What are your jeans doing today?

[smoothsailor]

Made a stem. Always liked and was amazed when I saw a custom made stem from steel. Now I made one, still on the learning curve.

 

[smoothsailor]

On a different note I painted some designs for John Papa Nui.

Its for John to show them but can’t resist to show a teaser

 

[Double 0 Soul]

1 hour ago, smoothsailor said:

Made a stem. Always liked and was amazed when I saw a custom made stem from steel. Now I made one, still on the learning curve.

 

The quality of the finish^ on your fillet brazing has improved massively since the early frames.

[smoothsailor]

Thank you Neal, since I kind of know what I’m actually doing made it controllable 

[Double 0 Soul]

I had a couple of hours daylight left after work so i walked down to the river and yoinked out this magnificent trout..

Pretty good for the Don

[n0torious]

That's a good looking fish. Hope it makes a great meal.

[Double 0 Soul]

It was! .. I'm usually a catch and release kinda guy, i don't mind catching and eating sea fish but where i caught it.. the river runs through an area of historic industry so the river beds will be rich in heavy metals.

[Dr_Heech]

16 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

 

...so the river beds will be rich in heavy metals.

Surprised Maynard hasn't made anything out of this yet 😉

Nice catch Neal. Reminds me of when l was a kid (11 or so) when my dad brought a poachers rod back from the States - basically a 1970's extendable rod, something you couldn't get here at the time - and we used to hang above the bridge in the nearby village just hooking brown trout mostly with ease before the old gamekeeper attempted to stop us. After a quick getaway we would get home and mum would roll her eyes at us before cooking them up. Yum.

Edited January 26 by Dr_Heech
To edit obvs

[Double 0 Soul]

Thanks Charlie, That's similar to what i use.. a compact 2x piece 5.5', carp stalker rod, the bottom section extends out of the handle.. i bought it for the boy (as an easy to handle rod) when he was around 5 or 6yrs old but this is the rod i use 90% of the time.. it's perfect for river banks with lots of tree cover, you can fish areas inaccessible with a longer rod.

The offspring hasn't been fishing for 5 or so years now.. he caught some fantastic fish but it was as though.. "i've done that now.. what's next" ..like he'd completed a playstation game

There is a bridge in Bakewell over the river Wye, just behind the Bakewell Pudding Shop, folks will buy a pudding and they'll give you a couple of slices of stale bread for feeding the ducks.. massive trout congregate under the bridge, folks stand on the bridge and ball up a piece of bread in their hands and chuck it in the river for the trout.. it's like a feeding frenzy.. i could catch some absolute specimens there but the locals would be outraged!!

When i caught that^ trout, i was fishing for pike using this roach shad

..i knew it wasn't a pike as soon as i'd hooked it but i had no clue what else it could be.. i didn't think there was anything large enough in there to take that bait.. i was amazed when i landed that trout

[reallypeacedoff]

20 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

...heavy metals.

Slayer or Black Sabbath?

[Double 0 Soul]

Made an omlette with some Gruyere

..made a flask of coffee

..set off through Whiteley Woods, it's very icey!

..looking over the city near the Peak District border, we live around here

..took a right at Ringinglow, looking at Stanage Edge

..rode the Burbage loop first

..stopped for a coffee

..featuring a new pack to replace my 30yr old Lowe Alpine fell running pack (i don't think i'll be doing anymore fell running anytime soon ) along with a water bottle which @CSL kindly proxied from the SimWorks sale

The Velo Canteen comes with a different cap which incorperates a straw system for drinking? but i figured, if im civalised enough to drink decent coffee, im civalised enough to not do it through a straw so i brought along a Snow Peak double walled Ti cup.

..into the stanage loop

..hampers hang

..some boldering pr0n for @julian-wolf

dude on the left is wearing rock shoes, bouldering pants, sheepskin trapper hat and  3/4 length sheepskin jacket.. ..warm and dry without down or gore

..up to Stanage Pole

..down to the reservoirs at Redmires

..around the reservoirs.. through Wyming Brook to Lodge Moor.. looking back

..through the Mayfield Valley where my legs turned to jelly so i ate a full box of blury Jaffa Cakes while i cleaned my bike

..the end

[jkbrwn]

I rarely miss England, but that post certainly did it for me. Very nice bike too.

[indigoeagle]

Great

Especially lovely the mostly blue sky.

[Double 0 Soul]

They forcast a couple of good days.. yesterday was dry, warmer than late but a bit grey.. today was very cold but lovely blue skies.. i think i made the right choice to go today.

[indigoeagle]

Good choice to use that opportunity.
We've had mostly overcast skies, all grey, for the last three months.
Sometimes (like once a week) you get a bit of blue sky in the morning, but by noon it's somehow grey again.

[Double 0 Soul]

Just been out to Olive on Eccesall Rd South for some fat t-bones (Sarah had Casarecce Arabiata)

Starters of calamari and mussels were awesome too! .. it's def worth a visit.

[Maynard Friedman]

Looks tasty. Is it your birthday Neal?

[Double 0 Soul]

It's been and gone Martin but i am off work for a few days.. remember when we had that storm after Christmas? it completely destroyed my mums fence.. the concrete fence post disintegrated, she said it sounded like an explosion.. it set all the car alarms off in the street .. but she was going on holiday with her mates on the 27th for New Year and her back garden was exposed so she was a bit panicky.

The days after Christmas when i should have been off work with my feet up, i was digging fence posts out of frozen ground so i could build a new fence.. they'd been set in concrete 70cm deep so i had to chip them out with a cold chisel in -10 tempratures.. then when i got home, i noticed the storm had blown the bargeboards off our gable end, they were in nextdoors apple tree so Christmas week for me was just work.. so i've took some time off now the rain has stopped..

[Double 0 Soul]

On the way out tonight.. my neighbour was just coming home from yoga and said "you look smart".. i was wearing Brown's Beach Full Count over MF covert cloth mechanic shirt, SC47s and Lofgren pumps.. "i like the jacket (she said).. sort of halfway between a jacket and a cardigan.. it's a bit Val Doonicany"

Wtf!.. We go to all this expense and effort to project Val Doonican

[Maynard Friedman]

Val Doonican, eh? That would explain your late mid-life style crisis that’s been playing out on here over the last few days! 😆

[Dr_Heech]

^ 🤣 Yeah Neal, get in that rocking chair and start singing "tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree..."

[Double 0 Soul]

9 hours ago, Maynard Friedman said:

Val Doonican, eh? That would explain your late mid-life style crisis that’s been playing out on here over the last few days! 😆

Now.. Martin, you know me well enough to know that not everything I say in the nonsense thread is entirely legit.. if you look back at a lot of the discourse which plays out.. it usually starts with a gif of me poking a hornets nest 

I am feeling bored shitless with repros tho.. 

[CSL]

Double 0,

Wasn't it you who said the beige colored Brown's Beach stuff was reminiscent of Terry Wogan? You may be experiencing some mild karma😉.

[Double 0 Soul]

Yes! definitely me.. floral dance-esque

[Geeman]

Me and my eldest went to a noodle master class this week, learnt to make Dandanmain and Tonkatsu Ramen.

Started off prepping the broth and a black garlic oil. Then onto braising the pork belly.

Onto making the noodles from scratch. The chef leading us demo'd a mix at 50% hydration and said 40% were harder to make but resulted in much better noodles.... both of us are OCD/detail fixated so challenge accepted. (Featuring Bronson, Resolute & Birks on me)

 

 

While the Tonkatsu broth was finishing off (smell was amazing)  we made the Dandanmain (spicy beef Chinese noodles) and shared amongst the class. 

No photos of it finished because we wolfed it down with a couple Asahi.

Pork was ready to go.

 

And the finished product with seasoned egg, drizzled with the aforementioned garlic oil

Edited Saturday at 03:01 PM by Geeman

[chicote]

That ramen looks amazing @Geeman, and so cool to walk through and give equal attention to each of the many laborious parts of ramen making as part of the class. Reading your descriptions reminded me of the movie Tampopo, I imagine you’ve seen it perhaps?? If not it would be a perfect follow up!

[chicote]

I’ve been nerding out about sign painting this week, after finishing a big series of signs for a farm on the Oaxaca coast I’ve been working at since January. Here are a few of those:

Afterwards I rode up to Oaxaca on my way to Mexico City, stopping at a postal museum on the way that happened to have a small sign painting exhibition:

 

And last night got to go to the opening of an amazing show featuring dozens of sign painters from around Mexico, including some who work in near-forgotten styles, such as the man who painted the signs on the right side of this pic:

I love the top right one, it says: “Life is a popsicle; it’s melting whether you suck it or not”! The artist of these signs was in attendance but had a mob of people around him asking for pictures, lol … surely enjoying the resurgence in interest in sign painting, i hope!

A close up of some lettering done on a small mirror, maybe 50cm across.

i actually didn’t get any other photos besides these, but will add some more on a different day as the show will be up all month. Anyway, thanks for looking!