Sooooo, just got back from Tewkesbury* Around Reading the rain started, and by Bracknell it was heavy, the first significant rain this area has seen in many a month. The roads are covered in a quite thick white foamy slime, I assume its months and months of oil, grease, rubber, crumbly road markings, and other s***** churned up into fairy liquid by traffic. Didnt seem particularly slippy tho.
Never seen the like.
*Tewkesbury surprised me, Very historical, thriving high street with independent shops, music festival, numerous friendly pubs, good walks, and everywhere was extremely dog friendly ( the butcher even invited the dogs in for a bone)
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Been noticeable round here previously when heavy rain follows an extended dry spell.
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this was more than noticeable, inches deep in thick white/grey foam,
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I am almost jealous. Not seen any rain down here in the south east for what seems like weeks and weeks. No green grass left.
Tewkesbury sounds like I remember it.
I used to live in a village nearby as a child. Nice place. From memory the town floods when there has been heavy and sustained rain and the nearby Severn and Avon can't cope.
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No rain here in north east Wales....sunny and a little windy...flying in from Amsterdam to Liverpool last week the countryside was yellow..
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A few spit spots of rain earlier but nothing for the rest of the day. A few showers possible later in the week.
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Heavy rain here in west Wales last night. Although it's been hot and sunny for the past few months we have had a few spells of rain and the grass is still green.
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>> Heavy rain here in west Wales last night. Although it's been hot and sunny for
>> the past few months we have had a few spells of rain and the grass
>> is still green.
Stayed in Tewksbury, dog show there and another in Evesham. Both places clearly lacking rain for a considerable time, huge cracks yards long & several inches deep in the fields - dry parched and clearly shrinking soil.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 26 Aug 25 at 15:55
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>> Stayed in Tewksbury, dog show there and another in Evesham. Both places clearly lacking rain
>> for a considerable time, huge cracks yards long & several inches deep in the fields
>> - dry parched and clearly shrinking soil.
Some of the clay round here is like that. And this morning, a fellow villager asked me for help with an online insurance claim as his house is cracking. It's been fine since 1974 when it was built.
This happened I think about 25-30 years ago when there was a long drought. The real surge in claims came afterwards, with a lot of claims for heave when the ground took up water again.
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Were you on the Caravan Club site? We used it many years ago, very pleasant. Only weeks afterwards, it was very badly flooded.
thefloods.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/
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>> Were you on the Caravan Club site? We used it many years ago, very pleasant.
>> Only weeks afterwards, it was very badly flooded.
The very same, they have flood level and dates on the main gate post, several were way over my head.
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Meanwhile, back in west Wales we've just had a hefty downpour. It's cooled down a lot too so I've been able to unplug the portable air conditioner in the bedroom.
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>> the butcher even invited the dogs in for a bone
My dogs used to love them, but nowadays very few owners seem to think it's safe. An old vet told me dogs are basically carrion and designed to be 'bone bound' and that's why we never see white dog turds now.
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Nice 'spoons hotel in Tewkesbury. My brother used to live nearby.
tinyurl.com/3kjxtc75
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I'll be 'spooning tomorrow in Bracknell, late lunch and a pint for £9.10 (see Afternoon deal in Duncan's menu link). Bus in and out, couple more pints of Abbots for under £3 each, what's not to like? (Please don't answer LOL)
It's a big place and weather permitting the gardens are quite nice during the day. It probably becomes a hell hole at other times!
I do have one lasting 'Spoons memory, somewhere up North, when the coffee was unlimited for £1. I'd had my fill and put my cup back on the bar to assist the staff, whereupon a not-unrespectable customer quickly scooped it up to make it their own...!!!
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>> I'll be 'spooning tomorrow in Bracknell, late lunch and a pint for £9.10 (see Afternoon
>> deal in Duncan's menu link). Bus in and out, couple more pints of Abbots for
>> under £3 each, what's not to like? (Please don't answer LOL)
>>
>>
>>
A mate is a 'Spoons regular and I met him in town a few weeks ago for a trip to his local. Cheap, but like drinking in a warehouse.
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>>
>> A mate is a 'Spoons regular and I met him in town a few weeks
>> ago for a trip to his local. Cheap, but like drinking in a warehouse.
>>
Don’t really choose a pub on how cheap the beer is. The deciding factors would usually be the the environment and what sort of customers it attracts. I.e is it a pleasant place to be. Most Wetherspoons fail on both of these accounts.
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'Spoons environment is very much location dependent.
The former Knight's Templar on Chancery Lane was very much what you'd expect of a place on the edge of Lincoln's Inn - full of lawyers and associated professions.
There's one I went in the centre of Sheffield that seemd to be an outstation of a Bookies with various types making a pimt last an hour and nipping in and out of Wm Hills.
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>> There's one I went in the centre of Sheffield that seemd to be an outstation
>> of a Bookies with various types making a pint last an hour.........
>>
Can't have been Sheffield, it would have had to last all day (and into the evening).
(Choruses of 'Ow much?", even in Spoons)
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>> 'Spoons environment is very much location dependent.
>>
>> The former Knight's Templar on Chancery Lane was very much what you'd expect of a
>> place on the edge of Lincoln's Inn - full of lawyers and associated professions.
>>
My niece had her wedding reception at the Knights Templar pub. Very good value. The ladies' loos were amazing.
Reception was enlivened by the naked bike ride pulling up outside. An interesting experience.
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I do also go to pretentious over-priced pubs full of people up themselves too you know LOL Plenty of them around here!!
We were semi seriously lamenting the other day how few old fashioned pubs there were here now, ones where you just went for a quiet drink with your buddies and it would be mainly just other grown ups acting grown up.
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You might like The Walham Green, recently opened in Fulham Broadway. An old Tube station.
www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/walham-green-fulham/
or
www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/the-crosse-keys-city-of-london/
Last edited by: Duncan on Wed 27 Aug 25 at 15:30
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Pubs these days are nearly all dependant on food sales to stay in business. Wet pubs will virtually disappear in five years
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Yes, you may take pleasure in that but I think it's a shame.
I was reading a local publican's comments on the Reading festival goers - no surprise that the younger generations simply don't drink much, that's left to the oldies.
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Why would I take pleasure in that? I love a traditional pub. The sad fact is that they are simply economically unviable. Societal and economic pressures have seen them off. Sad after being a fixture in English life for centuries.
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Nearly as good as a w****ho......
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>> Nice 'spoons hotel in Tewkesbury. My brother used to live nearby.
Nice building, dogs are banned, and the clientelle in the garden looked about as unsavoury as the food.
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>> dogs are banned
Sounds idyllic :-)
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However, in September 2018 Wetherspoons announced it would no longer allow dogs in any of its UK branches, with the exception of assistance dogs. At the time, a Wetherspoons spokesman said the group's hard-working staff had grown tired of picking up poop and the ban would be strictly enforced going forward. He said: “Please note that Wetherspoon has a policy of not allowing dogs in its pubs, including all outside areas. (Assistance Dogs excepted).
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>> >> Nice 'spoons hotel in Tewkesbury. My brother used to live nearby.
>>
>> dogs are banned,
Oh, good. I hadn't realised.
Too many blasted dogs everywhere nowadays.
Too many people have got too many dogs.
You wait until my party get into power... (I haven't formed it yet, but that's just a detail.)
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>> Too many blasted dogs everywhere nowadays.
>> Too many people have got too many dogs.
......Here? two, two too many?
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 28 Aug 25 at 16:40
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It's not the number per se but the number of barky mc barkfaces around here.
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My local pub is full of dogs during holiday periods.
Visitors call in with 3+, the landlords have complained about them carping in the beer garden and not clearing up.
Most of the locals have one dog, they sit under a table, quietly, no bother. Visitors think it acceptable to let their dogs sprawl out anywhere and expect people to step over them …us locals think otherwise and tell ‘em to put the canines under the table.
Last week one solitary diner had a dog that barked incessantly, jumping up at the table wanting food. Presumably it gets fed like this at home with tit bits off the plate. After 5 minutes a local had a quiet word and took the dog out into the beer garden until the diner had finished the meal. Said diner then left the premises after being told to shut up the dog or leave pronto.
And don’t even think about letting your dog sit on a seat…that doesn’t end well.
Last edited by: legacylad on Thu 28 Aug 25 at 17:14
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In yorkshire pubs I put flat caps on them, and tell the locals its a pair of long haired golden whippets, they seem happy with that
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UK Dog population now around 13 million. Is deportation the answer?
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>> UK Dog population now around 13 million. Is deportation the answer?
we could feed the 11.4 million non uk born immigrants to them, that would reduce the dog population by 1.6 million through starvation, Farage would be delighted.
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The increase in the dog population is undoubtedly due to all those fancy foreign breeds likes Afghans, Mexican Chihuahuas,German Shepherds and French Poodles. Back in the fifties there were good old working class English mongrels who can't now find a place to live now and are living in Hostels like Battersea.
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The German Shepherd (GSD) was introduced to the UK around the time of World War I, with a breed club formed in 1919 and the UK Kennel Club registering the breed that same year. Due to wartime sentiment, the breed was initially called the "Alsatian Wolf Dog" and was only officially changed back to "German Shepherd Dog" in 1977.
Much like the royal family really
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 28 Aug 25 at 20:40
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Some years ago we had a holiday in Munster. My wife asked me if I had noticed how many Alsatian dogs there were around.
I pointed out that we were in Alsace . She hadn’t made the connection.
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I work from home. I have a Labrador that only barks when someone comes up the driveway.
My next door neighbour has 6 Lhasa apsos. She breeds them so at certain times there might be as many as 13/14 dogs in there. They all bark when someone comes up their driveway.
A neighbour 3 doors down has a dog that yaps all day and night. At nothing. It’s so yappy she often puts it outside in the back garden to get some peace. Where it yaps constantly.
Often I need to shut the window cos of the noise of constant barking dogs distracts me from my work.
When I become PM I am gonna outlaw yappy dogs.
And often when you meet owners in the street or whatever with their yappy dogs they go all apologetic that their dog doesn’t like other dogs. Well it’s probably cos you have never socialised it instead preferring to have your “baby” and putting silly jackets on it!
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I am very much a positive reinforcement trainer. Ie shape a behaviour, and reward and tweak and refine it with more postivity. In my sport 5cm out of position, or a slight quiver of the jaw on a retrieve article is the difference between winning and losing. Aversive (bad consequences) wont work with such margins reliably so are now frowned upon. Harsh handling is penalised.
However, every dog handler will at some time, in secret have used it. There are some occasions with some breeds when firm strict handling is required.
Thats a long way round of saying, "you shouldnt do it, but a small yappy dog needs a damn good slap if its being a PITA"
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Rain and foam - Bromptonaut
