What are your jeans doing today?

[Maynard Friedman]

Exactly the same

[MJF9]

Not today but recent trip to Johannesburg...

A few pics of the Anglo American (think gold, diamonds, precious metals, De Beers) buildings in Main Street, Johannesburg centre of the old CBD... now minor part last century corporate colonial splendour, major part modern run down inner city depravation. 

The Stampede or The Impala Fountain by Herman Wald, in bronze, stands out... "The Stampede was my first impression in this country, nature’s most graceful charge that competes with any man-made efforts, unconditionally acclaimed by child or adult, by amateur or connoisseur, unbound by time, fashion or ‘isms’."

Fascinating country that gets more fascinating over time as stories unfold

And the Jo'burg winter sky never disappoints...

[Thanks_M8]

Also not today but over the last week & weekend:
Since the temperatures rose a bit in germany the citrus project on the balcony is growing along. 
Seen here are:
1 x trifoliate orange
1 x citrumelo (hybrid of trifoliate orange & grapefruit)
lots of yuzus (the small ones are seed grown), the big one I got last winter at half its size right now
2 x volkamer lemons
1 ichang orange
and maybe in the background a sanguinello blood orange
Also visible an olive we got a few years ago bearing fruit nowadays

The other pictures are from the weekend, foraging for berries and mushrooms in the black forest. 
Friends of ours moved there recently and we visited over the weekend. Since it's been crazy rainy and wet, but not really cold chanterelle mushrooms have been growing pretty early in the season. Usually they are ripe in august/september, rather than beginning of july. 

[smoothsailor]

Did an overnighter gravel event. A bit of rain and a lot of mud.

last picture, same but different

 

[Toegun]

Struggling to wear any denim in the summer but had a go whilst visiting Painshill Park. 
UES, MF, IH

 

Edited August 2 by Toegun

[Thanks_M8]

Only half of it was done in jeans and the rest was done in sweatpants or else, also not done today but moreso over the last 9 months.

I finished a sweater over the weekend. Raglan top down construction, seamless and knit on the round, 100% wool, and a turtleneck-ish collar. Took inspiration from arans on the braids, but not as complex as your typical aran knit.

Really proud since it's my first piece with braiding and any break from simple right or left right patterns.

The pattern on the sleeves came natural as a help for sizing them down for the cuffs, same for the sides.

Edited August 8 by Thanks_M8

[chicote]

That’s amazing!! Great work!

[reallypeacedoff]

We just happened to turn down the right street and was wondering what people were looking at. On my way to Son of a Stag no less.

[smoothsailor]

@Thanks_M8 super cool. Did you use one of those knitting needles with a piece of cord attached to them?

Fits you perfect

my mom used to knit jumpers for me and my sister all the time. 

[Thanks_M8]

Thanks lads

@smoothsailor yes, used a round knitting needle and a set of double pointed needles.

A self knit sweater is something special

[MJF9]

It was a lost weekend in a hut in Hathersage, luckily not double pneumonia in a single room…

A top escape for me and the lad in the Peak district

Walking in the great outdoors, staring into meadows while drinking morning coffee, making friends with the sons of stags, listening to streams trickling, swimming in the local lido, sticking to a caveman diet of meat, fruit and veg and chilling away from it all

Walked up Stanage Edge and Bamford Edge.  At one point, I thought I heard a rumbling down below as if someone was in the drains and then a cool bike flashed past… we were deep in OO Soul country so who knows if it was him or not…

Importantly there was denim on the trip… tatsunosuke military trousers and Freewheelers 1930s set-up

Edited August 11 by MJF9

[shredwin_206]

Got to visit the new Seattle Aquarium expansion today.  
I helped install the piping for all of the sea life areas. Crazy that I was inside that huge tank when it was empty. 

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

That's so cool! And what a killer looking fam. 

[MJF9]

A week in Sarajevo… incoming double post… do look away if it’s too many pics!

Such a wondeful vibrant place, steeped in good and bad history… sure the multi-religions, multi-ethnicities, multi-cultures would have lived, and live, much more harmoniously if it wasn’t for toxic politics that sadly persists everywhere today

Our digs right next to the Latin Bridge

Bullet holes on the walls from the 1993-95 war and Seige of Sarajevo, lasting 1,425 days 

The old town

It wasn’t me! It was to prove denim was involved… the site where Gavrilo Princip shot Franz Ferdinand which kicked off WW1

Edited August 22 by MJF9

[MJF9]

Continued...

Cable car up Mount Trebevic, site of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Bosnia… and the abandoned bobsled

Watched FK Sarajevo win 3-1, more than my own club could muster

It was the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival so we watched a few films, documentaries actually… recommending The Sky Above Zenica and a striking short documentary called Pain (intense)

We were back row, the projector was behind me and Junior MJF9... perfect for casting shadows at the credits!!

Then onto the next stop (Mostar) via Sarajevo’s beautifully brutal railway station

Edited August 22 by MJF9

[mlwdp]

Not really denim, but enjoying a Starbucks on a Saturday morning.

 

[Geeman]

Do not spill it on those trousers mate! 

[shredwin_206]

got to visit a local nursery legend today. Jerry is a bit of a godfather when it comes to carnivorous plants specifically Sarracenia/pitcher plants. 
It was amazing to see all of his greenhouses and hybrids he’s made. 

Edited August 30 by shredwin_206

[Double 0 Soul]

On 4/5/2024 at 7:32 PM, rbeck said:

@Double 0 Soul got some closeups of that bike? Looks real sharp 👌 

Sorry for the slow response @rbeck.. it's been at least 6mths since my last confession

Sure, the frame is a Mid-90s Pace RC200, They were made in Yorkshire, very light, very rigid, very quick

The forks are Pace RC31, Flight saddle and Syncros post

It's been through a series of incarnations but i think i'm finally done tinkering with it..

It's got Pace Renthal bars, Pauls levers, Pauls Thumbies (with Dura-Ace shifters) Pauls Klampers and Onza grips

X-Lite L168 with Ringle Slamma

Cooks Bros Racing crank (which @beautiful_FrEaK proxied for me) Pace rings, Syncros Ti BB, Suntour XC Pros, XTR M952 front and rear, CK hubs and Ultradynamicos

Edited September 7 by Double 0 Soul

[rbeck]

@Double 0 Soul jesus that thing is perfect. Thanks for sharing!

[beautiful_FrEaK]

@Double 0 Soul what a stunner! (the bike obviously)

[Geeman]

@Double 0 Soul glad to see you back. Hope all is well with the family. 

This place has been missing that northern influence 

[Double 0 Soul]

Get comfy.. i've got a long overdue photo-dump

We moved into our house 5yrs ago and the bathroom was already fked!

I've been bodging the electrics to keep shit working

Being an 1880era terrace house, there was never a bathroom, toilet would have been at the end of the garden (now a bike shed) and washing facilities would have been a tin bath in front of the coal fire.. so our bathroom would have been a back bedroom..

It looked like this.. .. there was a false wall to house the electric shower but designed by fkin idiots so one would open the door onto the sink which you would shimmy around before you could close it *face palm*

I chalked out my plans full scale on the floor at work

..and started building the cabinets

..bought a lovely hand made concrete basin

..and some wood from https://www.albiontimber.co.uk/

We're not posh enough to have en-suite so much to the families disgust.. i bought a camping toilet from Amazon and put it in the outside loo

..I started building the cabinets in

..took a break for Pakistani mango season

...droooool!

..i didn't do any of the plumbing or tiling, i just planned it all out to the nth degree and bought all the stuff (well you know what i'm like, i spent months doing this )..  turned out the tiler was some kind of tiling god!

Now it looks like this..

..had the shower tray imported from Ireland

I wanted the windowsil to drain the water back to the shower tray so rather than taper the fluted pink tiles i made a wooden plinth and cast a silicone mould

..then made a concrete windowsil instead

..turned out pretty well

I bought this mid-century Italian medicine cabinet from https://vintarama.com/en-gb   in Germany

These are the plinths i made from the Ash i bought from Albion

..bits and bobs from Ferm Living

..and Zone Denmark

..i've built a hidden cupboard into the cabinets

..push the door and it clicks open

Stacey Solomen can fk off with her scatter cushions.. i've missed my vocation in life as a bathroom designer!

[Double 0 Soul]

..after all that^ hard work, i needed a break so we headed to Castellammare del Golfo in northern Sicily.. considered the jewel of the north-west, a bit like Barrow-in-Furness.

I nearly missed the plane because security didn't like the look of my fishing tackle.. a small pouch filled with lead shot and scissors..

I picked up a Fiat Panda Hybrid in the airport..the driving in Sicily is just insanity, much like Mario Kart, the only way to get around is to drive like an Italian, never stop, never give an inch, push in at every opportunity, shouting shit and gesticulating wildly while throwing banana skins and tortoise shells at other road users.. they know you're a tourist if you're indicating so i stopped using my indicators on day 2 and pushed in at every opportunity they soon accepted me as one of their own

Luckily, when they're not behind the wheel of a car, the people are lovely, we rented a house on a dirt track in the middle of nowhere, my sat-nav freaked out and couldn't locate the house, outside the capital, nobody speaks a word of English and my italian is considered 'offensive' at best but after 30 mins of driving around the dirt tracks i had to go to someone's house to ask directions.. i had a phone number but the guy who owned our house didn't speak english so i couldn't call him and explain where we were because i had no fkin clue where we were?!..

 

..The guy who came to the door lived in Milan (originally from Sicily and spoke a little english) and was staying at his holiday home with his family, wearing nothing more than Speedos and flip-flops, he called the house owner who came to our rescue on his dirt bike.

Our house, nestled between the sea and the mountains.. with my hire-car... it's been 37ºC and 30ºC at night

 

 

 

 

..down the dirt track

 

..to the sea

 

 

 

..this is where we spent our days snorkeling with the beach babes

 

 

The food / restaurant culture is incredible, albeit.. very expensive.. there are no fast food outlets or burger chains.. even the supermarket was deli quality food but priced accordingly. Over here.. if you don't want to pay Waitrose prices, you go to Tesco but over there, you didn't have that option, we ate at some shitholes just to save money towards some of the most fasntastic restaurants i've ever eaten at, one place was serving €290 steaks, we had burgers .. but the most incredible burgers i've ever eaten, dripping with fatty parma-ham, we ate in a forest overlooking the sea and a walled courtyard in Scopello  (Ssee last photo) The restaurants open 8.30 till 2am.. most folks come out to eat at 10.30, crowds of peeps queue for tables.. i'm not proud to say that we spent £1150 just on evening meals in one week

Messina was the local brew.. it's far, far, far superior on draught

..kid caught a baby gekko

Cactus fruit was growing by the side of the road

The first night we drove into the local town for pizza, (8mins away) it looks beautiful

...but look how densely populated this place is.. it reminded me of the favellas in Brazil but these buildings are mostly ancient, pre-car so the streets were narrow with no footpaths, always one way and heading in the opposite direction to where i wanted to go.. restaurants would just drag tables and chairs out onto the street and put a metal barrier across the top of the street blocking your way

..trying to negotiate this madness was a pain (getting parked was a fkin nightmare) but 1000s of peeps were out in the streets, from babies to grandparents enjoying each others company instead of sitting in the house typing shit into the internet.. i mean, contributing to forums

This was the local town during siesta..

..my teenager on the rare occasion he wasn't eating gellato

..it seems even Sicilians have love for Yorkshires finest square tubed mountain bikes

..this was Scopello, just around the coast

..on the morning we left, the wind woke me up at 7.30am, blowing a sun shield outside the house.. i had to get up and take it down, odd? .. it started to rain .. hot rain, this wasn't forcast? wtf.. by the time i got to the airport, it was beautiful blue skies again, then i heard the news about the billionaires in the sunken yaught when we got back to the UK.. we were staying just to the left of Palermo, the yacht sank just to the right of Palermo.. half an hour around the coastal road

..anyway, nice to see you all again!

Edited September 7 by Double 0 Soul

[smoothsailor]

Stacey Solomen can fk off with her scatter cushions.. i've missed my vocation in life as a bathroom designer!
 

or vlogger, blogger, influencer 

good to see back here

Edited September 7 by smoothsailor

[Alec Leamas]

That bathroom is absolutely incredible, great work!!

[Alec Leamas]

@Double 0 Soul I'm now looking at the bathroom photos on a bigger screen, rather than squinting on my phone - the craftsmanship throughout is unbelievable! 

A question on the cabinets you built - the ply you've used looks mega hefty, I can't quite tell if it's two layers or one mega thick layer - did you have to use some sort of marine grade ply or rather just rely on everything being properly watertight that's fixed on top?

Judging by the quality of the tiling work I'm imagining you're very unlikely to ever have issues!

The grooved vertically stacked mini subway brick tiles are amazing too!

[Double 0 Soul]

52 minutes ago, Alec Leamas said:

@Double 0 Soul I'm now looking at the bathroom photos on a bigger screen, rather than squinting on my phone - the craftsmanship throughout is unbelievable! 

A question on the cabinets you built - the ply you've used looks mega hefty, I can't quite tell if it's two layers or one mega thick layer - did you have to use some sort of marine grade ply or rather just rely on everything being properly watertight that's fixed on top?

Judging by the quality of the tiling work I'm imagining you're very unlikely to ever have issues!

The grooved vertically stacked mini subway brick tiles are amazing too!

Thanks

I always go overboard with the deets.. I over-engineer everything

The cabinet under the sink was a redwood frame lined with 18mm marine ply which was coated in some kind of primer by the tiler to stop the ply absorbing the moisture from the grout and weakening the bond.. it went on red but dried clear.. i've since lined it out with WCB grade Scandi ply (which is what i used for the door because it's perfectly flat) and painted it with Zinsser mould resistant paint.. the push/release latch was from LAMP .. the ply + grout + tile had to work between 23mm and 32mm for the hinges to clear the reveal.

The cabinet behind the toilet is double 18mm marine ply.. it was bent .. so i laminated 2x pieces together

..like this^ 2x equally bent pieces oppositely laminated together will counteract the tension in each and give you one flat piece..

The cabinet for the shower is the only part which comes into contact with water so it was fully tanked before it was tiled over

Oh.. the steps i put into the cabinet behind the toilet are to account for the thickness of the tile + the grout.. i didn't want the wooden plinth under the sink to be stepped when it was tiled over so i stepped the cabinet to allow for the tiles.. if that makes sense

Edited September 7 by Double 0 Soul

[reallypeacedoff]

Drying after their 13th wash. 8.5 months in.

[Double 0 Soul]

Nothing exciting for me, got up early.. Cat was still fast asleep

Yawned

.. rolled over

Made myself a chorizo omelette and made some pancake mix for the attic full of sleepy teenagers.. who were still up at 4am

Remember those flip down seats i put in last year?

When you look behind them.. it's become a nursery for all the li'll snails.. cute!!

Shhh.. don't wake them up, they're only babies

Rode up to my old childhood playground

..everytime i come here it gets more extreme.. When i was a kid, I bust my front tooth on this track when i took a slam on my Kuwahara so i had to have it capped till i stopped growing and had it crowned when i got to 16.. when i was 20 i bust my ankle here.. but after writhing around in agony for a while, i kept riding till the sun went down.. chucked my bike in the back of my £550 Mk2 Fiesta and drove home (with a broken ankle).. the next day it was massive and heavily bruised so i went to get it x-ray'd then plastered.. it was my right foot so i couldn't press the accelerator in the car but rather than use public transport, i used one of the crutches they gave me to press the accelerator along with left foot breaking.. within a week, i had it down.. i was a much less responsible adult in those days

..saying that, i'd only been there for 5mins when i came off on the berm.. grazed my arm, my hip and my saddle.. thankfully, it was 9am so nobody was there to see it

..rode back home and made the sleepy teens so good old northern pancakes.. none of that American nonsense!

..walked down to Sharrowvale to pick my racket up from the shop

..the cat which lives in the pet shop

..spotted this lovely old E-Type out in the rain

Ive gone for Luxilon Alu Power 125 Rough, strung at 52lbs if anyone is interested... No? ok, i'll move on..

..a spot of crate diggin

.. a little blast around the plantation this afternoon

..followed by a pint of Moonshine at the Norfolk arms.. featuring threadbare arm of JMC

..