what are you doing ?

[andrew Ivimey]

Inevitable and dreadful I would say. This will probably be all our experience sooner or later. Two of my friends, ENT surgeons, have survived and there's that 106 year old woman too. We must remember the good news too.

[andrew Ivimey]

I built a 'fuzz box's yesterday. It doesn't work. Can't be bothered to find out why. I was very successful re- setting a Strat bridge and lowering the action making it a very good player indeed!
Wonderful bike ride - all achey now. Anna and I finished off painting her shed last night. - another job well done.

[izzy wizzy]

Spent yesterday's day off updating the line stage with new input transformers now lundahl 1544a instead of sowter 3575, tidied up build as it was a bit ropey around the audio stages and mains input. Also tidied up power amps replacing ht connectors with proper 2mm plugs instead of nails and proper mounted sockets, 4 parallel cathode bias resistors with one of proper value, terminated input transformers with values suggested in data sheet. Overall feel is now more relaxed which is what I was after but of course have no idea what did it. Even swmbo was impressed with the result which is rare.

[simon]

I heard this morning another colleague has had COVID 19, but fortunately returned to work earlier this week. He'll be late 30s I guess and apparently it's the worst flu he's ever had, couldn't walk more than a couple of paces.

[pre65]

I don't know how common real flu (as opposed to man flu) is, I'm sure I've never had it. Now I get the flu jab every year which provides some protection.

A bad cold is enough, so I'd dread flu or Covid.

I've got multi coloured hands at the moment, been filling up the ink cartridges on our HP printer so I can print out my tyres receipt. The ink kits are a bit messy to use, although, to be fair, the last kit I purchased did have a disposable plastic glove in it.

[simon]

Sandi Toksvig once said there's two stages to flu. The first is when you're frightened you're going to die. The second is when you're frightened you're not going to die.

Not quite so funny anymore.

[Cressy Snr]

I’m currently working my way through my collection of Harry Potter books. I’ve just started on “The Order Of The Phoenix“ which is the fifth one in the series of seven.

I read all of these books with my various classes, when I was a full time teacher, and various chapters have brought back powerful visions of me standing in front of my class during that wonderful, dreamy half hour between the end of afternoon assembly and home time. And the kids, hanging on every word; times when the kids would ask, “can we have Harry Potter sir and can you do the voices for us?” Happy times from the early 2000s. Started welling up and had to put the book down

Strange what this lockdown does to one.

[shane]

Working in a big call centre at the moment is a bit scary. Back in mid-March, no-one was taking the outbreak seriously, but as a vulnerable person I was pretty concerned. Then Jane woke up on the 18th with a sore throat so we began two weeks’ self isolation. Due to my shift pattern, I didn’t go back to work until April 4th. By then, they’d got the message, so the canteen was out of bounds, every other desk was put out of use, social distancing was being enforced as far as possible and a desk was found for me in a remote alcove which was strange, but something of a relief, although still worrying with all the issues around surfaces, door handles and so on.
Then I had a couple of weeks annual leave, during which I was told that they’d managed to set up a system whereby we could work from home, so all the equipment on my desk has been uprooted, and today I had the truly bizarre experience of sitting in my spare bedroom for twelve hours taking calls to sort out customers’ broadband problems.
I could get used to this.

During our unexpectedly long time off, Jane introduced me to a bloke called Joe Wicks, being concerned at our lack of exercise. Two weeks of that and bits of me hurt that haven’t hurt for years, but we’ve also been out on some pretty long walks around the local lanes and I’m definitely feeling fitter than I have for a while. Providing I’m not felled by the virus, I should come out of this in better shape than I went in!

[andrew Ivimey]

It's raining.

I'm lissnin' to Axis Bold as Love and repairing/ setting up a battered, well gigged '84 Stratocaster. I'm hopeful.

[pre65]

Because Jean is not visiting her Mum every other weekend now she has decided to spring clean.

All very well, but it's getting to the stage when I have got to tidy up my myriad collection of amplifiers and LARGE quantity of associated equipment and spare parts.

HELP.

[andrew Ivimey]

Deep trouble! But it may be worth it.

[jack]

Because Jean is not visiting her Mum every other weekend now she has decided to spring clean.

All very well, but it's getting to the stage when I have got to tidy up my myriad collection of amplifiers and LARGE quantity of associated equipment and spare parts.

HELP.

Catharsis. It really helps. Trust me on this

[Ant]

Flog some of it off so it doesn't ruin the spring cleaning swmbo does
I should do that tbh......

[jack]

Like Philip, I'm doing a clearout in part of my workshop.

When I replaced the floor a few months ago, my whole engineering world was piled into the 1/3rd of the workshop with a solid floor...

A lot of stuff was subsequently moved back into the newly-floored bit but a huge amount remains and all the benches in there have cupboards underneath, some of which haven't been cleared in 20 years...

I've started in the power electrics section with putting all the red/black drums of cable into the WEEE bin.

Surprising what you find... Just found an original reel of thin cream-coloured 10base2 coax from the days when we all though 10Mb/s was cool - branded DEC, so that's probably been there since 1990 or so... complete with BNC termination...

[IslandPink]

Just been tidying and cleaning the scullery, in order to get it back functioning as a photo darkroom again. It's been a bit of a dirty, untidy mess since the boiler was replaced last summer.
Just used some of the surplus fibreboard from the 'double-horn' project to make an improved piece of blackout material for the lower part of the window. It's about the right thickness for what I'm replacing, and can be cut with a penknife, so that's useful. However it will need sealing with copious amounts of varnish. I just went out to do this but noticed it was baltic on the back porch. The tin says minimum 8°C for it to dry. Thermometer says about 8.5°C. I suspect this will end up drying in the house later.