I live in what was, in the late 18th Century, described as a wild and uncultivated waste.
I’ve mentioned previously that our street was originally named Sodhouse Bank. So, a domain name sale led us to purchase www.sodhousebank.com.
At only £10.80 a year, with a year’s hosting for free, it had to be done.
I should advise against clicking the link, since there isn’t actually anything there yet.
I have a fondness for old things. Furniture mostly. But I do love old brick and stone.
Some brickwork I found in a bar in Birmingham the other week.
And some from a bar in Leeds, on Friday.
And from another bar in Leeds.
Then one from today, in the garden. Stone this time.
This one’s going to be a future project; there’s a few more hours of wire brushing first though.
I finally gave in and bought one. A Westclox Baby Ben, which now proudly sits on the mantle.
I may have been influenced a little by recent scenes from an episode of the Walking Dead. And, of course, by memories of a similar timepiece on the mantle of my childhood.
I may have also bought a second.
Last year, when a Pterodactyl pooped all over me from a great height in Newcastle, I came to the realisation that dinosaurs were not actually extinct.
Further evidence of this was discovered yesterday in the Central. When I observed a Tyrannosaurus Rex at the bar.
Care should be taken when in Newcastle or Gateshead.
A while ago, I dropped down to one desktop PC. With smart TVs and other connected devices, there was no longer the need to have more.
One old desktop didn’t quite make it to the tip, purely by accident. It hadn’t been used in years, so I was surprised that it booted-up this afternoon.
I bought it from ebay for around thirty quid over a decade ago, but I think it’s around 17 years old. It’s running Ubuntu 12.04 and, if I remember correctly, couldn’t upgrade to 14.04 a few years ago. It’s something like a Celeron 5 or 600, with a half gig memory and a 60 gig hard drive.
I may keep it.
Currently watching the legacy of Lawrence of Arabia on BBC4.
Quite moving.
One of three old pubs in/off our street that’ closed since I moved to Gateshead, the Queens Head was, according to the planning application, to be converted into bedsits. We’d had some concerns that this could result in cut price rentals for local Lambrini drinkers (straight from the bottle, that is).
However, our fears have now been allayed.
My new reading material has arrived.
It’s a second edition, from 1955, the year the book was released, 20 years after the author’s death.
It was actually written in the 20s, but wasn’t published in his lifetime, or for a couple of decades later, since it didn’t reflect well on the RAF.
I’ve only skimmed a few pages, but it’s very well written, with an unusual style.
Not wanting to delay too long after finishing the outside walls of the shed, I’ve made a start on the inside.
I thought it prudent to begin with the part-buried wall. My intention was to remove the inner layer of stone, in sections (to reduce the risk of collapse), then rebuild it. I knew that the outer layer would be in a pretty bad state, but I had to revise my plan when I encountered daylight.
This section is now repaired, but there’s clearly some work to be done before I can rebuild the inner wall.
While working on the shed, I’ve started to wonder whether it’s actually older than the house. I’d always assumed that they would have been built at the same time. But my project has walls build from very large blocks of stone.
Of course, I’ll never know for certain either way. The only known face is that the shed existed in 1865, since it appears on a map from that time. It’s very likely to be older though, because the house dates back to the 1830s.
Regardless of its age, the ‘s a cool little thing. I do acknowledge that I need to take care to avoid it becoming an obsession.
I’ve tried in vain to interest my second in command in history. Ideally, northern history, but I’d settle for a bit of East Midlands Ethelred.
Fortunately, though, she has (this very evening) acknowledged ancient Roman/northern Britain.
She does know that a man called Adrian built a wall.
It appears that my attempts to partially de-southernise my second in command may have failed on a collosive scale.
Apparently, the athletics on TV were interesting this evening.