What I did during my “holiday”...

[GT6MK3]

Around the world, people are adjusting, according to their current circumstances, to a new reality, and some trying times.

This thread is for the Sideways community to post daily photos or updates so we can keep each other amused, informed, uplifted, and supported.  The whole world, regardless of politics, race, religion, finance, colour or creed, is in this together.

Keep safe, keep sane, let us know what your doing, and how your doing.  It’s ok to say you’re not ok, it’s also ok to put a smile on the face of the folks who come here.

 

Post away.

[GT6MK3]

After two hectic weeks of setting up the employees at my clients to work remotely, I finally pulled the pin on working onsite last night. 

Today I moved from setting folks up to work from home, to supporting them while they do, also from home.

Local management has also moved to working from home, so we’re learning to share...

We escaped after work to get some exercise and Vit D, and combined that with a trip to the shops.

[thebrookster]

5 minutes ago, GT6MK3 said:

We escaped after work to get some exercise and Vit D

I hope the Vit D is good over in Australia, looking like I shall be visiting in a week and bit time! North West Australia, Barrow Island I believe, taking a cargo.

[mattius]

We are only allowed out once a day. DIY central here...

So far, re-varnished a floor:

Built a pipe box:

And discovered then 30ft chimney on our house is condemned and likely to collapse (day before the lockdown):

[zetecspit]

Chimney looks like a candidate for a bit or re-pointing! (or as most plasterers say these days, bit of mesh and render )

[MilesA]

Lovely sunny spring day in London but angle of sun probably too low to get any meaningful vitamin D, so still getting mine this way!

Off for a run later, but only after the crowds of newbie joggers have dispersed!

[RogerH]

Hi Miles

Assuming I have worked it out correctly your 25ug tablets = 1000 IU

I am taking 5000 IU/day  at the moment.   I had a mild cold/sore throat last week. Usually this would have laid me out for quite a few days.

 

Roger 

[JohnD]

I too escaped to my garden.   Second mow of the year, plus lawn edging and scraping moss from the paths and drive.  Looks a lot neater!

Dont know about VitD, but Vitamin G(arden) is great life lifter!

Then back to the garage.

 

[Nick Jones]

We have been enjoying the sun here in Somerset.  Being very rural has it's advantages - "allowed out once a day" seems entirely without point when we can walk for hours on local paths and not see anyone.  Seems to be business as usual on the local industrial estates though.

Plenty of odd jobs to do.  Have just freed off the sticky caliper handbrake mechanism on old Sooty (yet again) and have been contemplating how to fix one of the climate control servo motors (failed in the "cold" position though it hasn't been asked to go to cold for months?).  That looks like hours of fun due to lack of access.

Vitesse needs putting back together and a fair bit of painting underneath.  Not relishing that.  GT6 interior - likewise.

Our student "kids" have returned home.  This doesn't help supplies last!  Especially since the younger one has been making full use of his one exercise outing a day - he's done 350 miles on his bike since Monday morning...... which makes him hungry.  Very hungry!

Spring is happening and the garden is looking better for it - have a rather lovely magnolia (not in the garden, but only just up the road)

[mattius]

2 hours ago, zetecspit said:

Chimney looks like a candidate for a bit or re-pointing! (or as most plasterers say these days, bit of mesh and render )

The fact you can move the whole thing with your hands doesn't inspire confidence

[Nick Jones]

10 minutes ago, mattius said:

The fact you can move the whole thing with your hands doesn't inspire confidence

 I'm giving you an "A*" for understatement!  You really don't want an advanced case of Jenga on your roof - and it's been a bit windy lately.......

What's to do?  Presumably it has to be taken down and rebuilt?

[mattius]

Its currently braced with scaffolding so it cannot move,  it also weighs over 1.5 ton!

It was poorly designed 100 years ago, what you see in the pic is it, there is no bracing of it, despite the height of it. Just straight up flat wall of bricks.

When this shizzle is over, its coming down to the roof line and a considerably smaller one rebuilt (10 courses of bricks), it only services a wood fired stove and the roof space is not occupied so i believe we are allowed to lower it.

[thebrookster]

8 minutes ago, mattius said:

When this shizzle is over, its coming down to the roof line and a considerably smaller one rebuilt (10 courses of bricks), it only services a wood fired stove and the roof space is not occupied so i believe we are allowed to lower it.

I imagine you can replace it with something smaller, the only thing I might suggest is do you have an architect friend? Might be worth double-checking it will meet building regs, there are some rather strange rules in there and if you wish to sell on at some point this could be applicable??

[rogerguzzi]

9 minutes ago, mattius said:

Its currently braced with scaffolding so it cannot move,  it also weighs over 1.5 ton!

It was poorly designed 100 years ago, what you see in the pic is it, there is no bracing of it, despite the height of it. Just straight up flat wall of bricks.

When this shizzle is over, its coming down to the roof line and a considerably smaller one rebuilt (10 courses of bricks), it only services a wood fired stove and the roof space is not occupied so i believe we are allowed to lower it.

Hello Mattius

                        When you say down to roof line is that just the brickwork then the pots on top?

If not you may have down draught problems and the fire not drawing very well as when the air comes over the ridge it creates turbulence and down draft (google it)

This is why wind turbines are no good on chimneys etc

Roger

[zetecspit]

27 minutes ago, mattius said:

The fact you can move the whole thing with your hands doesn't inspire confidence

5 years ago I was involved in refurbing a pair of victorian terraced houses. They had, as typical, original extensions at the rear, 5' wide, about 8@ long. Luckily they were next to each other.

Left the builder bloke to it. He emplyed "hacked off" to remove the render and plaster inside. 

Got a call from the builders assistant. (builder had buggered off on holiday) asking me to visit. I was greeted by a gap between the extension and main building, all 3 floors high. Some places 1/2", up to 1 1/2", and felt wobbly. He asked me what to do! (I suggested he should know, but I would start with metal straps to stabilise it, then add short lintels and tie sthem into teh main structure. Bricky agreed, job done. 

Later when I was doing a bit of roofing there, I noticed at as far as I could see, every other house in the road had the same problem, but as all the others are flats, the decorators had just wadged the cracks up every time. Quite scary....

 

Anyway, a fairly tall chimney, but it was an OK design, it has lasted this long. And it would probably be the same as all the others in the area? And I bet most are pretty untouched, all a bit worrying. But yes, take it down and rebuild. A decent builder will know what to do, and should understand the local regs. 

Meanwhile, I have successfully sorted the "nut and bolt" cupboard. I have a 4L bucket if rubbish from it, but sorted into metric and imperial, and I have tubs of used salvaged bolts, largely sorted by size. And discovered many many new packs of nuts/washers. Plus a few nice bits turned up (hardtop fixings being one)

[Hamish]

My work, at a classic car garage has continued to operate as garages are exempt from the Uk shut down. 
 

I have taken my leave in a bid to self-isolate.

3 days in we have filled a skip of garden waste dead trees cut down and rotting old shed skipped. (very neatly you must admit) to get the most out of the skip volume.
 

and today I have twisted my back brushing up.  Completely immobile now. The pain is very evident but I am more annoyed with myself. 
 

the deal was we would do the garden then I would change the TR3 front suspension set up to that of the TR4a-6 

I have new brake discs turning up tomorrow to rub salt in the wounds. 
 

racing is off so I thought I had time to do the changes. 

all very frustrating.
 

take care out there. 
H

[Martin]

I have quite some spare time as I will go into early retirement  April 1st. Since some weeks I´m more or less already at home.

Removed a normal door and replaced by a sliding glass door, working on the roll cage for my Polo Revival Project and enjoying the sun.

[Nick Jones]

Seems that the sun is not all that warm 

Door looks good!

[PaulAA]

Ah, Clive, you've woken old memories...

When I was a wee student in the late 80s, I worked for a practice which specialised in historic building restoration.  We had several calamities resulting from the Great Hurricane in '87, but it was the freak gust of wind about two weeks later that did the worst damage.

We had just started work on an Elizabethan manor, the stone tiles had been partially removed from the roof and a tarpaulin laid over the frame.  Scaffolding had been erected around an enormous set of ornate barley twist brick chimneys, which needed repointing.  Fortunately, it was lunchtime when the gust arrived and the contractor's men were away from the building.  The wind caught the tarpaulin, took it up against the scaffolding around the chimney and, acting like a sail, pushed it over. Chimney, scaffolding and part of the house wall spread themselves over the lawn...

As for this week, I was given the task of re-decorating our eldest's bedroom, in anticipation of her return next week on one of the rescue charter flights from Heathrow.  I'm useless at painting walls, but I'm starting to get the hang of this concrete-effect plaster, haha:

Paul

[mattius]

2 hours ago, rogerguzzi said:

Hello Mattius

                        When you say down to roof line is that just the brickwork then the pots on top?

If not you may have down draught problems and the fire not drawing very well as when the air comes over the ridge it creates turbulence and down draft (google it)

This is why wind turbines are no good on chimneys etc

Roger

It will end up being around 2m above the gutter, instead of 6m!

Tbh we rarely use this one, and it draws too well. It's 8 grand to rebuild it the same, or 3 to go a third of the height.

[GT6MK3]

23 hours ago, thebrookster said:

I hope the Vit D is good over in Australia, looking like I shall be visiting in a week and bit time! North West Australia, Barrow Island I believe, taking a cargo.

I hope the high seas on work ships are safer than the cruise variety!  I'd pop over to say Hi, but Barrow Island is about a third further from Melbourne than Minsk is from Scotland.

 

[GT6MK3]

Today I got 4 or 5 hours to myself for the first time in a few weeks.  

I read last week an article written by a UK doctor who's had the virus, and talked about how unprepared for it she was.  

We've all been prepping for, and expecting that, other peeps will get it, and that we'll be ok, and just have to ride out the storm at home.  The big question she posed, which I'll admit shook me into action, was this;

"On current numbers, 40% of us will get this if a vaccine isn't suddenly produced.  Are you ready for the reality that you might be one of the ones who does?"

In the article, she went on to describe the mid to mild flu like symtoms she endured,  and then she outlined the simple things she wished she'd done better before she was hit.

It's a pretty simple concept.  If, like most people who get this, you're luckily enough to only get a mild to mid level case, you wont need hospitalisation.  But you will therefore be left on your own.  And if you get it, we all know that the flu loves a home bubble towork it's magic in.

So.  Her 3 point plan.

1.  Have a grab bag of a weeks worth of paracetemol, chesty cough medicine, and cough lollies.  Lock it away, and dont touch it till 2021 if it's not needed.

2.  Have a weeks worth of nutritious, easy to heat, easy to eat, food ready to go in the freezer, enough for each member of the family.  Chicken and vegie soup is ideal for this.

3.  Have a written plan for what happen if, as, and when each member of the family gets sick.  If it's written down, it reduces panic, reduces emotion, and saves lives.

 

I reckon the above is well worth sharing.  I've shared the hell out of it with my friends.  Most were preparing how not to get the virus, and many didn't like having someone grind their gears to force them to think "what if".  But imagine if "what if" happens to you. Are you prepared?  No point having toilet paper if there's nothing to wipe!

 

 

That's 1/2 our chicken and veg soup stocks, ready to freeze.  It will move into vac seal bags tomorrow (less freezer space).  If it's unused in 3 months time, we'll have a couple of weeks of lunches, and I'll make another batch.

 

Stay safe Peeps.  Preparation is waay better than panic.

 

C.

[Nick Jones]

22 minutes ago, GT6MK3 said:

  I'd pop over to say Hi, but Barrow Island is about a third further from Melbourne than Minsk is from Scotland.

Not exactly a prime spot for a casual visit either. Vit D levels might depend on whether you can bear to step out into the sun..... Was 34C in the shade in Exmouth in March when we were there, but there wasn’t much shade...... The sand was far too hot to walk on barefoot.

Ships (merchant vessels not cruise liners) may well be some of the safest places right now.

Vit D levels still good here (though change forecast). Blossom levels much reduced by a couple of sharp overnight frosts.  Started skimming the green slime off the pond but stopped when I realised I was getting a lot of newts too. Think I rescued them all..... will leave well alone for a few weeks....

Thanks for passing on the prep advice Craig.... Seems that the spectrum of severity is about as wide as it can get. Anywhere from “didn’t notice” to “death”...

[Nick Jones]

On message and nicely done

 

[mpbarrett]

Can I suggest one more thing to do in case it all gets worse. 

Give your partner a locked file with your passwords in it. I use an encrypted password manager that's stores the data in an encrypted  file.
Its password protected, put the file on a USB stick with a copy of the program and then decide on a password for it and share that password with your partner
Put it somewhere safe and well hidden in your house only to be used in the worse case.

I had a friend at work who fell off a ladder in his garage, fell 4 feet hit his head and died a few days later. Completely unexpected, his wife had the stress of his sudden death and then trying to sort out all there accounts (as he had managed them). All the online stuff was locked with passwords that only he knew... 

Mike