Another bad day today,sharp chisel lots of blood,wife out walking Sprocket having hidden the plasters in the first aid cabinet,of all the stupid places,how's a bloke supposed to find them? I really don't like this year,I wonder if the remaining 345 days are going to be as interesting as the first 20,if so I may quit now! I had a fairly angry look at Oldfield Lane N and can't see the drain you mentioned,I haven't spent much time in that area and don't really know what I'm looking for? Fine on your walk,I was born in South Ealing (registered in Brentford) I think my Dad thought I'd get dual nationality should LBE or LBH go independent (Probably watched Passport to Pimlico). I used to spend a lot of time during Summer Hols in Gunnersbury Park, Occupation Lane then though an alley,took no time at all,Actually I spent more time in Boston Manor Park and along the canal,I love canals! My school (University of Elthorne (sick) had a barge as a floating classroom for a couple of weeks....on the first trip some of the herberts rocked the boat whilst we were going through Top Locks so that the roof was hitting the side of the lock. They were all banned from setting foot on board again, strangely a perfectly round hole appeared in the bottom causing it to sink almost without trace {:( During my last 7-8 years at work I used to cycle from Hillingdon to Kendal Ave at first along the Western Ave,but after I bought a mask and turned up at work to howls of derision not at the mask,but when I took it off I was sporting a thick black greasy moustache,my boss said during tea break "It's really nice of Tony to clean up all the air for us motorists". Then I switched to going along the tow-path,that was lovely I arrived at work really relaxed and in not much more time than going by car. Nowadays I live in Western Argyll about 8 miles down a 14 mile dead end road/track, lovely scenery awful weather,last year we had just under 11 feet of rain fortunately it drains off straight into the sea. In fact getting a bit more OT, there's a drain at the bottom of our garden,it puzzled me for a while as the water is dark brown,I thought "that's the cattle doing that!" but further investigations show otherwise,I took a sample and let it settle,thick sludge at the bottom and crystal clear at the top. I filtered it using Morrisons kitchen roll and found that it was crystalline,how hard is it thought I ? "Give it the thumb nail test" said the Sadist fairy(never far away),I took a single crystal balanced it on my left thumbnail then tried to crush it with my right thumbnail...harder and harder until my LH nail gave in,the pain as the crystal penetrated quite far, was unbelievable. More passive research shows that the stuff was hematite from the extinct volcanos that surround us,nearly as hard as diamond.That's it for now, end of part one of seventeen.
Tony Wood ● 3727d