What are you doing today?

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Mad Dilys
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Mad Dilys »

I got used to reversing two and four wheeled trailers of all sizes when I was young, with a car, or with a tractor - they say four wheel trailers are more difficult, but I suppose as it was something I did daily I just got used to it. I'd rather not reverse a four-wheeler with a 4x4 though it's not so "supple".

Much more difficult of course if you don't get the chance to do it a couple of hundred times a year!


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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Today is Remembrance Day here. Very cold and blowing with a hard almost freezing drizzle. Those who served will make the parade downtown in Remembrance and will stand for a minute of silence at 11:11.

On another note the next door neighbor is carrying his surfboards out and loading them into his vehicle for a day of surfing off the west coast. Just watching him is making me FREEZE!
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

Mad Dilys wrote:I got used to reversing two and four wheeled trailers of all sizes when I was young, with a car, or with a tractor - they say four wheel trailers are more difficult, but I suppose as it was something I did daily I just got used to it. I'd rather not reverse a four-wheeler with a 4x4 though it's not so "supple".

Much more difficult of course if you don't get the chance to do it a couple of hundred times a year!
Its not the difficulty of reversing it MD as like you I have driven all sorts from wagons to trailers and large caravans, the problem is the total blind spot relative to the road width I have to work in plus a low wall. As soon as I start to reverse I have a limited road width to manouvre so the caravan has to take a sharp arc which immediately blocks my rear vision, it is also falling away from me as my drive slopes downwards from the road and at the same time it is heading towards the wall which is too low to see, even the reversing mirrors are of no help at that point. As crunching a corner on the caravan would be an expensive option I think I will be opting for the two cameras as even on a good day you could not get my caravan reversed into my drive with less than about 4 or 5 dummy shuffs forward and backwards to line it up ;)
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Grandad »

Horus, I thought I remembered you saying that your van has a motorised parking aid when unhitched from your vehicle???

My daughter and her husband have been very busy the last few days dealing with the affairs and arranging the funeral of her late father in law.

We invited them to dinner this evening as a break from their unhappy task. They brought Millie and, sad to say, at 16 years she is now showing her age. She has a heart problem, is partially deaf, has cataracts on both eyes, and unpleasant breath but still has a lot of spirit.

I doubt if she has long for this world and it will now be a happy release when she dies BUT she has been such a wonderful little dog and entertaining family member. :(
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

Oh that's sad about little Millie :( just so long as she is still eating and walking about its OK, but sometimes you have to make that awful decision if you think the little doggy is not enjoying life.

Yes I do have a motorised drive Grandad, but to be honest I live on such a steep hill that I am very reluctant to trust it holding the weight if I un-hitch it from the car. I am sure as an engineer you will understand about gearboxes being able to drive motors backwards if enough torque is put on them, so potentially on such a steep incline it could start to creep backwards and then slowly gain momentum. Although they can handle reasonable slopes they are essentially for positioning your caravan on a touring site which is relatively flat or assisting with hitching it back onto the car.
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Grandad »

Horus wrote:Oh that's sad about little Millie :sometimes you have to make that awful decision if you think the little doggy is not enjoying life.
That would be the hardest decision to make H as you will appreciate. She is still quite lively and came running in when she heard my voice. Lower pitch she seems to hear but not higher pitch. She sleeps a lot, not a good sign, and although she still has all her teeth she now has difficulty with dry food that she has always had and is now on soft tinned food which means her breath smells.

I think she is nearing the end of the road but right now my daughter and her family just could not make that final decision. That little dog has lived with love all her life.
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@Grandad - Those are really excruciatingly difficult decisions to make. Hard hard hard and no easy way to resolve it. If she is not in pain and still doing ok am sure there is still time.

@Horus - your driveway dilemma sure sounds like a good one. I have no answer and not actually seeing the lay out it is a bit hard to imagine to give you any suggestions although I'm sure you've thought all the angles and options already. My only thought is to somehow rig markers on long poles angled so you can hopefully see them but ?? Putting cameras on the back IMO sound like the absolute best option. I never had one before but I sure like it and it really does give a broad sweep of what is behind you.
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

Great delivery from Amazon, ordered last night, here by mid day :up
Just had a quick try out and put one camera in the kitchen area and the other one at the far end of the house in my conservatory. I only placed them on a chair and a worktop so not really set up, one was in artificial light and the other had just a wall lamp on. I was switching between the two cameras to test them out and the images were really clear, much better than the images here show as you are getting the vertical line strobe effect on the monitor when it is being photographed, so overall very pleased and they should do the job nicely. ;)
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

Just about to meet up with my daughter at 11.30 am by the Church and we are taking the doggies (Annie & cousin Marley) for a longish walk. We will walk along the Trent & Mersey canal into Cheshire and hopefully arrive at a very nice canal side pub by about 12.45 just in time for a light lunch and in my case a pint ;) Afterwards we will make the circular return trip back through the fields and woods which will take a little longer than the outward leg, so we will maybe be back at the church by 3.30 pm. It is very cold today, so boots, hat, gloves and a jumper under my fleecey, but no doubt Annie will go for a paddle :roll:
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Grandad »

Horus, I don't quite see how you intend to use these cameras. Will they be mounted inside your car?

Sorry if that is a naive question, I might have missed something. Are they actually DashCams?
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

Not dash cams Grandad, these are made for the purpose of assisting with reversing for lorries, coaches, caravans, and all types of industrial vehicles where visibility is limited or impossible. Basically they will be hard wired into my caravan, one on the back looking at traffic or obstacles to the rear and the other on the kerbside rear of the caravan so that it can see any obstacle on that blind side from the drivers view where wing mirrors are often impracticable. it can also assist in overtaking as you get a better idea of what is happening on the inside lane as you pass slower moving stuff as often you need to give a big distance after passing something before comming back into that lane again due to poor visibility on the nearside that can be hard to judge with wing mirrors, passing a cyclists is the worst as they often disappear from view behind you.

Both cameras will be hard wired using a single video cable from each one concealed within the caravan and passing underneath along the chassis, each one will also be powered (12V) from the internal caravan 12 volt supply and I will fit a switch and a fuse to each camera supply. These cables will come up into the gas cylinder storage box that you see on the front of most caravans and the excess coiled up until required. Inside the car I will have a 7" LCD screen that is powered by one of my 12v cigarette lighter sockets, most modern cars now how several of these outlets as they are now used to power so many add on devices (I think I have 4 of them). This screen will remain loose and sits nicely just below my radio in a sort of contained dashboard area and will plug in nearby. Coming off the LCD screen are two short trailing leads that the video cable ends plug into. As I will not use these cameras all the time other than when towing the idea is this, I will plug in the LCD camera inside of the car positioned below my radio, uncoil the two cables from the caravan front locker and pass them into the car through the boot (split rear seats) and between the driver and passenger front seats to plug into the LED monitor.

The cables will in essence run along the caravan towing hitch in the same way as the trailer wiring does until it reaches the tow ball electrical sockets. The only difference is the video cables will pass inside the car and be trapped by the tail-gate rubber seal. For practical purposes I only need to use these cameras when reversing into my drive so the above procedure would only be needed for the return journey arriving home and takes only minutes to do. However as these cameras can be left on for long periods it may be helpful to just leave them connected for both legs of the journey and benefit from the extra visual information. Although there is only one screen it has a button to flip between two input cameras and being hard wired and not radio there is no break in the signal.

You have to realise that normally you would connect these cameras (1 or 2) so that when you selected reverse gear the camera activates, but that is not what I needed to do for my own application.
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Grandad »

That sounds a good set up H and I assume the cameras run until the card is full then overwrite so that if the rear one was left on during a journey it would act as a dash cam. :up
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

No cards to fill up Grandad they are cameras pure and simple.
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

Horus wrote:Just about to meet up with my daughter at 11.30 am by the Church and we are taking the doggies (Annie & cousin Marley) for a longish walk. We will walk along the Trent & Mersey canal into Cheshire and hopefully arrive at a very nice canal side pub by about 12.45 just in time for a light lunch and in my case a pint ;) Afterwards we will make the circular return trip back through the fields and woods which will take a little longer than the outward leg, so we will maybe be back at the church by 3.30 pm. It is very cold today, so boots, hat, gloves and a jumper under my fleecey, but no doubt Annie will go for a paddle :roll:
We had a lovely walk and it worked out time wise very much as I predicted. Both doggies were scummy by the time we had returned to the car, the only difference being that Annie undeterred by the cold weather was straight in for a paddle near to journeys end which removed most of the muck off her, cousin Marley on the other hand is a water wimp and only dipped his paws in so remained scummy back to my daughters car. Had he been travelling back in my car he would have definitely had more than a short dip in the brook ;) and certainly needed a bath when he got back home again although Annie only needed a ‘belly and paw wash’ on her return home.

We had both wrapped up nice and warm and had our boots on so we were well equipped, but as we were also a bit muddy along with the dogs we sat outside the pub in the Wintery sunshine for our lunch and it was quite pleasnt. We had my usual of off the bone Wiltshire Ham and mustard sandwiches on granary bread with a side of chips and salad, although this time I opted for a coffee with my daughter instead of a beer.

On the walk I stopped to speak to a guy who keeps rare breed pigs and last year he raised some Oxford Sandy’s which I think I posted some pictures of them on here. Anyway he was raising some Saddle Backs ready for Christmas this year as he specialises in this sort of product, so after we had been chatting a while he said I could place an order with him for a pork joint if I wished. Excellent! So that’s my Boxing Day dinner sorted and he said he would deliver it as well in time for Christmas, :up needless to say I have invited my daughter and son in law to my house for dinner that day. :eat
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Hope you ordered enough for ME as well H! ;)

Today has been extremely stormy. Hydro off for a bit this morning, really high gusts of wind (up to 100km/hr as per the News), most of the Ferry crossings cancelled. Tomorrow the floor layer guy is coming (I hope given the weather) so sitting in a house with furniture shoved everywhere doing nothing other than watching TV.
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

Hope you ordered enough for ME as well H! ;)
You are cordially invited for Boxing day dinner if you are in the vicinity LLL, ;) one time I am glad not to be a Muslim, lovely roast pork and apple sauce with crackling which he assures me is excellent on his little piggies. :eat
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Grandad »

Talking Christmas already then? ;) I thought we agreed not to use the 'C' word until December but it gets earlier every year. Mrs G is an ardent QVC online shopper and they had their first Christmas event, would you believe, IN JULY :xx
And on Breakfast TV this morning they had a piece from Londons Covent Garden where a 55 foot tree is already up and decorated for the official Christmas launch this evening.........Bah Humbug! :lol:
We have three children who all like to spend Christmas at home with their respective families. We play the waiting game and see what invitations are forthcoming. One so far from our daughter but we have not yet committed to that and will sit it out until the others come forward.
Actually we have been to the daughters the last two years so will probably go to one of the boys. The downside is that as everyone has a drink we have to get a taxi home. A half hour journey is not cheap on Christmas day but it IS only once a year. :a52:
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Horus »

I always decline the offer of going to either my son or daughter for Christmas lunch, I just find it all a bit too much hassle. When Mrs H was alive we always had a house full on Christmas & Boxing day, but now I prefer to spend it quietly with just myself and Annie although I do cook a Christmas dinner and watch a bit of TV. It is only that this year my daughter should not have any family commitments on Boxing day that I invited them over to share my pork joint. :up
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

I saw on TV here somewhere in the States (maybe it was Washington DC but I wasn't really paying attention) brought in a 75 foot high blah blah blah tree that was going to be grooms, coiffed and prepped for HOLIDAY decorations........it is bloody Christmas so SAY Christmas for heavens sake!!

As for Christmas dinners and day two years ago I opted to have Christmas dinner - the turkey etc on Christmas eve. The daughter and family came for a sit down here and it was actually so much nicer than ME doing it all on Christmas day so now I've claimed Christmas eve as my time to cook a turkey dinner.

On Christmas day mid-morning I drive over to her house with all my presents and everybody gets to do round 2 of opening what I have. I visit for 5 minutes to 3 hours ;) noise and activity and hyper level is definitely a factor and then I'm coming home where I intend to watch a few movies I'll save for the day to watch on Netflix. Will fit in a call to the other daughter too and that is about as exciting as it'll get for me.

Years ago I used to do the big dinner on Christmas day and my parents + friends arrived. Was lots of work but always a decent day. Now really by attrition I'm down to not doing much.

I always also used to do a big Boxing day deal where my brother and his family would arrive but that changed a few years ago and now we don't even try to get together.......I mean we don't talk at all during the rest of the year so why on Boxing day. No animosity etc we're just not close and have nothing much in common so it was always kinda artificial getting together one day of the year.

This year I'm already scratching my head as to what to get for the twins for Christmas. The granddaughter was simple and I'm already set with her stuff but the boys are posing a bit of a problem. They love making stuff, have lots of Lego already, rather excel at building and putting together so I'm wanting to get them something else sufficiently challenging yet interesting they can do.......gotta keep walking those stores! :)
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Re: What are you doing today?

Post by Ruby Slippers »

Our Christmas Day will be spent on our own, but I will cook a turkey dinner, etc., and we will watch some TV. On Boxing Day, my eldest son, both DIL's and both grandchildren will be here, so busy day. I hate Christmas!
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