powerrabbit

I can visualise it now Sue, a large box body lorry trundling down the road with 'Chippendale Removals' on the sides!

What's the other eye on Paul?

We don't have a problem with Jackdaws, not now my neighbour down below in the old Barton farm house sorted out the chimneys to stop them nesting in them and blocking up the holes in the walls of the granite barns, I've popped off a few in the garden as well and all have disappeared now, that could be due to a pair of Ravens moving in, they are big birds, my neighbour hates them, this year they have taken all his hen, duck and goose eggs that have been laid out and any chicks that have hatched they've had them as well, neighbours haven't got the sense to construct a covered pen/run until the chicks are big enough to look after themselves! They certainly wouldn't be snacking on my eggs and chicks!

We don't really bother with the sheep on the Moor John, they're so thin that they're not worth the cost of a cartridge! As for the crows, we've trained them to fly like that, it's what we call 'getting nowhere fast' and it makes them think they have travelled several miles and when they calculate how far they would have flown, when they turn back to go to roost they go the distance they think they've flown and then it takes them a week to come back again!

All my sheep are in the deep freezer John, bu**ers can't get out of there! We've not had any wind here yet, did start raining a little around lunch time but nothing like what's been forecast, I'm not very far from Mary Tavy as the crow flies.

Thanks for the link Joe, saved me a bit of searching. I knew there was a Scottish connection but it's the date on the piece of jewellery of 1841 that doesn't tie in or mentioned anywhere so what the significance of the date is I don't know, this is what I need to research

I took a sculpture of a black panther on a rock but it turned out to be a later reproduction with a lot of resin like material incorporated in the moulding mixture, the chap dated it to the 1920's or 30's. The other thing I took was a pendant locket that had an inscription engraved on it 'Honrable Admiral Sir Tho's Livingstone Bart 1841. The locket is earlier, around the 1780's and later engraved, the jewellery chap said he knew nothing about Admiral Sir Thomas Livingstone, I would need to research him through the Admiralty or the Naval Museum in Greenwich. Neither of any great value, the panther much less.

I went to Exeter Cathedral yesterday for the Antiques Roadshow and it was absolutely heaving. I parked in a car park about 3/4 mile from the Cathedral at the bottom of town, £1.80 for the whole day and walked up and not far from the Cathedral outside BHS I met up with someone I knew well who was waiting for her Daughter in-law so we all walked the rest of the way together, Joined the end of the queue at 11.00 am and by the time the item I took with me had been appraised by an expert it was 16.40pm, an awful long time to stand in a queue but met up with several more I knew and made some more acquaintances whilst in the queue but well worth the experience. I did not take any pictures as the crowd was so vast you could hardly look through the people, I would estimate that there were around 4000 people there. If you Google Western Morning News, that's the local newspaper for Exeter and Plymouth there is an account of it in todays paper and a rather poor 9 minute video.

He was there selling his books, photos and DVD's. All the (older) women were swooning over him and every time I passed had a very large crowd around him, I had to wait some considerable time for the opportunity, time enough to consume a burger and chips and then the bloke who took this picture of us on my phone could not understand how to 'push the button', that took another 20 minutes. To be quite honest I don't particularly like the guy, he's rather 'full of it' but I did buy a couple of his books which he signed, that's all I wanted really. Didn't take any other photos of the fair, nothing that interesting there really, a line up of old Austin 7 cars, about 10 tractors and two stationary engines. If you want to see what the fair is like look on their site. This years pictures won't be put up for a while. http://www.widecombefair.com/wf/ Thurday, tomorrow, off to Exeter Cathedral, the Antiques Roadshow are spending the day there recording for the show, will have to dig out something to take along.

Had a good day today out at Widecombe fair, drove out one of my tractors, about 15 miles each way, had first in class, post-1965. Was heaving with people. Met this chap and had a good chat and a laugh with him, the one in the hat.

Have a look at the 'computeractive' forum Sean, you'd need to join it by registering but there are a lot of knowledgeable and helpful nerds on there, post up what you've said here and they'll tell you what's what and possibly how to do a recovery if it's possible, mind you, they also talk a lot of crap as well and suggestions for downloads that I would never touch with a barge finger. If you've done a backup of your files you should be able to find them again but I can't tell you how to I'm afraid, not that PC savvy. Hope you can get it all back again.

Not today... Tomorrow, off out the road to Widecome Fair, driving out one of my tractors for the line-up. Thought I'd mention it just in case any locals fairly close were thinking of going. 'Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh an' all..................................'

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Know all about it Gav, life is never that simple or black and white, even renting property costs the same or more per month than a mortgage, if you can afford to rent, you can afford to buy is how I look at it, at least you're putting money into what eventually will be yours if you go down the buy route, depends on your circumstances.

Jamie, shoot the dog! Gav, leave, and have yourself a nice long holiday! Sue, last year I arranged a transfer of a substantial sum from one Bank account into an instant access ISA as investing in a new ISA attracted a higher rate of interest for the first two years. The Bank clerk duly filled out the relevant forms which I duly signed and was told that the funds would be transferred within 3 working days. 6 months later I discovered that these funds were not transferred therefore I had lost the interest on the capital for that period. I duly informed the Bank that I was not interested in re submitting and was going to invest the funds elsewhere, which I did, and told them that I fully expected the Bank to credit my account from where the funds were to be transferred from with the interest that it would have accumulated had the ISA been created paid into that account, which they did. I invested in something else and am earning more than double the interest it would have in the ISA and this interest is being put into another account where it is earning more interest. No mattresses or shoe boxes in the bottom of the cupboard involved.

Banks seem to miss all sorts of ''irregularities' but when handling a cheque that has no payees signature on it, it comes back to them in a flash. Bank charges can be another bone of contention, my Father once had a little account that he was being charged £5 a year for 'account maintenance', when he asked for an account statement it showed that the amount in the account was £5. He withdrew the fiver and closed the account. As for their investment/savings interest rate payments, don't even go there!

Not so much annoying as the topic title suggests but annoying just the same. Today I decided to cancel a direct payment for a certain subscription I have had for a number of years as the money I will save on this sub will pay for something else that takes priority. I emailed the Company informing them in the proper manner that I was contacting them to cancel any future payments and cancel the subscription and that I would be contacting my Bank to stop any future payments going out. I then contacted my bank to do just that, cancel the payments. Now for the annoying bit, the Bank will do, with immediate effect, cancel it, but on their looking up the details informed me that the payments that have been made to the Company FOR THE LAST 4 YEARS, had been made from a debit card that EXPIRED 4 YEARS AGO!, the last 4 numbers of the card they were paying on did not match my current one. Now things are going to get interesting, I'm not apportioning any blame on the Company, they've been paid regularly and I have regularly been receiving the goods, it's the Bank that I'm now on the back of to know why they've been paying on an expired card and what they're going to do about it. I think it was a good thing that I've discovered this and they are investigating. I'll let you all know what they come back with, I wonder if it will be an excuse or compensation.

Some stationary engines can be a bit troublesome, mostly the magneto but one with a weak spark can be made stronger by putting it in the airing cupboard for a week to dry it right out and that cures it more often than not. Running them at the right speed is quite important, difficult unless you've got the right bit of kit to set them up, I've got the kit to do that, it's a speed indicator, a clock like instrument calibrated in rpm on 3 scales, 100 to 500, 400 to 2000 and 800 to 4000. You put a little shaft with a hard rubber 'bullet' head on one of the pin shaft of the indicator and holding the instrument push the bullet head into the countersunk hole in the end of the flywheel shaft, you can test the speed and set it up on any shaft that has the countersunk hole in the end, which most do, I have taken this instrument to a number of rallies an set up many engines, the Lister D's run at 700rpm. I was lucky in picking this up from a car boot sale for £8 around 15 years ago, I saw one sold at an auction 2 years ago for £800 but it's so useful I'd never sell it. It's not terribly big, the dial is 2"1/2 but it's quite heavy.

Nice Franchi Gav, used to have one myself some years ago, it will definitely make the feathers fly! You've got a nice bit of kit there with the steamer James, will very much look forward to your build reports. I have a few stationary engines also, the Lister D is well worth the money. Went to our local little towns summer fair today with one of my tractors and there was a man and his wife with a stand selling all sorts of really good quality animal, bird and other wood carvings, all hand carved from Teak in Bali. I just had to bring this little chap home with me, meet my new friend Fred. He stands 32 inches high.

Sounds an excellent deal Bill. I haven't used Dobie's seeds much, tend to use Fothergills or Suttons, Suttons are based down here in Torquay. Marshalls are good seeds.

They should be getting cheaper now Bill, it's coming to the end of the season. Now's the time to buy your garden small seeds for next year.

That site Tris is very genuine, as far as the persons that post a review is, the site admin won't accept or add anyone's review of a product unless they sign up an 'account' and submit with their review proof that they have actually bought that product, a scan of the receipt.

There is a very good website called 'Revoo' that people post up their reviews of products and tell everyone what they think of stuff like phones, TV's, fridges, you think of it there's reviews of it. http://www.reevoo.com/shopping

You should have taken that hammer out of your jeans pocket Sean before you loaded the machine! It is strange how some things will fail in rather strange and dramatic ways, you were lucky that the door was still available so you must have a fairly modern machine. I had to replace mine back in early Spring, it filled the utility room with dense white smoke and rather large orange sparks and the smell of burning plastic was enough to make you gag, when I took it out I saw that each of the cable connectors to the motor block were all black and melted, that was why it sounded 'pop pop pop pop' when it went. I went straight down to Sparkworld and bought a new LG machine, better spec and almost 1/2 the price of the equivalent Bosch, took out an extra 5 year warrantee on it for not a lot of money. Very quiet as these new machines now have the motor mounted on the back of the drum so there's no belt and the motor is guaranteed for 10 years. lights up like a fruit machine and sings to you like 'close encounters' when you switch it on, even weighs the load.

Wondered what the droning was Sean, could hear them from my abode as we're only about 8 miles as the crow flies from Teignmouth and even closer to Dawlish. If ever you get lost around these places just keep turning right or keep turning left, you'll always end up back where you started then!