me, at the bar itself, gets his drinks and wanders off. I'm about to fill the void and place myself at the bar when a man someone leaps in front of me and gets his order. Cheeky b******! So I kind of think to myself, "Okay, fine, keep calm . . . wait your turn, get your drink, it's all fine." Queue-pusher gets his drinks and wanders off. So, again, I try to manoeuvre myself to the bar. A blur of movement and a young, slim, blonde girl has barged in front of me, placed herself at the bar and is being asked by the bar-man (ooo, surprise, he's a man!) what drinks she would like. So, I manage to get myself to the bar and just talk over the top of her, "Can I have a pint of Guinness and a pint of Amstel, please." The barman's like,
"Erm . . . who's first?" So I was like, "Well, I was here first, but this girl pushed in." The girl doesn't say much so the barman's like, "Okay, I'll serve you both then." I'm still in a rage when the girl says something about, "You know, it's very rude to . . . " but I didn't really catch what she was saying. I turned to her and said, "Well, you know, I think it's very rude to barge in front of people like that, and push your way through to the bar. Don't you?" All the time I was saying this, looking at her, she just looked straight ahead and wouldn't answer. I stared at her for a while, puzzling over her fake eyelashes and industrial quantities of make-up. I waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming. What's that about, eh? I don't know why I let these kind of encounters get me so riled up. Clearly some action is required, but I often find myself reacting almost on anger-fuelled autopilot. That can't be right. The encounter made me question myself and how I react in these situations so at least I have that to thank her for.
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Saturday 14th January 2012
Operation Gustavus failed before the agents managed to achieve any results
    
Here we are somewhere around Bolton-le-Sands, walking along the canal. I have a far more derogatory name for this canal, based on dogs and their waste products, which seem in great profusion along this stretch of the canal. Dogs or the waste products? The latter. So yeah . . . it gets a bit tiresome being on constant vigilance having to watch where the boys are going, but hey . . . all part of the fun and games.
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Sunday 15th January 2012
Over Wyresdale Parish Hall
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This is another of those more-for-my-benefit-than-anyone-else's kinds of entries. These are pictures of the interior of Over Wyresdale Parish Hall. We wanted to get a feel for the place, work out where everything would go, what kind of facilities it had, the dimensions, all of that stuff. The pictures also serve to give a sense of scale, i.e. M**** standing against one of the walls.
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So yeah . . . Over Wyresdale Parish Hall was in the morning. Later on that day we went for a walk . . . somewhere. Fairy Steps, which would be somewhere around Silverdale. Oh, I remember - we went for lunch at The Wheatsheaf and then we went for our walk.
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Tuesday 17th January 2012
Engage!
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I had been trying to capture the gist of a conversation that took place on New Year's Eve (possibly New Year's Day) but I couldn't quite capture the essence. Basically I proposed to M**** that we get married in 2012 and she accepted said proposal. At the time, the proposal was deliberately left very vague (some time in 2012) with the intention to pin-point a date before announcing it to friends and family. Working slightly backwards, we then committed ourselves to getting M**** an engagement ring. This really isn't going to be a normal wedding. Anyway . . . we've managed to narrow it down to 16th June 2012. That's the date.
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Thursday 19th January 2012
Preparations
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Preparations for the wedding continues apace (?! Is that the expression? Looks kind of weird when you write it down like that . . . type it down, I mean) . . . erm . . . kind of. M****'s doing most of it, as I'm at work during the day-time. Hey, that's my excuse. But secretly I think she really enjoys it, all that planning. Here's a good tip for anyone planning a wedding though: don't buy a wedding magazine. Why? Well, perhaps all those original ideas you thought you had don't suddenly seem all that original and then you start to question free will, the subconscious, creativity, determinism, mortality, death, the universe, the Large Hadron Collider, low-energy nuclear reactions, life boats (which should always be placed so as to catch the captain should he fall off the ship during an emergency) and . . . no, I think I'm thinking of something else here . . . but yeah. The song remains the same (what?! Lep Zeppelin?!): why have I just wasted £4.99 on this? (this being the wedding magazine, held aloft and in disgust between thumb and index finger)
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Saturday 21st January 2012
Lakes Aquarium
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A day out at the south end of Windermere, mainly visiting the Lakes Aquarium. No doubt we had lunch at the Swan (Newby Bridge); that seems to be our regular haunt when in that part of the world.
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Sunday 22nd January 2012
Leighton Moss
     
I like this place. You kind of wander around, camera and binoculars at hand, making a vague attempt at looking for interesting looking flying things and you walk past all these people in their 40's, 50's and 60's with some seriously expensive kit handing around their necks and shoulders. But what the hell - it's just got a nice, calm, peaceful atmosphere and several of these hides where you can do more impatient bird watching (the boys don't really have the patience, you see) and that's about it. Simple. Oh, and there's the requisite café at the end, of course.
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Saturday 28th January 2012
Somewhere up Warton Cragg
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Sunday 29th January 2012
GIve a child a comic and some Blu-tack
  
Those first three pictures are taken from our walk in the afternoon to somewhere around Leighton Hall.
The last picture there refers back to the title. A****** was given this Star Wars comic, you see. I think that would have been from his nanna (with two cats). Anyway, so . . . later on, after doing all the puzzles and what-not, he managed to extract all the 'posters' and decorate his bedroom door. So there you go.
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