Wednesday 13 July 2022

Welcome to The BBHQ Midweek News Round-Up Farewell Little Binky, The Time Travelling Telephone Box Stalls and Stay Cool with Smooch - Top Tip to Beat The Heat

MidWeek News Round Up with The B Team ©BionicBasil®2022

 Epic Greetings Furiends

Welcome to the BBHQ midweek news round-up!

There's no Follow The Floof today, as it's been far too hot for any outdoor floof following! 

First up in the news this week

Farewell Little Binky

We were devasted to learn that Little Binky has departed for the Rainbow Realm.

Beautiful Binky - image copyright The Catblogosphere

We always called her Beautiful Binky, rest in peace special girl and know that mew will never be furgotten.

Next up in the news

The Time Travelling Telephone Box Stalls

Mew may remember on last week's news that we were prepping our K6 Telephone Kiosk, and then on Sunday's post we mentioned that it had indeed got its fresh undercoat on, and this is what it looks like currently.

The BBHQ Midweek News Round-Up ©BionicBasil® The Time Travelling Telephone Box Makeover - K6 Telephone Kiosk

The P.A. didn't tape the windows off, as dad said she'd still be there at Catmas! MOL So only the glass telephone signs in the top were taped off.

Not wanting to get any paint accidentally smeared on the glass, she found a special brush in the shed; it's a round one that tapers to a point and enables easier painting of windows, moreso than a regular square or flat brush.

Anyhoo, we were waiting on the new tin of red gloss, as the new red colour only comes in a tiny 750ml tin, which goes absolutely nowhere. So the new tin of gloss was late, and then the weather turned epically scorchio on Friday and over the weekend making it impossible to paint outside, not only due to heatstroke but also because the paint won't go on properly.

Plus the weather apparently isn't going to cool down until the middle of next week, so all outdoor painting activities will be suspended until then due to BBHQ Health and Safety protocols.

But mew may also be wondering why our kiosk is white inside. Normally they are painted red, but ours has a mood light in it which changes colour all night, the P.A. calls it a disco for one, and with a red interior mew couldn't see the colours so brightly, and that's why our kiosk is white. She did want to hang a mirrored disco ball in there too, but she thought it might be a bit too much! MOL

Finally this week

Stay Cool with Smooch - Top Tip to Beat The Heat

As it's been scorchio at BBHQ, outside time has been heavily restricted and during the day we keep all the blinds closed and widows closed on the hottest side of the barn.

The BBHQ Midweek News Round-Up ©BionicBasil® Stay Cool with Smooch

We do have fans running to keep the air circulating, especially upstairs. Luckily downstairs remains relatively cool no matter how hot it gets outside, although we do close the catservatory off from the main house as that gets like a sauna. 

Plus we have a couple of humidifiers running to keep the air more comfortable.

Smooch loves Fudge's Frozen Tuna Hack

**ALWAYS USE LOW SODIUM TUNA**


BBHQ Q&A Banner ©BionicBasil®
If mew have any questions or suggestions for us, about anything, ask or suggest away and we'll answer on next week's post.

Plus we'll also answer any questions left in the comments over the last few days in this section too.

Eastside Cats said last week: I've always thought the phone boxes were made of metal!

Yes, they are made of metal, but the K6 has a teak door with a cast iron insert for the windows. Ours still has the original door, even though is a little raggy at the bottom, but it'll be all ok with a bit of filler! MOL

Here are some other fun K6 Kiosk facts: 

They are 8ft 3" or 2.4m tall. 
They are 3ft or 0.92cm wide.
They weigh three-quarters of a ton or 762 KG, so mew wouldn't want one on your big toe! MOL

This website has some really interesting history and technical data about the K6 and it explains about the different crowns that were used. The BBHQ kiosk has the 1936-style Tudor crown.

 15andMeowing suggested last week that the telephone box should be painted blue like the Tardis.

Here's the story; the P.A. wanted a proper Police Box aka Tardis for years to put in the garden at BBHQ, but sadly they were almost impossible to get. The original Tardis police boxes were only built between 1928 and 1937 and many remained in situ around the U.K. some until as late as the 1990s.

The P.A. remembers seeing a couple of them in Nottingham's Market Square when she was growing up and then one day they just vanished.

There's also a map of existing police boxes, a few originals and a few replicas dotted around the U.K. which can be visited today.

Anyhoo, she couldn't get a real Tardis, so she got a telephone box instead, and yes she has thought of painting it blue on occasion, but then she'd had to paint all the red doors and the vintage wine pump blue to match, and she really likes the red! MOL

But the strange thing is, our kiosk has been blue at some point during its life, it's also been green, and also white. How do we know this? During the sanding and removal of the old flaky paint, mew could see clear evidence of the different colours it has been, well it is over 80 years old, so we're not surprised that it's been different colours. 

One thing we'd love to know is where it stood originally in the U.K.?  But sadly, there's no way of ever finding that out.

That's us done for today, we will be back tomorrow with a special Top Tips post and again on Friday with a sponsored post sharing some epic custom goodies, and if mew missed Monday's post click here to catch up on the very last Brain Training post of the current season, and get all the latest puzzles and a fun word search.

Epic purrs

Wing Commander Basil & The B Team 













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