This weekend

[perrykneeham]

I guess it depends what you're decluttering, I guess: spare mountain bikes, old sports gear, broken fishing rods and assorted lingerie discarded in flagrante by countless giddy fillies etc, is fine.

[flatandy]

I quite like gravelly stuff as an outdoor surface because, despite its flaws, it more durable than most of the alternatives. Paving and all that can disintegrate and gets mossy quickly in somewhere like Britain.

I build some very simple decking when we lived in Britain and it was fine. But here we had professionals do it, and they used some kind of plasticated wood deposit, sunk concrete piles to support it, have it on a steel frame, and everything is raised off the ground. It should be pretty durable.

Flat roofs make more sense in Britain than in snowy countries, and look great. But - and this is true everywhere - the can’t be properly flat. To be fair on the roofing stuff I’ve moved on from my adoration of modernist flat roofs a bit and am now - partly because of the snow here and partly because of the other benefits - a fan boy of the better quality standing seam stuff.

I don’t know why you think fascism works anywhere.

[flatandy]

Decluttering anything is fine. Having clutter is unmanly. A messy shed is unmanly. Owning too many clothes is unmanly. Ornamentation is unmanly.

[mids]

I've sort of inherited an air rifle. Not sure what to do with it.

[mids]

Maybe I'll go to Ukraine.

[wetkingcanute]

Make your way to the Ukraine?


Bugger you beat me to it!!

[flatandy]

Melt it down and turn it into a plough.

[mids]

I could shoot seeds into the ground with it. I'd be the Green Sniper of Dnieper.

[perrykneeham]

Possibly the most worrying admission yet. It's a sunny Bank Holiday, you have an air rifle and beer cans. Come on man!

[ootlg]

We use draw wire from plastic conduit. On a more serious note (don't know whether I've told this one before) a friend came over once when we lived in the UK and we shot beer cans with his Beretta .22 pistol from about ten paces; the bullets went through the cans without knocking them over.

[perrykneeham]

I remember someone using a .22 rimfire pistol on a dartboard in a pub once. The Happy Man in Englefield Green. I had left by that stage of lock-in silliness.

[ootlg]

Beats seeing how many old pennies you can sweep off the bar with your knob. My friend was in a lock-in a pub in Brighton once when a bloke who'd been stood at the bar all evening with a carrier bag at his feet put his hand in and pulled out a head. He'd been paid to 'get rid of it' and stopped off for a drink.

[perrykneeham]

Hahaha. Brilliant. Was he the Head Porter?

[ootlg]

[perrykneeham]

Hmmmm .... sitting in the Eye Hospital in Shoreham, just having a follow-up exam. Amazed that they're seeing people on a Bank Holiday (I got the appointment at suspiciously short notice) and I think that, of the four staff that I've dealt with, three have been Filipinas. Very pleasant and efficient so far. Arab-speaking Doc for final sign-off. Nice chap. Interesting that there was hardly a First Nations Brit to be seen, except as patients.

[perrykneeham]

Glorious Spring evening in Sussex. Door and windows open. Nice pint of Speckled Hen on the go.

[mids]

Yeah, it's a gorgeous evening in East Anglia too. How's the peepers?

[perrykneeham]

Fine, thanks. I had a visual migraine a few months back and they just wanted to check it was nothing nasty. I have very dark irises which can cause something which present as a sort of glaucoma, but isn't a big deal.

[perrykneeham]

The weather seems set fair until the end of the month at least.

[voice]

Well the weekend paddle was great, no snow or even rain, bit chilly at night, first multi-day trip since July so my back aches, but it was an amazing place to visit.