Early birthday pressie.

Well done Shirl. A very brave thing to do when its not in your nature.
There were a couple of riggers in the office this week telling their tales of climbing 1000+ feet masts. They get a buzz from climbing on the outside of tall structures.Their views were that as long as you're always clipped on to something it's all perfectly safe. I'm tempted to take their word for it.
 
MaryMac said:
Oh wow, well done, Shirl. There is no way on earth that I would have done that. I don't do heights, as my dad found out when I worked for him plum picking one summer. I got to the top of the ladder and then couldn't let go of it to pick the plums.
Have a great birthday, Tony.
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It's not till we get home Mary,but thank you all the same. :)

Tony.
 
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Redline said:
Well done Shirl. A very brave thing to do when its not in your nature.
There were a couple of riggers in the office this week telling their tales of climbing 1000+ feet masts. They get a buzz from climbing on the outside of tall structures.Their views were that as long as you're always clipped on to something it's all perfectly safe. I'm tempted to take their word for it.
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As would I at that height Ian.

Tony.
 
MaryMac said:
Oh wow, well done, Shirl. There is no way on earth that I would have done that. I don't do heights, as my dad found out when I worked for him plum picking one summer. I got to the top of the ladder and then couldn't let go of it to pick the plums.
Have a great birthday, Tony.
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As you have seen in the picture I've posted, I don't like heights. But something funny happened to me about 30 years ago. A house that I had bought and was living in needed a new roof. To give you an idea of the height of the roof, you had to go up about 5 steps to get into the first floor. This means that if you were standing outside the house, your relative position inside the house would have been half way between the basement floor and the ceiling. This means that the lowest part of the roof was about one and one half floors off the sidewalk. I didn't have the money to have the roof replaced so I had to do it myself. Since I had helped other people do this in the past, I had the knowledge of how to do it. The roof was asphalt singles with tar paper underneath. I had to strip off the old roof and apply the new one. It didn't have a high pitch to it so it wasn't difficult to walk or work on. When I first placed the ladder against the edge of the roof and climbed on to it from the ladder, I was positive I would fall and was shaking like a leaf. I found it extremely difficult working near the edge because I didn't like to look over it and see the ground below. It must have been funny to observe me removing the shingles around the edge of the roof as I would sit as far away from them as I possible and still be able to reach the shingles on the edge to remove them. As the days wore on, I was finally able to remove the old roof completely and started to carry the 100 foot rolls of tar paper up the ladder to the roof and after that was applied, carry up the bundles of shingles from the ground to the roof. Needless to say, I was up and down the ladder hundreds of times climbing on and off the roof. By the time I started to lay the first course of shingles at the edge of the roof, I could sit right on the edge with my legs dangling over. I had gotten used to working at that height and no longer even gave it a thought.
Something else happened while I was installing the roof. At that time, I owned a grey cat whose name was Rosie. She was like a dog in the respect that she followed me everywhere. She would cry out to me when I was up on the roof as she looked up at me from the ground becaise she wasn't able to be with me. One day, while I was nailing down the new shingles, I reached behind me to grab a handful of nails out of a bag but instead was surprised to grab a handful of fur. She had finally had enough of being alone on the ground and had climbed the ladder to be with me on the roof. One day, as I was getting to the end of the job, I had cut the 3 tab shingle into separate tabs which are used to cap the peak. These tabs are about one foot square. The cat had come up to keep me company as usual and was sitting on one of these tabs. She had begun to lick her fur as cats often do, but the movement of this action caused the tab to start to slide down the pitch of the roof. She dug her claws into the tab as to get a good grip as if it would stop her, but she was only gripping the tab which was itself sliding down the roof. She began to scream and down she went, gripping the tab all the way down and off the edge of the roof. There was a high hedge on that side of the house and I know she only fell 5 or 6 feet into heavy bushes. She survived the fall with no problems and no after effects. Still to this day, I can't hold back from laughing at the thought of her sliding down the roof and over the edge screaming all the way. Frankie
 
As you've seen Frankie, our house back home has a steep pitched roof and we had just finished felting and lathing the roof ready for tiling the next day. When John and. Turned around to go down our Labrador was sitting behind us on the roof. He had jumped through the kitchen window aperture onto the first level scaffold and up the ladder to the roof. He was like an Octopus trying to get him back down. Daft dog, but I sure do miss him.

Tony.
 
t-tony said:
As you've seen Frankie, our house back home has a steep pitched roof and we had just finished felting and lathing the roof ready for tiling the next day. When John and. Turned around to go down our Labrador was sitting behind us on the roof. He had jumped through the kitchen window aperture onto the first level scaffold and up the ladder to the roof. He was like an Octopus trying to get him back down. Daft dog, but I sure do miss him.

Tony.
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Reminds me of the first time my dog went down to the basement. Easy to get down but no backs behind the treads going up so you can look straight through. Really scares them.
I can't believe what must have gone through your mind suddenly seeing the dog on the roof. Wow!!! I think I would have had to tie a rope harness around him and lower him over the side................Frankie
 
t-tony said:
i was given an early birthday present yesterday, I've wanted to go up in the tethered balloon at Disney Springs but Shirl didn't want to as she's scared of heights and I didn't want to go on my own. Anyway, bless her, she took a deep breath and said she would, so money changed hands, wavers were signed !!!! and off we went.
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Once we were up to the highest point we were allowed to walk around the platform and take pictures. Shirl managed a smile while holding on with only one hand.

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Tony.
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I only wish I would have been there to take some video. Shirl, it's one birthday gift you won't soon forget. Happy Birthday and many more to come..PS I hope he took you out to dinner...Frankie
 
No chance Mark, even I have my limits!=))

Tony.
 
My big early birthday present was yesterday's tickets for the Garth Brooks concert in downtown Orlando, this is a mad, mad place on a Saturday evening. Our friends had booked a "preferred" parking slot and picked us up st 5.30 as the tickets said showtime was 7.00. Orlando was grid locked, absolutely manic and we couldn't get close to the parking garage that was booked and we ended up just dodging into an "event parking" garage ($10 !!!) and walked down to the Amway centre. We were eventually in our allotted seats by about 7.50ish and heard a rumour that the show wouldn't get under way till 9.15. Any ways Garth hit the stage at 8.35 and blew us all away with a show of 2hrs and 40mins. featuring all his old classics and just a few new tracks.
Getting out of town was much easier and we were back at ours by midnight, we chatted more about the evening over some birthday cake left over from Wednesday nights birthday party. Eventually we went to bed around 1.00 and were up early to get off to Disney Springs to check out the new shops there.
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This was shared between 6 birthdays.
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Some more pictures from the show, you can see what a great venue it is in the last picture.
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Garth in full flow, it was a great show, will be interesting to see who's on there next time we come over.


Tony.
 
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Sod off!!=))

Tony.
 
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