Mundane facts about your day...

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Thehooperman

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Morrisons in Minehead had an abundance of loo rolls this afternoon.

I picked up a four pack which will be sufficient for five of us for the week but I can always call in on the way home if any forumites are running low and want a little souvenir of Devon!!

They also had Exmoor Gold on offer so that took priority in my basket :)
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
Morrisons in Minehead had an abundance of loo rolls this afternoon.

I picked up a four pack which will be sufficient for five of us for the week but I can always call in on the way home if any forumites are running low and want a little souvenir of Devon!!

They also had Exmoor Gold on offer so that took priority in my basket :)
We stayed in the Minehead Wetherspoons nine years ago - and I remember enjoying a pint of Exmoor Beast with my breakfast.
 

Noah

Well-Known Forumite
Gailey. I assume there were lots more houses before the A5 was widened? That bit of the M6 is the earliest isn't it?

Some houses were lost in the period 1933 to 1937 (subject to correction) when the A5 was widened and the A449 was dualled. That's when the Spread Eagle was demolished and a new pub built significantly back from the original roads. However there are more houses than you think in Gailey, it does extend along the A5 to Gailey Lea for example.

That bit of the M6 was quite late, J13-J12 opened 1967 I think and the rest of the section down to Walsall in 1968.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Searching on-line for information about a house in Gailey which I think may once have been a beer house called the New Inns. Lots of random thinks thrown up. One site offered the the opportunity of a journey from Barcelona to Gailey Station for £76. Firstly I am not in Barcelona and secondly Gailey Station closed in the 1960s (yes, it was the right Gailey according to the map provided.)
I sometimes use https://time.is/ when setting clocks. When I'm in Stafford, it takes random guesses at anywhere within around fifty miles when it tells me where "I am", for whatever reason.

When I'm in Ireland, it is a bit more consistent and tells me that I am in the county town, about twenty miles away. Amusingly, though, for some bizarre reason, it uses a name which was officially changed back in 1930. I have not heard it used in general conversation since the 1970s and it was a rare then, only used by elderly rural folk. The younger generations today would often have to think where it was, amongst the list of many reverted place-names.

Screenshot (36).png


I have mentioned this anomaly to them, with no response - not that it really matters much.

There are many people from the outside world around there now, and they couldn't really be expected to know where this place is/was.
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
Some houses were lost in the period 1933 to 1937 (subject to correction) when the A5 was widened and the A449 was dualled. That's when the Spread Eagle was demolished and a new pub built significantly back from the original roads. However there are more houses than you think in Gailey, it does extend along the A5 to Gailey Lea for example.

That bit of the M6 was quite late, J13-J12 opened 1967 I think and the rest of the section down to Walsall in 1968.
I've just looked at satellite view and had no idea there were all those houses by the canal. I drove past there almost every day for 7 years until the 19th March! Might have to go and have an explore.

I have finally succumbed and bought a desk today. The dining table is a few centimetres too low and has a horrid lip which means I can't push my chair underneath it. I'm both 6 months too late and 6 months early in this purchase I think.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
That bit of the M6 was quite late, J13-J12 opened 1967 I think and the rest of the section down to Walsall in 1968.
The M6 ended southbound at J13 for a while, it was necessary for the junction to be there, so that a southbound connection could be made to the A449. This led to the decision to install J14 at the north of the town. If the section had been built through from Stoke to Walsall, say, it seems likely that a place the size of Stafford would have got one junction on the A518, at the Castle - that would be fun now...
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Booked a spur of the moment table in The Wildwood tonight for a meal, first day of the new Covid regulations, with bar staff and customers having to wear masks except for sitting at table and no ordering from the bar.
Spent ages ordering via the app ( me and my phone to blame, not the app. Each time a message came through, the details entered so far disappeared :roll: ) Would have been quicker to ring son, tell him what we wanted & get him to order it for us in seconds:lol:
Found out ( according to acting manager) that the 10 pm closing rule means even staff have to be off the premises by 10pm.

Last orders bell rung 9.20pm, bar stops serving 9.30pm , everyone outside in The beer garden has to come inside with their drinks, and no drinks allowed to be taken outside from then as at 9.55 pm any drinks remaining in glasses have to be taken off customers and poured down the sink.
Pub lights to be out , staff and customers off the premises, :o and pub locked up by 10pm or face the £10.000 fine.

Downloaded the NHS track & trace app.
Scanning the pubs QR code brought up that location was ' medium risk.'
 
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proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
Booked a spur of the moment table in The Wildwood tonight for a meal, first day of the new Covid regulations, with bar staff and customers having to wear masks except for sitting at table and no ordering from the bar.
Spent ages ordering via the app ( me and my phone to blame, not the app. Each time a message came through, the details entered so far disappeared :roll: ) Would have been quicker to ring son, tell him what we wanted & get him to order it for us in seconds:lol:
Found out ( according to acting manager) that the 10 pm closing rule means even staff have to be off the premises by 10pm.

Last orders bell rung 9.20pm, bar stops serving 9.30pm , everyone outside in The beer garden has to come inside with their drinks, and no drinks allowed to be taken outside from then as at 9.55 pm any drinks remaining in glasses have to be taken off customers and poured down the sink.
Pub lights to be out , staff and customers off the premises, :o and pub locked up by 10am or face the £10.000 fine.

Downloaded the NHS track & trace app.
Scanning the pubs QR code brought up that location was ' medium risk.'
Careful with the app. Reports are it's not very accurate.
 

Mudgie

Well-Known Forumite
Some houses were lost in the period 1933 to 1937 (subject to correction) when the A5 was widened and the A449 was dualled. That's when the Spread Eagle was demolished and a new pub built significantly back from the original roads. However there are more houses than you think in Gailey, it does extend along the A5 to Gailey Lea for example.

That bit of the M6 was quite late, J13-J12 opened 1967 I think and the rest of the section down to Walsall in 1968.
Houses lost for road widening suggests for Penkridge that was on the western side of the A449 with the George and Fox rebuilt but old White Hart surviving, though the Littleton Arms and Railway survived towards Wolverhampton.
I remember dualling of the A449 including both cycle lanes and footbaths. That was about the time when some single carriageway A roads had three lanes, the middle one for overtaking in both directions !
1968 for the M6 opening between junctions 12 and 13 would be about right from me remembering cycling out to see it near Penkridge and walking on the unmettaled carriageway, a weekend presumably.
 
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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
That was about the time when some single carriageway A roads had three lanes, the middle one for overtaking in both directions !
Highway Code Rule 135 still states -

Where a single carriageway has three lanes and the road markings or signs do not give priority to traffic in either direction
  • use the middle lane only for overtaking or turning right. Remember, you have no more right to use the middle lane than a driver coming from the opposite direction
  • do not use the right-hand lane.



There are, apparently, and alarmingly, still a few about.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
The North Devon Link road running from M5 Junction 27 to Barnstaple was newly built and opened about 30 years ago with many three lane sections (the cheapskate bastards didn't make it a dual carriageway, which it now desperately needs to be.) Some of these sections are still there, but after a series of fatal accidents they literally had to bollard one lane off and let it go back to nature on the more dangerous parts (i.e. long straights where overtaking became a game of 'chicken.')
Three lane roads are like 'smart' motorways. You'd be better driving a hearse on them and cut out the middleman. :(
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
Highway Code Rule 135 still states -

Where a single carriageway has three lanes and the road markings or signs do not give priority to traffic in either direction
  • use the middle lane only for overtaking or turning right. Remember, you have no more right to use the middle lane than a driver coming from the opposite direction
  • do not use the right-hand lane.



There are, apparently, and alarmingly, still a few about.
Is the one still there on the Clayton Road near Junction 15? When I worked in Newcastle that was a godsend.
 
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