The good morning, good night thread

[Sallyq]

I woke up to find the bed shaking at just before 1am this morning. It was just like a big truck going past but we live on a quiet estate away from the main road, so I guessed it wasn't that. According to the local news, a lad in Sheffield had his pelvis broken when a chimney breast landed on his bed.

The last time I felt a quake like this was in the seventies in Wales when there were several earth tremors over a couple of weeks. Makes you wonder what's happening beneath us, doesn't it?

[Ed]

If memory serves, I think we're pretty close to the edge of a continental shelf, but it's one of those joints in the earth's surface that moves apart, rather than together, so it's more likely to produce volcanoes than big tremors. The big tremors like San Fransisco gets are produced by one shelf trying to push under the other, from what I remember. Could be wrong, though.

It was a very strange sensation to wake up to. At first I thought it might be the muscles in my back gone into spasm or something, but as the undulating sensation continued my wife asked if it was me moving the bed, so I thought about it briefly and said I didn't think it was. It felt a lot like the sensation you get from one of those massage chairs. Apparently it lasted around ten seconds, but it felt longer to me. I guess we can expect an aftershock at some point, too.

[Geoff_N]

Dry day today so I did a 12 miles hike up North Wales hills around Aber Falls.
Legs like jelly now - wobbly and translucent green - hah.
When my train returned me to Chester I found a note on my bike. It said my panniers have been removed for security reasons. They'd been placed in the Station Supervisors office. Oops. I usually cycle to the station on my mountain bike with no panniers so this was the first time I'd used my road bike to the station. I went to the office and apologised but then asked if the Supervisor's office was bombproof - he looked puzzled then the penny dropped...

[Ed]

Ah, but the terrorists might have snuck their bomb into your empty panniers had the rail employees left them where they were

Funny how we never worried about this sort of crap when faced with repeated attacks from the IRA, but now the mad mullahs are the enemy, it's suddenly a concern. Why is that?

[Geoff_N]

Ah, but the terrorists might have snuck their bomb into your empty panniers had the rail employees left them where they were

I thought that at first but it isn't likely is it? Emergency evacuations and bomb disposal detonations don't happen in case an abandoned bag might be used by an opportunist passing-by, bomb-carrying terrorist!
The station's action was to teach me a lesson - and it did.

Pictures of my walk are in my blog.

Geoff

[Ed]

I'd be tempted to repay them with a pair of panniers full of dog poo when the weather warms up a bit  I hate small minded people like that. Give them a little bit of responsibility and they get power crazed and start bossing people around for no good reason.

[Geoff_N]

I'd be tempted to repay them with a pair of panniers full of dog poo

Have you seen the price of panniers? 

[Geoff_N]

Morning all.

Did a mountain hike yesterday in Snowdonia. We found loads of frog spawn under the ice!

Geoff

[starktheground]

We had a freak snowstorm here in Texas yesterday. Freaky, because we got about five inches in the span of a few hours. That, and the fact that most years we're lucky to see an inch. It was a mess! Add to the fact that it hit right before the schools let out, and that Texans just don't know how to drive on ice (myself included)! Let me tell you, by the time I got home, the first thing I did was open a bottle of wine! I know that just about everyone else here on this website is used to snow, but I'm not. I felt really stupid because I thought the access roads would be safer than the highway (less traffic), but I finally made it home with the only injury to my nerves!

[Ed]

Evening, all

I'm thoroughly fed up with out new car (Nissan Pathfinder), and we've reached the stage now where we're going to the dealership tomorrow to demand our money back. The car broke down within a week of us having it, and they've been unable to fix it in the four weeks since. They've supposedly spent over £2000 on parts so far, none of which solved the problem.

Since then they've been stripping bits off their demonstrator to put on ours, to see if anything makes a difference. Apparently they'd bolt a bit on from the other car and it'd work, so they's order that bit, fit it, then it wouldn't work. Last week they promised a guy was coming down from Nissan head office in Sunderland to advise on the problem. He didn't turn up, so now he's so-called coming next week. In the meantime they had us driving around in a fucking Micra for the first week. It was only after we kicked up that they gave us something bigger - an x-trail (more like an entrail) and I hate it. So yeah - thoroughly pissed off. It's really taken the shine off getting a new car.

On a positive note - thank God it's friday

[Geoff_N]

Come back Rover, all is forgiven

[Ed]

Funnily enough, I was looking at Land Rovers on the way home. Could be in the market for a Landrover Discovery, depending on what I think of the test drive. Last time I drove one was about six years ago, and it drove like an underpowered cathederal on yawing suspension. Apparently they're better these days. But I can't get the saying out of my head - If you want to cross a desert, take a Land Rover, but if you want to come back, take a Japanese 4x4

Land Rovers have a very bad reputation for reliability, don't they?

[bintarab]

We had a freak snowstorm here in Texas yesterday. Freaky, because we got about five inches in the span of a few hours. That, and the fact that most years we're lucky to see an inch. It was a mess! Add to the fact that it hit right before the schools let out, and that Texans just don't know how to drive on ice (myself included)! Let me tell you, by the time I got home, the first thing I did was open a bottle of wine! I know that just about everyone else here on this website is used to snow, but I'm not. I felt really stupid because I thought the access roads would be safer than the highway (less traffic), but I finally made it home with the only injury to my nerves!

I didn't realize it had snowed, stark! It was frigid cold here in Austin but dry, and today's another, but I have to leave in 1/2 hour, at which point it will be even colder -- brrrr -- and I have to wait outside for a bus. One good thing comes of that: bus drivers are uncannily good drivers. Even when it snows/ices over/rains/hails here and cars are slip-sliding all over the place, the bus drivers are amazing at avoiding the mess and getting through their routes. They must have sold their souls to the devil to get that adept at it.

Come to think on it, someone should write a story on that ...

~bint

[starktheground]

Ed - Sorry about the car. That really stinks. It really does make you think, if you're having this much trouble with it now, how much will you have down the road?!

Bint - Yeah, the snow was just northern Texas into southern Oklahoma. You lucky dogs down in Austin missed all the fun!

[Ed]

I really like a bit of snow - every time it snows here, the whole country grinds to a halt, which (if we're lucky) means a few days off work and some fun for a change. It's very hilly around here, so all the kids (and some of the big kids ) grab a plastic sack and go tobogganing

Not so much fun on the roads, though, unless you've got all terrain tyres. After a week of it I've seriously had enough. That said, we very rarely get any snow lately. Global warming, maybe?