FastFreddy2

Pictures?

Ok. I'll look for P.M. More I think about it, the more I think she likes you, so I'm holding out hope for another date. If you want one that is?

The lady in the red dress could have had two heads - your date wanted your full attention, especially since it sounds like she made some effort to please you. Staring at another woman - even one with two heads, was never going to end well? If this is the lady you have mentioned when we met F-2-F, seems to me you will always have a rocky relationship with her? If she chased you up once, when the dust has settled there's a good chance she'll ring you again surely?

The event came and went, and was a moderate success. The journey to the venue started perhaps an hour to 90 minutes late due to me and my newly acquired allotment skills. [aka digging.] We still had 3 hours for a 1 hour journey though. 15 miles into our 40 mile journey, traffic slowed, with a broken down vehicle stuck on the middle lane of a motorway. We were the last car to squeeze past before the police shut all 3 carriageways while they moved the vehicle. 5 miles further down the road, traffic appeared to have stopped on the two outside carriageways, which was also our route to the M11 off the M25 we were on. Fortunately, we were able to use the nearside filter lane to leave the motorway and use another route. [A10 then North Circular, which is the inner London route rather than M25 which is the outer-London route.] Less than 10 miles later, more slow traffic, and a bent van about to be abandoned in the middle lane of a 3 lane carriageway. A third escape? Be minded this was a sunny/clear day. Visibility and road traction both at 100%. The last hiccup was the long slow queue into the Blackwall Tunnel. The O2 is at the other end, so it's the route of choice. We arrived around 6.10pm, the journey having taken twice the time it should have. It left us plenty of time for getting to the gig, but not enough time to queue for food then sit down to eat - we found walking around the venue. Consequently, we bought a sandwich and drink each that we ate back at the car some 300 yards away. While at the car I changed out of my wear-all-day Bertie heeled shoes, into my higher ALDO slimmer heeled ankle boots. I'd been spotted in the Berties by a sharp-eyed mother who immediately informed her young child what she had just seen (and found me looking at them both when they turned for another look). It made me weary about the higher heels ..... but ...... So off we went, on the initial 300 yard walk back to the O2 in daylight, with me wearing an almost 5" heel. Once inside, the lower light levels and higher noise levels drew some comfort. The entrance to our nominated gate was as far around the dome as we could walk. This was a fairly pleasant experience, but for one or two people who thought it a good idea to move at speed against the main bulk of pedestrians going in the opposite direction. We walked into the gig as the warm up act were getting warmed up. Moving down the side of the small circle of music enthusiasts, we managed to get a spot fairly close to the stage, and about 100 yards closer than our last visit. [This place is huge!] I walked back to one of several bars, and queued for 15 minutes to buy herself a drink. In keeping with my minimal fluid intake regime, I went without. The walking was good, the queueing - not so good. The main band, Elbow, arrived at 8.50pm and my feet had been practically motionless for most of the last hour save the walk to the bar. The set must have lasted for 2 hours. My feet weren't happy standing still for so long, but they were uncomfortable rather than painful. A good result I thought. The height was useful, given the two tall fellas in front of us. I watched the whole gig looking between their necks. Mrs Freddy pal'd up with a couple of other 'height-challenged' girls and watched the show with them to one side of the tall people. It only happened once, but I did turn around to find Mrs Freddy doing a singing/dancing routine oblivious to anything else but the music. (Bless her.) Drugs were not involved, but you could be mistaken in thinking they were. (Wine spritzer doesn't qualify, even though it was a large one.) After a rousing finale, the band left, and it was time for us to go too. Hanging around for a few minutes allowed us to use the short-cut out of the venue, when the curtains next to the stage were opened and a 50 yard walk found us at the front door. Having made use of the VIP car park last time, we knew it was best to park in the main car park and close to the exit, which we had. Once at the car, we left in (literally) a couple of minutes. Using the VIP car park saw us taking an hour to get out on a previous visit. Once on the road we used the same route home we had used to get to the O2, fearing roadworks on the M11/M25 would delay us. As we turned off the A406 to swing Northward, we just missed joining a line of static traffic queueing on the road we were leaving. Probably another prang, but at least this one was in the dark? The journey home took a little over an hour. So quick was the return journey, we arrived back still buzzing from the gig. Though we passed 3 opportunities to get properly stuck in traffic on the way in (with Mrs Freddy saying; "We just can't manage traffic in London can we?") Then once on the return drive, both journeys were pretty much stress free, certainly compared to the other outings anyway. The gig was good, and Elbow come highly recommended. They play their own instruments, write their own songs, and provide a reasonable amount of audience participation.

Update: We had some dry weather, I removed some 6" deep concrete from around a manhole cover to enable it's replacement, and for me to erect some new fencing. Currently, it being Spring, I am waiting for the panels to be made and supplied. "Busy time of year" the man said, and a lot of panel damage due to high winds during the New Year...... (Like mine!) Toilet hasn't leaked, and doesn't move around either, as it did before. We have had another water leak, just outside the upstairs toilet. Looks to have been leaking for some time. Nearly lost the ceiling underneath, but I found the leak before the ceiling below it got fully saturated and loaded with water. Had I gone to bed at a sensible time, it might have been a different story. LOADS of photo's to follow.

Glad to hear you are recovering, but it's quite a shock to hear how unwell you have been? Is the prognosis favourable? Back in a heel by the end of May sounds very optimistic, though no-one could doubt your determination or moral strength for such an achievement. My best wishes to you, and I hope you recover as quickly as you could hope for.

Waited 2 years for a proper date then started eyeing up another women while out? There are some things that happen in the world that I will never fully comprehend. This is one of them...... Sure I look, but the woman I'm out with has known me for almost 40 years so jealousy is no longer part of the relationship. And we are 18 years away from our first date ... Consequently I'm practically expected to look at every pair of high heels I can see, with her good self knowing it's my only interest when looking. (ie the heels.) Looking up the competition while in the early stages of dating though .... I'm surprised there was even a conversation the next day, much less time out together? I doubt anyone over the age of 16 needs to be told this was a mistake - verging on insulting. Sadly, it looks like there's no way to recover the situation. I hope that changes. Not least because everyone should be allowed one mistake, and a second chance. I hope you get yours.

I hope that wasn't the only pair of heels you saw? As a reminder, I've been to Cardiff twice in recent times, and found it a very rewarding experience from the high heel point-of-view. I hadn't realised my last visit was so long ago! Nor did I remember I hadn't included any pictures taken while there, in the report. Having travelled to Cardiff, I hope you visited the city centre too?

Olympus "Tough" eh? The camera has been coved in one of those padded soft cases since it left the shop where I bought it, September 2012. While it's supposed to tolerate a drop of 1m without damage, I've always had my doubts ..... I did drop it a month ago, with no discernible damage. It fell out of my grasp again tonight, and it now has a piece missing. (Ironically, it was the only thing of value I was holding onto.) So no longer waterproof nor dust proof. I could araldite up the hole, but it's a bit ..... of a bodge? Will have to get a price from Olympus tomorrow, Doubtless it'll be so expensive to fix, I'll need to buy something else....

Don't know her music, but she now models for design houses, and must surely be considered a fashionista? Or fashion victim? More >> here << Not a style I would ever consider wearing, not without some chemical assistance anyway.

The 02 (aka Millennium Dome) has been a place that's special to me and heels. Way, waaaay back, I had my first all-day - daylight excursion in a soft wedge heel from Nine West. Myself and Mrs Freddy went to an exhibition she was keen to see, and I figured it was far enough away for me to have a modest heel on all day. Not sure where it's written up but I suspect it'll be around Feb/March 2008 at HHp. On the day we arrived in broad (bright) daylight, had to queue amongst a lot of other visitors and security staff to get in, and had lunch/dinner out while there too. Long day. More recently, in December 2012, I did the O2 in an almost 5" block heel when we went to see Elbow. There was The Outing in Summer 2013, when I wore a 4½" stiletto court heel to see Ludovico Einaudi at the Barbican, London. Then the Outing II (The Sequel) in Autumn 2013 when we finally got to see Wicked, at the Apollo Victoria, me in a fairly high ankle boot. I have been hoping something would come along that would throw a challenge at me, and surprise-surprise, something has. This morning, Mrs Freddy discovered one of her favoured bands -Elbow- is touring again. Almost too late for her to book tickets, she managed to get what they call "floor standing" at the O2. Not bad considering tickets for the (one night) gig went on sale in October 2013 - apparently.... We will be standing amongst 5-600 others in an open arena immediately in front of the band. The best/closest views will be in the scrum closest the stage. With the experiences of the previous outings, we are going to arrive during the afternoon. If we are delayed by 2 hours, we won't be anything like as stressed as we have been in the past through delays or hiccups. Also, getting there early should ensure we are parked fairly close to the exit - unlike when we had the use of the VIP car park last time. Close to the venue, but just about as far from the exit as it was possible to get! The challenge (for me) then, is 1: wear heels all day, and 2: include 3+ hours standing still while the support act and main act are on. As all of you heel wearers will know, standing still in a heel for any length of time produces just about as painful a experience as wearing a heel can have. There is no respite. I remember a night 30 or so years ago, I went to a fashion show with my then girlfriend, dressed with a pair of white stiletto heels very visible to everyone. The 'eclectic' fashion show started around 90 minutes late, and we'd already waited for a while before the show was supposed to start. My feet -literally- felt like someone had driven nails into them. But I not only didn't complain about the pain, but made a point of (emotionally) enjoying it. The reason being, I had not been able to socialise in a mixed group (men/women) wearing a heel very much before, and I expected to do it even less afterward. (Boy George wouldn't be part of popular culture for long after all.) So the pain was made to be part of the derived pleasure from the evening. Even now, I remember vividly the 'torture' my feet endured that evening, just standing still. At the moment I have NO IDEA what I should put on my feet. Mrs Freddy has already declared it's flats for her. I've recently acquired some shoe boots (bootees) with a 5 inch heel I'd like to wear, but standing for 2-3 hours in those would just be unrealistic. A slim/slender heel will be inappropriate too, given we'll be walking around for a couple of hours in the retail and food areas, before the arena doors open. I'll just have to find some shoes with a padded footbed with moderate heel. Whatever happens, I would be very disappointed to go in flats. I've got a little more than two weeks to work out what I'm wearing on the night.

I've probably mentioned this before but ...... It's not always the being killed that might upset the bike rider. Death after all, provides little room for thoughts on hindsight. (ie. "I wish I hadn't done that move....") While in hospital nursing a double bone fracture that had serious consequences if it was repaired badly, I spent some time with a fella who had a low speed motorbike accident he swore couldn't have been at a speed greater than 8 to 10 mph. Seems he was turning right at a junction, and his bike stalled. The bike went over, and he went over the bike, impaling his torso on the upturned bars. Outcome? He will live, but will always carry two bags with him for his waste products. While the accident was low speed, it would seem the handlebars did for his bladder and his bowel. The thing that really put me off a £4,000 bike, wasn't the price of the bike. If it needed to, that bike would return £3,500 with the sort of miles I might put on it. No, it was the head to toe leather with lumbar/neck/kidney protection, boots, gloves and helmet. Plus the wet weather outfit to cover the leathers. Another £1,500+ almost none of which I would get back if I had a change of mind. I've sold good good cars for less!

And out in her Saint Laurents .... once again. More >> here <<

As regulars will know, I take my camera everywhere. (Don't do expensive phones - though I keep looking. ) My camera goes with me, even when I visit DIY stores .... I go to them often, and well, you never know. So yesterday .........

Priced up a Kawasaki 300 Ninja ("300" = 2014 model maybe) the other day. Ex-demo (pre-registered for 2013?). Delivery mileage at £4,000. That's quite a discount over the usual £4700-£5300 prices I've seen for straight out the showroom bikes. If only I had time ...... (And a death wish. )

London's West End tomorrow pm and evening. All are welcome. Have some returns, plus HoF have a two day extravaganza (Thurs+Fri) plus Debenhams are doing a discount on some lines until end of Sunday. I have enough footwear for 2 lifetimes, but you have to keep the economy ticking over.

Had been looking to try out the sintered diamond disc on my small angle grinder, and the hammer action on my SDS drill over the past couple of days with a view to making some progress on the fence panel replacement ..... Yesterday we had snow....... Today we had several hail storms, accompanied by lightning - which must have quite close given how quickly the thunder followed. Apparently (he writes, tongue in cheek) we are due to have a warm (20 C) and dry weekend. Can't wait.

Or I could write it up here ..... As I have reported frequently, the weather here in the UK has been appalling. February 2014 was the wettest on record with 4 or 5 days of the month left. Not only has the past two months been wet, it's been unusually windy too. Reference the DIY thread and fence panels lost. Sunday the 16th Feb was a dry day as it turned out. Not overly warm, though the Sun was out for a while, but the light wind did have a bit of an edge. I have written about ALDO Camden (Outlet) before, as being somewhere I like to frequent, but parking in Camden had gotten both difficult, and expensive. I hadn't been there for some time.... With a reason to go to ALDO, desperation had spurred me on. I dragged Mrs Freddy out with me, as I was due to take her out to dinner. Eating out in London meant I could (rather selfishly) wear heels if I chose, and I did 'chose'. So off we went to Camden, quite late in the day. About 5 miles from home, and too far down the motorway to turn back, I realised I'd left my go-everywhere camera at home. Probably only the second time I had done this since buying it. That camera goes everywhere I do normally. Rushing to get out, it was left behind. As I was going to Camden, it didn't seem as important as it might usually be, so we carried on. On arrival in Camden, I drove along my old parking spots noting they were all 'controlled' on a Sunday, meaning £2 an hour to park. If needs be I would pay for a short stay, I needn't stay long visiting the one shop. As it was, I found part of a road that wasn't controlled on Sunday, so parking was free. After several years of avoiding the place, I finally found free Sunday parking again!! More interestingly, there was a very very very long queue of people from about where we parked our car, right to the end of the road. A distance of perhaps some 300 yards, and generally 2 or 3 people wide. They were there with chairs, food and drink. No obvious reason, so I asked someone walking up to the end of the queue. Turns out the fella I spoke to had been there since 9.15am and was checking the length of the queue behind him. These people, perhaps 600+ of them, were waiting for one of the Prince "gorilla" gigs taking place in the UK. These were only announced immediately prior to the gigs (we were told) so advance tickets weren't available. I had seen Prince at Wembley in the 80's, and I'm sure he would still provide an exceptionally entertaining show. Not for us though. We made off for ALDO. I'd already arranged for a pair of VERY high heeled boots to be put aside for me. We went into the busy store, and I asked for the contact I'd spoken to earlier in the day. He was on a break, but reappeared after 10 minutes or so. He got my boots and I bought them. I'd already tried the size, so there was no need to try them again. The chap who helped me was very good. He knew they were for me, and treated me like every other customer. We got back to the car, and the queue hadn't moved, though it wasn't much longer either. We might have left around 4.15pm. It's been some time since I'd been to Covent Garden - while the shops were open. We'd visited recently quite late at night, only to find the large KG store there closed as it had taken so long to find the place. [see Shopping thread.] Camden and Covent Garden aren't far from each other - if you are a crow. Maybe 15-20 minutes by car? The problem would be parking really. Sure enough, when we arrived all the on-street parking places I knew were full. I decided to park closer to the river, where fewer people think to park. We found a space, quite close to the Savoy (I now know). As we walked along the road we parked in, and up alongside the Savoy, there seemed to be an unusually large amount of black limousines being polished up by their drivers. We thought that maybe some big meeting was taking place in the Savoy, maybe some sort of political thing? G8 meeting or something? (Who knows?) So we walked up to Covent Garden. There was plenty going on. Street performers on most open areas, some with large crowds around them. If it had been warmer we might have stopped, but we were there to visit the KG flagship store, which we did. [Full write-up in the KG Shopping thread.] When we left we used the toilets in the Apple store. If we'd had more time, we'd have stayed for coffee, but it was getting late. Mrs Freddy was getting hungry and I had promised her food! As we walked up from the piazza towards the underground station and main road around Covent Garden, I spied two ladies in evening dress walking toward the Royal Opera House. Initially I thought it was odd, because I didn't think they did performances on Sunday, until I noticed an outside broadcast rig parked close to the back of the venue. Must be something on we thought? Televised performance maybe? Anyway, the shoes one of the ladies wore, warranted a picture. And where was my camera? We walked further, trying to find the cocktail bar Mrs Freddy used to frequent with a friend in her youth. If they served food, I was going to provide an opportunity for some nostalgia. Having walked up the rise and passed the Underground, we seemed to be following more people dressed for the Opera performance. Black tie and evening dress seemed to be more usual than unusual amongst the walkers. What a day to leave my camera at home! Then, as we turned another corner, all became obvious. We were at the 2014 BAFTA's. I had no idea they were on, much less where. It instantly explained all the limo's seen earlier. We managed to squirrel ourselves so we could see the limo's arriving, but Mrs Freddy had flats on. I could see plenty, but she could see nothing. Although the people walking right past us didn't have celebrity status, many of the women looked stunning and some of the dresses were better than those reported by the press the following day. I was absolutely gutted I didn't have a camera. Of all the days to leave it at home???? I would have stayed for hours, but Mrs Freddy was getting cold, as well as hungry. We had to move on. We walked down to The Strand, and after another walk, we found a restaurant we could eat in, although the cold and hungry Mrs Freddy had mentioned several times she was ready to "just go home". Fortunately the place was warm, and service fast. Soon she was warm, and had food in front of her. Think we left Covent Garden around 8.30pm. I would have stayed, but herself was keen to return home before she got too tired. The journey home from there is about an hour. The car was a short walk away, so we were on our way quite quickly. While travelling back I talked about the coincidences of the day. We never go to Camden, but could of seen Prince if we cared to queue..... We never go to Covent Garden, but got to 'accidentally' go went to the BAFTA's, though they wouldn't let us in without a ticket. Typical day out in London? While I enjoy living close to the countryside, I very much enjoy living not to far from the glamour of a big city too. .

Well...... The 7 day programmer is on the wall, and working. As it turned out, programming it was easy/simple, if a bit laborious. It took a telephone conversations with 3 heating engineers, and one with the manufacturers to find out how it should be wired up. Seems the original installer didn't/doesn't wire up the junction box to the connection wiring map in the box. He also wanted £50 to come to my door, even though he lives less than a mile away. I offered him £20 for what turned out to be a 2 minute job but he declined. ["The call out charge is £50."] An obliging fella who offered some free telephone advice from 20 miles away helped, as did a mate who lives almost 50 miles away. The manufacturer had to be reminded that two pins weren't actually connected internally (I'd already checked) before they could give me the advice that would confirm my mate (50 miles away) had given me the right advice to start with. Once the original installer told me he ignored the wiring map and "connected what I needed to, where I wanted", with the help from the manufacturer I worked out what the wiring solution was. Given how badly the new boiler pipework has been done here, I can't begin to express how much I don't like that installer.... Update: Fence. Piccy of the broken/missing fence ...... The weather here is improving, or was .... We've recently had some dry weather and it looked like the fence was going to be scheduled for replacement. Then it rained - a lot. Then we got -2 degrees C. It's officially Spring here at the moment, and we got the lowest recorded temperature this year! (Not good for mortar or cement.) This job might have to wait a couple more weeks. If I have to replace the rotten/broken manhole cover, that's not a 5 minute cementing job. Needs to be done in dry not-cold weather. Update: Toilet. Having taken my own advice, I did some research on You Tube. Found ONE SINGLE comment, about using a toilet connector to soil pipe. An old fella made an almost casual remark; "You can't put a connector directly into the soil stack, you have to use a short piece of soil pipe to pack out the connector junction." Which immediately told me why the blinking connector I'd fitted was travelling deeper into the soil stack over time! So I acquired a piece of soil stack, and stuck it in place using something called Plumbers Gold. Wonderful stuff, if more expensive than similar products. Waited a day for it to go solid, then put the toilet back in. This time around, the toilet connector wouldn't go into the soil stack anything like as far as it would before. (So initial problem solved - hopefully.) But it occurred to me, the new angle the connector sat at, seemed to put some strain on the toilet end of the connector? I measured the location of the toilet outlet position (in the absence of the 3D scanner) and found the outlet was a bit higher than was obvious before. When the connector was looser in the soil pipe, it was effectively able to accommodate the rise. Now located more tightly, the connector was not so happy about the rise. The replacement toilet adapter to connector was replaced again but this time with an offset connector that effectively dropped the position of the toilet outlet around an inch. Once trial-connected, the revised connector position was checked for slope (downwards) and it still had one. Ideal! When the toilet was refitted, it was obvious that the connector couldn't move. The alignment was improved, so there is unlikely to be another leak. But there was. Not from the outlet this time, but from the close-coupled joint! Me moving it around had unsettled something, and I had to take the system apart - again. When I had moved the toilet around, I didn't undo the close-coupling. To be honest, there seemed little need, and I didn't want to undo something that worked well. Except now it didn't. Once apart, I decided to do the job I had planned, and tooled up for. When the toilet was first installed, the inlet hole was undersize. I "bodged" an inlet (all my bodges come with a 5 year warranty BTW) and had to date, made buying sintered diamond hole drills unnecessary - though i had bought them anyway. While I was at it, I also bought stainless steel bolts and washers to replace the rusting (treated) steel ones supplied with the toilet. I also wanted to replace the what the trade call the "rubber doughnut" that seals the join. I have a 2" pipe, which is larger than the more usual 1½" pipe, making the right size doughnut hard to find at short notice. I made do. Once the cistern was stripped down, I spent the better part of 15 minutes resizing the inlet hole, to full-size. The cistern didn't come with any wall fixing kit, and without any holes for screwing it to a wall either? Yet the Fitting Destructions said not to completely bolt down the cistern to the pan, meaning the cistern could float around if it wanted to? So I used the 11mm sintered diamond drill I'd also bought to put a single fixing hole in the high/middle of the cistern while I was at it. I packed out every loose connection with PTFE tape to make sure anything going through a hole was centralised. I used Plumbers Gold where I never expect to break a join, and LS-X where I expect to undo one. I used LS-X on the upper and lower faces of the foam doughnut supplied with the toilet. I'll get a sturdier 2" rubber one, for the next time the toilet is moved. At this stage, I find it hard to imagine how the blinking toilet can leak .... Though I assume nothing.