Local (To Me !!!) – Page 26

Resurrection – A Tale Of Two Conservatories

Over the last couple of years I have been posting under the banner “View From The Conservatory”.

I thought it was probably time I showed you where my observations originated from. My main reason for this is the fact that we are knocking it down. To be replaced with a new bright shiny one.

Here is a picture to give you some idea……

This structure was built around twenty-five years ago. The company that built it had not, so we found out later, done a very good job. Unfortunately, they also went bust before it was completed. The build was completed under the supervision of the “Official Receiver” and needless to say the “10 year warranty” never materialised.

Over the following twenty-five years the conservatory has been slowly falling down, due to the poor preparation of the ground and subsidence of the footings. The conservatory has been slowly trying to pull away from our house and worse, one corner in particular, has been dropping presumably due to the clay base of the soil. Needless to say we also suffered leaks, sometimes emulating waterfalls, and draughts.

The photo above is the last view of the inside with all the carpets and most of the furniture removed. The patchwork on the floor is as a result of my trying to level the floor. You can just see that the two doors are out of alignment if you look at the handles and to the left you can just see the ivy which is constantly trying to invade.

The doors haven’t, until a couple of weeks ago, been opened for something like three years. Primarily because they were such a job to close again. Also, I had stuck gaffer tape all round the frames to cut down the draughts coming through the gaps. The seals were so out of alignment I could get my fingers through to the outside world.

Anyway, that is all in the past, as the next photos show.

Conservatory - No Glass — Conservatory – No Glass

Conservatory - No Roof — Conservatory – No Roof

Conservatory - No Frames, Just the partition wall. — Conservatory – No Frames, Just the partition wall.

Conservatory - No Frames, partition wall has gone. Apparrently, halfway through the build, the original bricklayers decided to lay the bricks upside down i.e. frog side down !!! — Conservatory – No Frames, partition wall has gone. Apparrently, halfway through the build, the original bricklayers decided to lay the bricks upside down i.e. frog side down !!!

Conservatory - All gone barring the end cavity wall. — Conservatory – End of Day 1 – All gone barring the end cavity wall.

Tasks for day two – knock down the remaining end wall, start exploring existing footings to see if they can stay or if the whole existing base has to come up. Either way new strengthening and stabilising footings have to be created before any new build can be started.

Stay tuned for the next steps.

Early Days

Yesterday was the first day (officially) of my retirement. However, it was not totally disassociated from work, as there was to be an official luncheon. The IBM Hursley clubhouse had put on a beautiful spread for the buffet and I thank them for that. There weren’t as many attendees as might have been, had I retired a few years earlier. During last week I had already had a number folks say that they wouldn’t be able to make it due to work commitments or vacation. On the way out to Hursley I received a couple of texts from folks who would not be attending for a variety of reasons.

The main reason though, I think, is that due to the companies “restructuring” over the last few years I have out lasted many of my colleagues. Although the department in which I worked numbers over 150 folks, I have to say that I don’t know many of them and I’m guessing most of them would say the same of me.

During my thirty eight year career I have worked with many people spread across the whole company both in the UK and globally. While company restructuring (redundancies) will have seen off many of my UK colleagues, the recent shenanigans with the company pension scheme saw quite a few more leave or lose their benefits. More recently my working from home will have removed me from my local UK colleagues memory banks. And so latterly, but for a small core of UK-based folks, most of my work has been with people based in the US and Mexico.

I always find these kind of events to be a bit odd. Some folks find it awkward speaking to colleagues about to leave. Perhaps some are a little jealous that the retiree has found a way out. For some it may be that their workload has increased as a direct result of the retirement.

Still, it was nice to exchange memories with those that did turn to. For some of them, I was already an “old hand” when they began as new hires. For at least one a black cloud settled in when he realised that after eighteen years he still had another twenty to go based on my time served, the realisation that he hadn’t even reached half way.

I have experienced many things during those 38 years. Been part of the explosion of computer technology. When I started there was no such thing as a personal computer. My career started working with display products where we saw the introduction of colour “dumb terminals”, the introduction of terminals with a microprocessor which allowed for “multiple partitions and scrolling”. Think windows before Bill G got started with Microsoft. Later I moved onto storage products where disk drives were huge and driven by washing machine motors. The first product that I worked on was a 850Mb drive which was around the size of a large suitcase, was a two-man lift and mounted in a rack. Back in the day, during a presentation on disk drive technology I remember someone stating that the target was to get costs down to $1 per megabyte. That was the target and recently I saw that the current costs are around $0.0000317 Now there are solid state drives and mechanical disk drives that you can put in your shirt pocket. Storage was where I finished last Friday.

Just one other point regarding my 38 years. I started at Hursley in 1977 and my first office was on the second floor of C Block. After having offices in just about every building on site, as well as two assignment stints down at the Havant manufacturing site, I have ended up back in C Block. One floor down. So 38 years and just a change in altitude.

From a technological standpoint I wonder if the next 38 years will be as dramatic for the folks that come behind me. I don’t understand the media excitement generated by the next iPhone or iPad and it just leaves me cold. I guess it is not so physically obvious now, as technology marches onwards.

For me, retirement is both the end of an era and also the beginning of a new one.

View From The Conservatory

View From The Conservatory

My recent angling experiences are limited to salt water, mainly here in the UK and, to a lesser extent, in Western Australia.

Here in the UK, especially when fishing from a boat, if a fish is caught or perhaps old bait is thrown overboard seagulls will materialise out of thin air. Where none could be seen on a mirror flat surface or in the sky, suddenly they will appear to take ownership of the fishy scraps.

I have witnessed a wee, brightly coloured, bird land on a rod tip to watch as a string of feathers were dropped to the sea bed. Then, in a bright flash of colour, it has plunged into the sea to follow the feathers as they dropped to the sea floor. After a few seconds, when the bird didn’t pop back to the surface. the feathers were retrieved with the bird well and truly hooked. Thankfully it survived.

When fishing in Oz I have observed and experienced the fact that each and every shore based angler will have their own personal pelican. Usually sitting on a higher vantage point, but also just a few feet behind the angler at sand level where they are so brazen that they will sneak up behind the angler and steal bait from his hand.

Close up, that beak can be quite intimidating.

My own personal experience was when fishing from a breakwater, I was luck enough to catch a small silvery fish. Looked a bit like a British garfish. Anyway, as I triumphantly reeled my catch into shore, my personal pelican launched and tried to steal my catch from the water. He failed.

However, when all said and done, I have never experienced this …..

Gone_Fishing4_IMG_2381 — Fishing Buddies

Fishing buddies, or a fish thief in waiting ?

View From The Conservatory

Some more boring squirrel shots.

Entertaining animal acrobatics while I was having my brekky of tea and toast ….. lol

Squirrel4_IMG_2355 — A split second before he plummeted the six feet to the ground. Slippery that stainless steel.

Squirrel6_IMG_2355 — Now, If I can just get this lid off !!!

Squirrel7_IMG_2355 — Don’t I Look Cute ?

Squirrel2_IMG_2355 — Second cute pose with sunlit tail.

View From The Conservatory

We put this bird box up last year, well after normal nesting season.

So you can imagine how chuffed we are that we have new tenants in the first year since we opened for business.

Geronimo - Blue Tit — Geronimo – Blue Tit

We have been watching them coming and going for quite a few days. The photo shows the removal of what must be the “wrong” type of feather.

Can’t wait to see the young when they emerge..

Limoges Porcelaine – Emil Madesclaire

I was wondering if there is anyone out there who might be able to shed some light on the history behind this serving dish/tureen. It was given to us as a present but we didn’t pay much attention to the makers mark at the time. We are doing a bit of spring cleaning and de-cluttering and I happened to look at the base which has the following mark. My curiosity was piqued as we spent two weeks on holiday in the Limoges region last year.

I spent a bit of time trawling the web but could not find much information. The best I managed was to find out that this mark was in use between 1906 (or 1929) – 1940. It would be nice to know a bit more about the maker.

Here are some more photos of the dish.