Leaderboard

A couple of photos at Peak Forest together with a trio from the Cromford and High Peak - but they show "preserved" items at Middleton Top as they were in 1990. Peak Forest 37687 l e 24th Aug 90 C15282 Peak Forest 37687 banker 24th Aug 90 C15295 Middleton Top C&HP engine house Sunday 8th April 90 C14251.jpg Middleton Top C&HP inside engine house Sunday 8th April 90 C14247.jpg Middleton Top C&HP Sunday 8th April 90 C14244.jpg David

Good morning one and all I find myself acting as a beast of burden. On the back seat of my car is something that a fellow RMwebber bought off eBay which he will collect from me at Doncaster tomorrrow. It was surprisingly simple to arrange but I doubt that I'll make a habit of it. The only real downside of the operation was trying to fight my way through the rush-hour traffic of Bedford which at the time I was trying to do it was not rushing anywhere. Never mind, difficult bit done. It was more satisfying than losing a packet of carrot batons that I had only just bought. I had to resort to the utter heresy of putting frozen carrots into an otherwise sumptuous beef casserole. Then, of course. I found the carrot batons. Isn't it always the way? Last night I was at the theatre for the first performance of the LGBT history month season. I'm not at all sure why a work about Aspergers was deemed to be part of that season but I'm sure someone will know. Tonight there is a performance with a different theme which appears to be more relevant. We shall see. At lunchtime the Mayor of Bedford is to reopen a pub, cherished by many members of the LGBT community, that is under new management. That will be where I find out whether The Tie qualifies for the 'smart casual' specified in the dress code. To be honest, I don't give a donald duck whether it does or not. My attitude to fashion is a simple one. I set trends or ignore them. Tomorrow I must be up betimes to do battle with the A1 on my way to Doncaster. Finding a half decent full breakfast will be a challenge. Wish me luck. Best wishes to all Chris

Early golf again. I must be mad. Here is Mons Meg on local duty with the 3.58 Grantham. Looks jolly cold out there too, and still dark.

Kerry - Rainbow Bridge https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/02/07/kerry-2002-3-2020/

Progress update on Snowflake. I have been waiting for the navigation lights to arrive and they did a couple of days ago resulting on them being fitted and now the Puffer can go to sea.... A few quick snaps. Standing on the deck next to bridge whilst chatting to the skipper Not my best picture but it does give some idea of the rigging and the steaming light pulley system. Now some ordinary pictures not using post focus but taken about 1m away to get the depth of view and then heavily cropped

I worked in a lab in an engineering firm in Cardiff ( Edward Currans) then part of the Reed group,who,also owned Twyfords. The factories main job was making enamel and acrylic baths and having to match the colours of the toilets and sinks made up in Alsager. Primrose, sandalwood, damask, mink, alpine blue, cameo pink, avacado, pampas etc etc etc. Visions of Abigail's party. Didnt we all love pink, yellow, blue, green and dark brown bathroom suites and tiles. Ours was wall to wall avacado with matching tiles etc, looked like a porn movie set. It was soon replaced with white etc, and like milk churns, many an old coloured bath can be spotted in farmers fields, now sensibly repurposed as drinking troughs.

He is multi-talented. But the drinking can be an issue.

' morning all from red dragon land. Make the most of it - it is sunny! Well, I would if I could - I am nursing a cold or whatever. Weird, this one, as symptoms come-&-go. One minute here, next minute gone. My favoured painkillers seem to calm it all down - until the next dose, anyway. Yesterday, taking my mind off it, I had an enjoyable day assembling an online photo book of my last birthday with (most of) the family. It brought back some lovely memories. Several copies ordered with a (Valentine's Day) 50% discount. I just hope it turns out alright as the design section had a border all round, the review-and-buy section did not! As I need to get one to my sister as near to her birthday as possible, I left it as is - fingers crossed! It features scenes of family members with both, serious and wildly excited, little granddaughters tackling grown up activities, sharing their new found abilities, playing, and getting what they want (in particular, an ice-cream cone)... Thus, with added text, the photo book reads: "How to celebrate Nana's Birthday" Lay the table : Cut the cake : Count [GDD reading to Grandad]: Get the balloons down : Have a laugh : Throw balloons : Walk through... : the Park : Have lunch in the... : Coffee Shop : Share joke. He! He! : Take Selfie! Smile! [Nana with eldest GDD] : Walk back [eldest GDD out of the pushchair] : Hey! Wait for me! : Get out of the cold [into ice-cream shop!] : Open wide : Make a mess : Eye's off! Get your own! : Cuddle Paddington Bear : Say Cheese! : Say Cheers! : Carry umbrella [adult assisted] : and go undercover [under another adult assisted, golf-size, umbrella] : ...back to the car! The End Just got to wait a week...or so... Hope your day consists of good things. Time for another dose... _____________ Best wishes Polly

Well and truly lurgyfied this morning and feeling like the stuff you find in the bottom of a parrot's cage. Jill is the same, hence we are both still in bed with mugs of coffee and tea respectively and surrounded by jars, bottles and packets of various anti lurgy compounds. Later on a man is coming to fit a loft ladder, which will not only mean that we'll have to get up but will have to deal with the inevitable mess left behind. Deep joy. Bright spots for the day? Well, it's not raining and providing I can generate the enthusiasm to cook and eat them we've got some genuine Fraggle Rock kippers for brunch. Apart from that I can't see much carpeing of diems chez nous. Ta ta for now. Dave

MOrning, bike club day. Dry! When I said the bog was white, I did mean the suite not the walls! One wall and the shower is white with metallic blue fleck 'shower boards', the rest light blue with a sea-sidey theme. Large walk in shower, no bath. Never used one when we had it!

When it came time to sell our house in Mesa, Arizona the market was a bit soft. Our real estate agent recommended we repaint the interior in a neutral off-white. We engaged a painter who repainted all of the interior in a single day using a high-pressure paint sprayer. The only snag was everything had to be moved out of the house into the back yard. The painter stood in the middle of each room and painted the walls and ceiling without moving from that spot. Took him about ten minutes for each room. It worked. The interior looked like a brand new home and we sold it within a week!

About house paint colours - we bought a house in which, standing at a certain point in the hall, you could see purple, black, pink, bottle green, light green and cream paint and 'Chinese restaurant' (i.e. red flocked) wallpaper. It looked a lot more restful when we sold it.

Good morning all, Another frosty start here, it's currently 2°C and there is a glimmer of something bright in the East. Bathrooms: Since we've been married we've had white, next house white changed to pink and then this house Eau de Nil (with matching tiles - Yuk! ) which was changed to Whisper Grey. Still got that but later this year all will be changed to white. Bathroom suites etc are a sore point with me as I used to work for a builders merchant and at one branch we sold the bl##dy things. Absolute pain in the butt to deal with. We had a display showroom with about a dozen different suites. Saturdays were the worst day when whole families would sometimes descend upon us, kids running riot and Mum & Dad arguing over what they wanted. It was not unusual to find "deposits" in the display WCs at the end of the day! And all this was in a well to do area near Esher. Today I'm hoping to do something constructive in The Shed as just for once we don't need to visit any kind of shop. Have a good one, Bob.

When we recently built the new bathroom we bought wood effect grey floor tiles. I was quite startled to see the heads of cross head screws until it dawned on me that they are included as part of the pattern. Jamie

From 'unprecedented' fires to 'unprecedented' summer rain - this climate change malarkey sure is a rollercoaster ride!

At least I can settle down with a smile on my face after reading your recent posts - even if SWMBO is snoring like a good’un! I am also mildly happy as the two images I submitted to the photographic contest were judged somewhat better than the lowest scoring ones and I know now what would have raised one to a higher plane. In order to compete better in the next comp, I shall visit the Didcot Railway Centre a week on Wednesday for a series of steam related images whilst I shall take some of a saxophone (a case of “all the gear and no idea” I’m afraid) for the other entry. Bon soirée mes amies.

I know someone that can help, Tony...dab hand at electronics.

Hall class 5993 Kirby Hall continues east with it's milk tankers whilst 4575 class 5551 adds a SR van to the B set for the journey down the branch to Kingsbridge.

Some modelling over the last week or so. A bit of cross kitting produces a 9' wheelbase LNER unfitted van and a 10' wheelbase 6 plank LNER Highfit. The van required the horizontal strapping removing from the door, the rest is a straight swap with a bit of modification and extra detailing. The big LNER Quint D must be one of the larger wagon kits readily available, the wooden body is very distinctive. They were the progenitors of a large family of BR built bogie wagons. More cross kit swapping produced one of the final batch of Quints built for the LNER, with a steel rather than wooden body. More steel wagons, the LNER designed these Bolsters, come plate, come trestle wagons, for themselves and the LMS. A RTR model has recently become available, the cost is more than three time the amount of the venerable Parkside kit! The latter is a quick build and scrubs up rather well, with a bit of titivation from the modeller. Finally, a NER Perishable van, back to a bit of soldering after all that glue sniffing.

Good morning everyone A bright and sunny, but frosty day here in the northwest of England. WE will shortly be heading off to the Trafford Centre, not the word WE, as Sheila is coming along. Apart from her visits to the dentist on Tuesday, this will be her first day out since her eye operation 3 weeks ago. The reason she wants to come along is that she wants to test a new perfume she’s seen advertised on line. Our return journey will be a detour to take us past the butchers where I’ll pick up the weekly meat rations and hopefully a pastie for dinner. After that there is a fruit tea loaf to finish making, this was started last night and the fruit has been soaking overnight. Enjoy the day, back later.

Does one detect a covert dig in my general direction?

Mooring Awl, Inner temple Hare, 1031/644 A good nights sleep for both myself and Ben the snoring Collie.. The noise in the field turned out to be the sugar beet harvest part 2, the mountain of beet on the concrete pan is bigger than ever I've seen it before. I suspect a wet and comparatively warm fall and winter so far has contributed to this.. The Fog had not got any thicker on the way in, contrary to the words of the radio Womble who was giving out dire warnings... This is the same radio womble that yesterday she had to sit and watch classic films with her parents.. including …. Braveheart.... well apart from Braveheart is no where near being a classic, it just makes me feel old... PS Braveheart was made in 1995... My parents bath rooms have always been white, Our first bathroom, I removed the green tiles and the soggy plasterboard . to replace it with the water resistant variety and black with gold flecks tiles lower 2/3 and white above.. small oblong tiles they were.. Our current bathroom was white, but chips in paint and wall stripping have shown for many years it was green wood work and light blue beach / nautical themed wall paper. it now has hollow marble effect plastic panels, of about 3/8in thick, the only way I could get some insulation in there.. eventually the flat roof will have to be redone, and some thick insulation will then go in there as well.. The suites themselves have and always will be white. Time I took a stroll down to the lab and found something to do, As the boss has not left me any information on the sick major system..

Morning All, We have a temperature of around -2°C and quite a heavy frost today. I also have rather a lot to be getting on with, so I had better make a start! Have a good day everyone...

We think our house was repainted to the specs of the real estate people. It's all a bit browner/yellower than white (depending on the light) and in a very thin coat that can get rubbed off to show something else. We can't see repainting as it's open plan and there are no real separation points where we could stop. I'm not allowed to plaster the nail holes as the next layer of paint might not match. The morning outing was into the beginnings of freezing precip and we now have a white coating on the flat surfaces outside.

My mum was partial to jonquil. A little went a very long way. The kitchen cabinets in our house in New Jersey were a similar colour. They were made entirely of steel and I imagine they must have been pretty expensive. There was also a built-in, colour matched "Sub Zero" fridge/freezer. The kitchen must have been the height of fashion when it was installed.

Evening all. Not the best of days here having learnt of the untimely death of a friend and former colleague. Perhaps I can return to this another time as I'm a bit upset just now. John. Sorry just backtracked and read your post. Apologies for intruding with my own post.

Happy Frying Day from the Hill of Strawberries. In less than 24 hours since the owl was despatched to Fraggle Rock the package arrived by return. The required part has been fitted, tested and found to cause little wheeled objects to move to my satisfaction. There must be some pixie magic which ensures things can travel from Fraggle Rock in less time than they can from Ford, the Ford of Guild, the Borne of Cam or indeed the Field of Shef. It has been a cold day but, once the sun showed its face, a pleasant one both at the House of Fun and Upon the Hill. We had one for the diary today - not a single train cancelled, nor stop-skipped, nor (with one exception caused by a fault being rectified) more than three minutes late all shift. And Frying Day has lived up to expectations with eggzan bacon in the pan for lunch along with tomatoes. In other news I now officially have 2020 vision . I collected the new glasses yesterday and found them to be perfectly satisfactory throughout today. No more swapping between pairs or perching them on my head. The new pair are bifocals eliminating the need for the previous two pairs and adequate for the mid-range vision which needs no correction at all. I might need to break out the whipper-snipper for the facial fungus a bit later though!

Ha Ha, bottled out of the bike, when I realised the grass was frosty. The 5c felt like about zero outside, but despite that there were 5 bikes at the club. And 20 cars....

Morning all. The frost has disappeared from anywhere that isn’t shady. It is sunny here now. Although I slept well I feel really tired. Must be the effect of travelling to the Western Hemisphere and back yesterday’. Tony

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Kz the frost extends as far as Estuary-Land as well, its well frosty here too. Dave, when I had a loft ladder installed there was very little mess even though I had the loft insulation topped up at the same time. The builder has finished the flat roof of next doors extension, the owner decided to go for fibreglass in the end. When it comes to the front entrance hallway/porch which extends across the fronts of all the terrace he is going to merge it into my fibreglass roof which I had laid nearly thirty years ago and has needed zero maintainence since. Time to drink a muggatee, be back later.

Over the years we have had white, avocado, red and white bathroom suites. To sell our house in Barrow the walls were given a coat of "off grey".... nuff said. Went out for tea and watcged a bit of rugby (Highlanders v Sharks). Referees down here are the same as in Europe..no clue what is happening in the scrum! I feel another beer is required to celebrate the successful return of my driving licence..only cost ...how much????.to get here in 7 days..would have been cheaper and faster if youngest Herbert had brought it himself Now get out there and grasp the day!! Baz

Greetings all from LNG where it is sunny with a bit of high cloud. A few beers and a curry were had last night with a couple of old colleagues. Other than that, not a huge amount to report. I hope those who are ailing recover quickly. Have a good weekend

It is now quite pleasant outside. I drove into town and after a brisk short walk, I succeeded in providing Dracula’s Daughter with some sustenance. Another brisk walk back to the car and now a mug of beef tea (first calories of the day) before walking down to the bottom of the village to look at a generic L bracket for my camera that a fellow snapper enthusiast finds not suitable for his equipment / purpose. On my return, I am commanded to get eggs and cheese from the village shop because someone wants an omelette tonight. Further instructions have been issued and so I shall be going daarn the road to the madhouse to watch the formal cutting of a birthday cake later this afternoon. What could have been a restful day can no longer be described as such. Good to hear that Brian’s Sheila is making progress, must be getting better as she wants to spend money . Apologies to all Richards offended by my earlier post and, like Jamie, I shall refrain from describing The Ricardo Incident, one that occurred in an Italian dry dock, for fear of causing further offence - even if it is a very good story! Other suffering ERs have my sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Morning all from the site of the former pit. A good day out on various trains was had yesterday. A little lady was read a story before bedtime. Today it's cold and damp but we walked down to an excellent local cafe. 45 years ago when I first came to this area I would never have expected to be eating Eggs Royale prepared by a French chef in Allerton Bywater. The cafe/deli is right opposite the old pit entrance. How times have changed. It seems to be doing very well. Right now it's time to pack the car ready to set off towards Lincoln to stay with No 1 son for the weekend. It will be nice to get home. Regards to all. Jamie. PS, I'll spare gentle readers the story of a Richard down the pit.

Friday afternoon and all's well....Spent my usual Friday wiring and ballasting and at last something is starting to happen. Around 12 days ago this ugly duckling was waiting for treatment. The boards needed joining together, wiring, painting, ballasting and all the other bits and bobs to turn it into something that may look reasonable as a starting point. Not quite a swan yet, but at least it can now be put into place and await connection of bus wires etc. Managed to hook it up to a Gaugemaster DC control to check out all the frog wiring and apart from a couple of isolation gaps I'd missed, 69572 trundled through the pointwork without stopping anywhere, so that's a good start. I swear blind cameras don't like track work and seem to insert odd looking joins and kinks where there are none. At least none I could see when I was laying the bloomin’ track. Trying hard to make these pics a little more interesting, but not much you can do with all the layout building 'stuff' filling the room. Definitely not to Tony Wright standards, but hopefully a sign of things to come (train wise not photographic excellence) This is a Hornby N2 with a Comet chassis, Markits wheels and a Hi Level gearbox. It's hardly run since the conversion, so will certainly benefit from some serious circuits of ET and hopefully that won't be too far away. Ever since ET started, it was always going to be a DCC layout, but with a conventional analogue switch panel to control all the pointwork and signals (another area where expertise and assistance will be welcomed.....) I have been chatting on RMweb to JJGraphics who very kindly demonstrated his ECoS system and full DCC control to me and after just 30 minutes I could see a lot of benefits in terms of route setting etc, so I've bought an NCE Switch 8 panel to play around with to drive the Tortoise point motors. This board has six turnouts arranged in three crossovers and I'm assured it will only require 3 of the 8 switches to drive the three pairs of motors. The weekend will see me playing around to see if I can get the kit and caboodle to function correctly. It will certainly save me time in the short term with building and wiring a large control panel. Longer term, I may well still build two or even three control panels, one for ET and one for the shed using DCC Concepts Alpha Mimic components. There may even be a third panel for the storage sidings/traverser for a third operator to drive trains to and from ET Station onto the traverser. Another couple of weeks gone and no real catastrophes other than a disastrous round of golf where my lower back was playing up. Nothing serious, just a lack of fitness after sitting around for so long. Enjoy the weekend and here's hoping we all get through Storm Ciara. Batten down the hatches. It may be windy....

I have installed the 1Gb drive from a dead tv recorder into my pc as an additional backup drive for photos etc. My pc has allegedly hot swappable drive caddies. I couldn’t get the pc to recognise the drive at first but I hadn’t pushed it in firmly enough. I was always moving disks about years ago but couldn’t recall the next stage, perhaps I have never done it on a Windows 10 pc? Anyway a quick Google told me what to click and I now have a P drive (P for photo) in addition to other backups. I thought about doing this while I was trying to find out why my pc was misbehaving. While cleaning out fluff and dust I noticed the spare drive slots and thought I could do something useful. As is mandatory I have a nice slice/wound on the end of my left thumb. Fortunately I only bled into the old tv recorder not the pc. Aditi has been pruning but nothing that required my assistance to reach taller things. She isn’t very tall.

I replaced bathrooms in all our houses, used to quite like tiling walls, then I was introduced to wet wall, no more grouting, no more cleaning grouting, just wipe and its done, marvelous stuff.

Morning, dry and sunny alas its food shopping first, then however its the model shop and then Halfords. Will be back later. Enjoy your day Alan

Morning awl, Weather report from here suggests a cold and frosty front extends as far as Sutton! Sky remain Jet-A1 blue. CowboysRUs are cutting roof tiles to cover the nearest erections, wonders will never cease. Daughter’s birthday today so will have to concentrate on her for a while... In the bijou residence we now inhabit, we have four areas that contain porcelain horns, two walk-in showers and a bath - all in a delicate shade of pure white! Why two of us need so many washing facilities has nothing to do with any propensity to get dirty, it was just what the builder provided. When we moved in, some sub-contractor had left a huge Richard as a welcoming present in one of them - dirty b@st@rd! If I could of carpe’d him, he would not have had any more diems. Enjoy yours, whatever you get up to....

In that case Dave, I wish I hadn't shaken your hand at Stafford, haha.

Aditi never uses her "Dr" title with anything to do with medical institutions. She thinks it would just confuse them.

Afternoon all, The frost departed , eventually; his ladship departed at 06.30 for a weekend in St Alb. Albania. (I get confused by his movements at times); the Good Doctor departed for a swim at 08.30 after considerable defrosting of her car but it was quite ok by the time the memshaib and myself took it for a jaunt to Tesco later in the morning. Homemade leek soup has been consumed, the Good Doctor has departed for her night shift at the Nuffield (Hospital, not to be confused with the tractor of the same name although named after the same person) and where of course she isn't a doctor so that is even more confusing. However the abysmal labour policy of the NHS shines through, and probably contravenes the H&S Act - I would very much like to see the risk assessment which legitimises 13 hour days as I have a nasty feeling they contravenes the H&S Act. And that's about it - just another normal day. And in the light of the recent sunny weather we have salad for dinner tonight. Trusting the lurgified are on a path towards recovery. Have a good day one and all

As good a Friday at work as I think it's possible to have. Pleasant, if somewhat cold, trip from Tutbury to Crewe on a 156 followed by a very useful meeting at CE and return to arrive just in time t make it a bit pointless to arrive at office only to leave for home 10 mins later - so I skipped that bit i know the boss doesn't partake of RMweb, so I'm safe.

I've never heard of an "Idaho stop", but I have heard of a "Saskatchewan stop". Most of Saskatchewan is flat, flat, flat, and you can see for miles at intersections. Anything less than 30kph at a stop sign is good enough. (Not to trivialise the horrible accident a few years ago, where the driver of a truck was blinded by a low sun, drove through a stop sign and collided with a coach carrying a junior hockey team, with multiple fatalities.)

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I met my friend in Tess Coes today and we discussed pick up times for tomorrows exhibition. While he was there he was buying a cake for daughter # 2's 18th birthday, also tomorrow. He did say at the time that he would be able to fit both in but just now he phoned to say that he and his son (of the £10 layout) will not be able to attend the exhibition, I half expected it to be so when he told me of his daughters birthday. I will still be there to help out. Time for dinner, be back later.

One of our sons has a PhD in mining engineering. He was playing in a soccer game recently when a player stayed down after a clash with an opponent. Son shouted to the ref "That's a head injury, stop the game!". The ref said something dismissive, along the lines of "What do you think you are, a doctor?". Son replied "Actually, I am.". The ref stopped the game. (And it was a head injury, and the game should have been stopped.)

POETS... Work yesterday consisted mainly of creating a new report that made exporting miles of data to Excel for "manipulation" and; <RANT warning> I was informed that when I get there next week we have a major/urgent task to re-arrange the Cash Flow Statement. With apologies to any accountants/auditors present --> I HATE AUDITORS, what is the matter with these people!!!! These same folks, yes, EXACTLY THE SAME PERSONS EVEN, who had us change the Cash Flow last year, apparently have decided it needs to be different NOW/AGAIN/THIS YEAR. Good grief, no wonder health care is so @$!@$!@$!@$# expensive here, they manage to p!ss away money on the same things over and over again! <END RANT> <phew> <sigh> Yesterday evening an enjoyable happy hour and choir rehearsal. We added Arlo Guthries' "All Over The World" for an upcoming concert, prompted by an increasing need to feel we're all in this together! Jemma dropped Whitney off as she has another 3-day trip starting today, so we're +1 again Nothing exceptional planned for today, just POETS for sure... -7 and cloudy with light snow falling first thing. -3 the expected high with a coating to an inch of snow (pah, how pathetic!) predicted. Tally ho.

The Boss seems to have sorted the sick major system, only "the sick bits " have had to be remeasured, so with any luck the boss may have that sorted after I leave today.. A major system due next week was unused today, I measured all it's resistances, that may mean I can get if finished on Moonday and it can run it's cross check overnight to Tuesday Morning. A high accuracy Thermometer has arrived, I won't be able to touch that till Tuesday at the earliest, Strange thing I did it last 9 months ago, at our prices normally people use ALL the cal period.. The keel has been redesigned again, not in shape this time, but in construction, to make it simpler... MRC tonight, landrover permitting....

You might think I would know that but it's a new one on me.

Greetings from a now lurgy riddled Hunt Mansions where the only interruption of the constant coughing is the odd sneeze. SWMBO reckons that we probably caught it at 'that model railway thing we went to last Sunday' (AKA the Stafford show) rather than, say, a crowded supermarket, the bus into Shrewsbury etc. How do they reach these random conclusions? Time for a max strength Lemsip and bed methinks. Night night all. Dave