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Ladies and Gentlemen some news to pass on. This picture may be the last picture of the 'little red tractor' known to man before its demise. It was caught, by chance, sleeping peaceful in its garage before the arrival of the Fordson 'orange peril'....

It was regards office accommodation and social distancing. One covidiot who is not going to accept the vaccines out of choice, was complaining (incorrectly) that the company's guidelines for working in that office meant that in the course of his job he would have to work in close proximity to others. My response was that he should wear a mask and use other protective measures, again as required by company procedures. His (smart arse) response was that a mask won't protect him, only others; my response - "As you have chosen not to be vaccinated you should take steps to protect others when working in close proximity - in that way you will comply with company guidelines and do your bit for humanity to protect others despite refusing vaccination" Another colleague chimed in at that point and my response was in no uncertain terms JFDI - end of and if I catch you not doing you will be reported. Perhaps not exactly the bloodbath you might've anticipated, but certainly an indication of my vulnerability to losing it due to being under the weather

Here’s one I nearly built. I did a lot of work on the main body castings, removing all the boiler bands, thinning all the edges and generally making everything smooth. In the end I gave it to Mike Edge to build as I ran out of time. I can’t remember which grey I used but I followed a photograph where the black bits were clearly visible. The letters and numbers are standard Methfix over painted. Ian R

Morning All, Just a quick visit to say Hello. I hope you are all fairing well. There isn't a lot to report - just plodding along! Have a good day everyone...

O Gauge GWR Loco Coal Wagon just about finished last night. Needs the wheel rims cleaning off to complete. Built from a Slaters kit. Cheers, Ade.

I've been invited to give a 'Zoom' talk to a group of about 50 participants regarding Little Bytham. It's on behalf of the Great Central Railway to generate funds. Now, before anyone thinks that I've become computer savvy, I must state that I have less idea about Zoom than I do about DCC (don't you meed a camera on the computer?). What will happen is that the organiser will come here, we'll stand either side of the layout, have his computer in action, with my blathering on about the trainset. There'll be a few action shots and the participants will be invited to ask questions (which, no doubt, I'll evade, lie, dodge and generally mislead with regard to answers). It should last about an hour. Rather than inflict my visage on the unsuspecting participants for too long, the computer will show still images. Like these........................ I'm rather looking forward to it.

I am sitting inside with the curtains drawn following my return from the retinopathy photography. I was obediently waiting outside but was invited in as no one else was there. No problems with the tests. There was no parking at the clinic but Aditi knew of a quiet road nearby as she had parked there a couple of years ago while attending a funeral at the nearby church. The fence panels went in this morning. Neighbour seemed confused that only the first few lined up. Both i and the other neighbours helping out tried to explain his garden was on a slope so the top of the fences dropped a few inches to the next panel. Anyway we can get on with restoring that side of the garden now. I may have mentioned a few weeks ago I bought a new PC. The only choice for a UK keyboard was a very basic one. I don’t want anything very special but I have got used to an illuminated keyboard. Any better keyboard from the manufacturer was US International rather than UK. So,I have obtained another one from a keyboard manufacturer. I thought I was going bonkers last night trying to understand the instructions. I didn’t want the keyboard to display rainbow patterns or surf effects I just wanted the keys to be gently illuminated. The first few attempts didn’t survive a reboot but it is all ok now. Who does want rainbow waves or raindrop effects on a keyboard anyway? My car has some sort of “mood “ lighting effect. It is set to a very dim red in mine. I don’t know what mood that is. Tony

Back to ground level for a better look at the Compound, which at this time was a Derby engine. It occurs to me that followers of the LMS might be able to help me here. I have read that the LMS was fond of five day cyclical workings which could take a locomotive a very long way from its home shed, and that the practice continued into BR days. Certainly that seems to be borne out by the photos I have seen of the power for the trains running past and through PN, which come from sheds like Derby and Burton on Trent, plus places even further afield, both the Birmingham sheds and even some Liverpool area engines. The Eastern was much more parochial, East Lincs services, for example, being the preserve of New england or Immingham, so it would be interesting to learn more about these LMS workings. It might give me an excuse for more locos too.

Mornin' (again) from a bright and sunny South Derbyshire. Yesterday's covid jab has left me feeling a bit meh, so any F@@kwits and C'@ckwombles better watch out starting with the attendees of the meeting which I must now attend...... There could be a bloodbath

Morning, rather grey and windy, inside and out. 15c to start but it looks and feels a lot colder. Washing today, I think - pah. Awaiting parts for both the workbench jobs currently, so stuck on both with bits everywhere, both bike (for me) and steam locomotive (job for a pal).

Good afternoon all from a very warm Hill of Strawberries. Hermes is awaited or is that, correctly, Hermes are awaited? The item was notified as being out for delivery "Between 1 - 2pm" which slipped to "Between 1 - 3pm" then went to "Between 3 - 5pm" and is now "Between 7 - 9pm" Hmmmmm. Do they even have it? Do they know where to go? Are there bears in the woods? Today has been another pollen festival and sneezing symphony. I have had to resort to wearing the exemption badge on my trains to and from the House of Fun as the cloth beard-protector was causing distress in the nasal and asthmatic departments. On the other hand the rewards for my efforts have been substantial in terms of the Great Scantily Dressed and I am now much better acquainted with the more socially-popular regions of several younger ladies. TMI, perhaps. But if they choose to openly display themselves then they must be aware that others can see. Thorpe Park was, as ever, the destination of choice for many. Time to retreat to the darkened corners of the Hill with another muggercamomile to desensitise the sneezing regions. Back later.

It can get pretty bad when it is the accountancy firms themselves that are merging. There are tales of some quite nasty goings on from the mergers of the early 90s in the UK. When the first merger happened and another one was rumoured, the chairman of our firm said "you can't make a Mike Tyson out of two middleweights". A couple of weeks later, we found out from the press that we had agreed a merger with one of our rival firms. We then had to be told about it officially. Fortunately for our office, the others did not have an operation anywhere near where we were (Northampton) so there was no immediate threat of redundancy. That came later in the early 90s recession. I then joined the Birmingham office of the "Mike Tyson" firm and even 3 years after their merger, there were clear fault lines; one side dominated the audit department, the other tax department and they did not get on too well. Incomers like me who were from neither side fared no better; we weren't from either side and were therefore fair game to all. It's a long time ago and I left after a couple of years.

That's the trouble with vigilantes nowadays. Too lenient. Did they say why he was found not guilty? Some obscure legal technicality? I do wonder how some lawyers sleep soundly when they know they've managed to get a complete wrong 'un off the hook. Someone my Boss knows is a lawyer, and he was most distraught at losing a murder case he was defending. My Boss remarked that it was blatantly obvious that he'd done it - so why was he so upset? "Because it looks bad that I've lost a case" came the reply. It's almost as though the lawyer wants an unblemished fight record like a Boxer: Fights: 10 Won: 10 Lost: None Spelling mistake? In other news: Bear plans to go thru' buddy next-door's charity donations in order to double-check everything is in order and presentable for donation (I'm aware of the costs charities can incur in disposing of cr@p they can't sell, and also effort involved in cleaning etc.). In this case I'm already aware there is no cr@p involved; a couple of electrical items need testing, a couple of bits need dusting, and a large Tonka Dump Truck needs a wash as it's been stored in his FiL's garage - that's about it. There's also four tomato plants to be re-potted; they didn't get watered on Monday and when Bear went into the garden yesterday and saw them I thought I'd killed them - I was amazed how quickly they recovered when watered. Apart from that there's the kitchen to do - the last coat of paint to the end of the tall end panel (the correct end this time...) is designated as first job of the day; once the above duties are out of the way it'll be starting on the plinths for the base units.

Morning all. It is a very pleasant morning here. I know this as I was out before 7am putting the bin bags out. I also moved our bins (they don’t get put out) to give plenty of room for the fence installation. I have a diabetic retinopathy test after lunch. Aditi will take and collect me. I am glad I checked, the clinic isn’t where I thought it was. Have a good day. Tony

Good Morning, Up early again, and for the same reason as on my Birthday... Bummer. I suppose I had better bow down to the inevitable and ask the boy doctor for some serious analgesics or even perhaps a DMARD. My thanks to all for your birthday wishes. Whilst the shenanigans that Mrs ID concocted were most enjoyable, my morning expedition to buy “toys” was most disappointing. I went to one of these large purveyors of electronics and found that whilst I could choose from about 100 different types of smart phone and 20 different types of coffee maker, they only had two food processors to choose from. I went to Migros (I’m not sure how you would peg Migros against Waitrose, Sainsbury’s or Tesco) and they had a slightly better selection of food processors including a house brand food processor which although nicely designed seemed a little flimsy for my needs. Although my expedition was not a success, I did manage to get two replacement sauté pans. Captain Cynical, sadly, had to give up his day off to put on the spandex and observe that it was no wonder the bricks and mortar shops are struggling when they are either unwilling or unable to offer a decent choice of items and in Switzerland it would appear that it is mostly because they are unwilling. For example: Sony has a lot of diverse electronics that it sells in Europe, the official Sony Importer in Switzerland only imports a fraction of what is available in the EU and these tend to be, Captain Cynical cynically notes, the ones that are featured in the glossy magazines (which do not include the various consumer guides). Product placement anyone? So, it’s back to the lady warriors to for fill my birthday toy shopping list. I now have an account that covers Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and Amazon.it which means I can shop around for not only the best price, but also the best shipping costs. Paradoxically, it is sometimes cheaper both in terms of cost of item and shipping, to buy a book printed in the UK from Amazon Italy and have it shipped to me in Switzerland. One of the advantages of buying things from Amazon Italy is that Italy is considered a low worth market and things tend to be cheaper. This is also true in other areas. For example, sometime ago when looking for a business class flight from Europe to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia I found out that the most expensive departure airports were Zürich, Frankfurt and London Heathrow. The cheapest was from Milan (although I can’t remember if from Linate or Malpensa). A 100 km or so difference between flying from Zürich to KL versus flying from Milan to KL does not explain why a business class ticket out of Zürich costs SFr.6000 and out of Milan €2500. (would it be appropriately cynical of me to observe that high-cost departure airports service cities with a significant number of bankers?) Well, enough from me. After yesterday’s indulgences (beer, whisky, CAKE) I will be fasting for the best part of the day - existing on coffee and aspirins (for the joint pains). Which is almost, but not quite, a French Intellectual’s breakfast (black coffee, aspirins and a Gauloises Caporal!) And on that Gallic note I bid you a happy hump day... iD p.s. When I read my comment about the French Intellectual’s Breakfast to Mrs iD, she said that the comment certainly shows up my age....

As we can't really go away at the moment I though we'd have another trip to Switzerland. A bit of background to my interest in European Railways. In 1964, aged 14 I went to France by myself to stay with friends in Albi, near Toulouse. By the late1980s I was in the position to be able to spend about a month abroad, sometimes I flew to Switzerland and travelled around by train with a Swiss Pass, other times I used the ferry, often from North Shields to Esbjerg in Denmark and then drove to Switzerland via Germany, which also enabled me to visit the Harzquerbahn. I also visited Austria. I've also travelled via the Netherlands, Belgium and France from time to time. Once again there are extended captions. The first two are on what was then the Furka Oberalp Bahn (now the MGB) at Andermatt and then at the Oberalpass. Andermatt FO HGe4/4ii 82 28th July 92 C17105.jpg Oberalppass FO HGe4/4 36 eastbound 28th July 92 C17109.jpg Pfaffikon BT Re4/4 96 Luzern to Romanshorn 3rd Aug 92 C17350.jpg Pfaffikon is on the SBB Zurich to Chur main line, the Sudostbahn line from ArthGoldau to north east Switzerland crosses at the station. The loco in this photo belongs to the Bodensee Toggenburg Bahn, now merged with the Sudostbahn. Gais Appenzeller Bahnen ABDeh4/4 8 Altstatten to Gais 31st July 92 C17219.jpg The Appenzeller Bahnen serves Canton Appenzell in north east Switzerland. It is metre gauge. Altstatten is in the Rhine Valley, there is a steep rack assisted climb to Gais. Gais also has trains from Appenzell to St Gallen. Now we move to the SBB line to Chur at Maienfeld. Maienfeld is the setting for Heidi. The service area on the autobahn nearby is called Heidiland. While waiting for a train here one day I saw a Swiss Army vehicle park by the station building. The soldiers got out, leaving their rifles behind and bought ice creams. Maienfeld 30th July 92 C17208.jpg The lever frame in the station building. Maienfeld Re4/4ii 30th July 92 C17209.jpg Maienfeld Ae6/6 11431 30th July 92 C17210.jpg David

My last Flawed Ford had 'mood' lighting that was also red - seems an odd choice other than I suppose it is supposed to not destroy night vision as they didn't go out. Mrs NHN's Citroen has sort of vanilla coloured lights in footwells (warm white?) which go out after a few seconds after embarking. More sensible? My i30 doesn't have any that I have noticed, nor do I miss them. We didn't know we 'needed' them I suppose. Now i get into rant mode, it seems to me cars have all sorts of things you only seem to 'need' for the week after you buy it, and never touch again. As a forinstance, mine has adjustable weight power steering, which...I fiddled with once out of curiosity and never again in three years!

Afternoon all grumpy head /on Firstly, a K1 which is fitted with a Zimo sound chip has decided to go very quiet. It is resisting all fettling at the moment. Secondly, hotel prices. We rarely go abroad and so regularly holiday in these wonderful British Isles. We fancied braving a few days away and got a real shock when looking at hotels, both familiar and new. I had, given the circumstances, expected some increase in prices to cover possibly reduced capacity and enforced Covid precautions but even where rooms are still available the prices have increased by ridiculous amounts. I realise that it's supply and demand and all that but I do wish that all of those, for whom holidaying in the British Isles is normally beneath them, would leave them alone for those of us who have always enjoyed doing so. grumpy head /off

Did the washing, two big loads. Strung out on the lines as it isn't a bad day for drying, being now 21c and breezy to windy. Did some other work for an hour, went to check washing. Line pole snapped off at the base (rusted through) and washing all over the lawn and the garden railway (oily rails from running session the other day). Do washing again......pah. Actually I said something else but there are ladies present.

Agreed. Once in a previous employ, I was rightly as it turned out, suspicious that my input into monthly reports was not actually read by anyone so I decided I would tell the story line by line about how futile the whole exercise was. I did this by injecting one line at a time into each report. It was some considerable time before I was rumbled, and as such the person who spotted it couldn't really 'b@ll@ck' me because I had been telling them for months that I suspected that they didn't read my input - let alone act upon it. Box ticking at its best.

and these.................. Astonishingly, most of these shots have been taken since Covid disrupted so much.

What else are forums for?

Moaning all from the tropical climes of the boring borough. Little news on the job front. The boss is still off after his second jab. I have a feeling he will be coming back to at least 2 resignation letters. Been out and back for my spinal origami today. Makes a hell of a difference. SWMBO's company merged with a larger one nearly 2 years ago, that one in turn had just been swallowed by an even larger corporation. So far no redundancies from her lot but most of her job functions are subsumed into other departments so her workload is a fraction of what it was. Stay tuned. The original company, its 30 year history, and name all vanish on July 1. All of the original directors & partners have now shaken off the golden handcuffs and run away with pots of ££ leaving just the client base and minions. She is actually hoping for redundancy as with their new policy of 90 day notice plus being there for 17 years means she'd see around 7 months of take home pay. From that we could afford for her to find something part time and not worry about the increasingly toxic work environment she finds herself in. Enjoy the day.

Morning All, been up an hour or so reading the news. Just having breakfast then a battle with the day, mil and the nephews. Going to be a hot one again. Better get going. Robert

HUMP day! Woo hoo Yesterday ravaged by attempting to digest, interpret and begin choosing the benefit options - mostly healthcare that most of the western worlds population don't have to struggle with! Overall comparable and parts are actually CHEAPER (YAY!!) for the same coverage. The only major annoyance is that the prescription drugs are handled exclusively by the "CVS" pharmacy. You have NO CHOICE of where you get your prescriptions . Currently I can go anywhere to obtain them and use a pharmacy that's less than 1/2 mile from here, easy to walk to if I care to. The nearest CVS is about 5 miles away First world problem in any case I suppose! Continues beasly hot and humid here, today started out at 21 and full sun, will be 34-35 again next few days. Tally ho.

Good afternoon from a sunny Charente. Salad lunch has just been had and the cherry clafutée has been finished with cream. It's a hard life. This morning we were off reasonably .early for Beth to see her Diabetolugue in St Jean of the Danglies. That was not brilliant as somethi g that had been ordered has not yet got to the pharmacy. That means a return trip to zthe Danglies when the gizmo arrives. On return we found evidence of Mr Fox on the lawn. That has been disposed of. This afternoon I need to load the trailer ready for the tip tomorrow. Not a lot else to report so I will wish you all good day. Jamie PS, it was good to see that one of our numbers return to work day consisted, in part of reading my American photos thread. I will keep their ID anonymouse to protevt the innocent. However I'm glad to be of service.

And can add it here for completeness! Cheers! Fran

@BoD I haven't holidays in Britain for a few years now, not because it is beneath us but on cost basis. We had caravan holidays when we were kids.we even had a tourer ourselves before my first breakdown. I have seen a lot of this country there is beautiful countryside cites and coastlines but it costs a fortune and there is the weather. If it were possible i would have 2 weeks on the Yorkshire Wolds in red hot sunshine cheap activities and eating drinking on the Yorkshire coast.

Just finally managed to catch up with ChrisF's presentation, really informative and well delivered - it's not easy to do these things if you're not practiced and familiar with doing so. I once had to be trained to do such things as part of my HR qualifications, and the first time is terrifying. Cracking photo of the GW railcar towing no less than four wagons as tail traffic, hopefully the route didn't have any notable gradients. Nice to see Tim too.

Greetings all from Sidcup which is sizzling gently in the increasingly warm sun. The advantage of wfh is that I don't need to don a suit; t shirt and shorts is fine thank you very much! Last night saw a return to the Hackney Carriage for a few beers followed by a curry at Curry Mahal. Neither were particularly busy. The pub has plastic screens between tables which were flimsy but presumably did the trick. It was all table service. Today seems to be a reasonably busy one; someone has put a meeting in at the time I like to go for a walk, so I will have to go a bit later when it will no doubt be hotter. I imagine the woods at the edge of Foots Cray Meadows will still be fairly cool.

Morning, glad to say it's cooler up here, 18 degrees is plenty hot enough thankyou, cut the grass yesterday without breaking into a sweat and the Old Summer House was the right temperature for an hours running of wheels on parallel bits of metal, might go fishing later on. Stay safe all.

There was due to one Covidiot pushing the wrong buttons.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Another hot day in prospect and the pollen count is through the roof according to the forecast. The forecast for the weekend locally is el scorchio, high twenties no less. Time for breakfast, be back later.

Not railway ennthusiasts but operator related (although they might disagree with me) but every time I've been on a Northern service that stops in Shipley on the way to Leeds the nice man cheerfully announces "The next station is Leeds. This train terminates here." No no no! This train terminates THERE or we'd never arrive! Here is where we are at that moment in time.

After yesterdays day of two halves, today looks a bit similar. I have a friend and his wife visiting from Stockport this evening, as he is down in Pompey visiting his Sister and Brother. He will pop around for a coffee, and it will be the first time we have had a meet up since 2019, so that should be quite a nice evening. Its very misty here this morning, but as I've been browsing and now typing it has started to lift, and I can just make out the outline of the woods to the rear of us, (about 150 yds away), so I'll finish this and go for a walk I think. Have a good day one and all, stay safe and keep well.

And these.........................

Afternoon all, The sun is shining and the temperature is rising. Fortunately our roundy washing line is seated, very firmly, in a substantial piece of concrete. Unfortunately if it ever breaks at ground level I am in for a major rebuilding job or total abandonment and start again somewhere else. 'Word salad ia s quite long established expression. In fact plenty long enough established to be included in the Cambridge Online Dictionary (and be defined elsewhere on the 'net) https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/word-salad As for foxes and n muntjacs we haven't seen anything of our usual visitors for a week or two. Mr & Mrs muntjac tend to move about a bit although they seem to prefer dropping their yougster in the more hidden parts of our garden and I do wish they would stop jumping through our front hedge and demolishing various plants in the process. I seem to have managed to dissuade Mrs Fox for dropping her litter here by the crafty process of putting broken flints in the hole every time she starts digging her maternity ward. But having said that it was great fun watching when we had the fox cubs playing in the garden over 10 years back - very entertaining and just like any other sort of puppy when it came ti fun and games. Amusingly they and our then resident muntjac used to completely ignore each other even when only a few feet apart. The concrete floor in the garage still has the evidence of the fox cubs using it as a playground before it had completely set. Searching for yet more background information for a thread in the prototype area by taking a route which completely ignored railways I came across this fascinating film from 1914 - a very different world - https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-great-dalis-horse-fair-lampeter-may-1914-1914-online Enjoy the rest of your day and stay safe.

Not even a little one?

Mean, Moody, Magnificent...... Seems fine to this Bear.... Mickey Baldwin (RIP) incorporated the following into such a report: "Mickey and Minnie went to the Fun Fair; on the way home they had Candy Floss". At a subsequent meeting he asked how many had read the report - all had, apparently..... "Anyone got any questions?" All except one said no; the last asked what colour was the candy floss. All the others were totally confused - Mickey B took great pleasure in going round the table saying "You haven't read it, you haven't read it, you haven't read it, you've read it....."

Excellent! I may have mentioned before that I support a persons rights to choose but if they so choose then I believe that they should automatically be enrolled on the Totally Withdraw All Treatments Scheme and that they should be rounded up, deposited in a secure, unserviced encampment via a one-way access point and left until such a time that the materials from which they are composed are released and allowed to return to the surrounding environment in order to support another future form of life. Or is that a bit harsh?

A colleague had just invented a new very appropriate phrase that I'm desperately trying to incorporate into my feedback on dissertations. The phrase - word salad.

Pictures please..... Bear has experienced a site closure in the late 80's (they closed the wrong site ) and moved many of us ten miles up the road; both sites had significant job losses as a result. Many employees (the older ones with long service in particular) were very happy to go out the door (up to 2 years salary as redundancy money) - though many younger ones were dropped right in it. We were treated by the remaining site as though we'd stolen their mate's jobs..... In later years there were numerous mergers with European companies - a french one in particular. Those who'd been with the company for a lot of years know we got the sh1tty end of that stick Charity stuff done - now for plants....

Good morning everyone Up late today, as I had a rather disturbed sleep! The plans for today are to spend it in the garden, the back garden needs a few weeds removing and there are some to remove from the block paving of the drive. At least it doesn’t take much thinking about. Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. Brian

I've been aware of the use of the word "drag" in the context of a diesel hauling (choosing my words very carefully here....) an electric locomotive/multiple unit, for a long time, usually because power is off. But I can see your point. Personally, it grates whenever I hear "Midland Region" or "Great Western Region", when referring to the former LMR & WR respectively. Another pet hate is "train station". They were always railway stations when I were a lad. Also, why do trains "arrive into" stations now, rather than "arrive at" ? Not quite sure I can explain why, but the former doesn't sound right, grammatically.

Evening All, Mixed day. Walked to Wortley Hall rather than Fox Valley and then went home for a couple of hours and replied to a couple of emails. Went back up to mils at 3.00pm to collect nephews for tea at mils. Took them home at six and hoped for any of the following, take Sydney home for a sleepover, go to fish and chip shop for tea or go to a proper supermarket. Ended up at Fox Valley where there isn’t a proper supermarket and when we arrived home the lady from across the road had just arrived home from hospital after she fell and broke her hip, so paid her a visit. Finally had tea at 8.00pm by which time I couldn’t be bothered so had cornflakes. Anyway enough bleating, goodnight, Robert

The minutes slip by, and next to appear is the first Leicester local, and one of the increasingly few working Compounds. We are still flying around, somewhere and somehow.

I'VE BEEN BANNED FROM TESCO. Yesterday I was at my local Tesco store buying a large bag of 'My Dog' dog food for my loyal pet and was in the checkout queue when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did she think I had an elephant? So, on impulse I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, I was starting the Dog Diet again. I added that I probably shouldn’t, because I ended up in hospital last time, but I'd lost 10 kilograms before I woke up in intensive care with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms. I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with My Dog nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so it works well and I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in queue was now enthralled with my story.) Horrified, she asked me if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no, I stepped off the kerb to sniff an Irish Setter's arse and a car hit me. I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard. I'm now banned from Tesco. Better watch what you ask older people. They have all the time in the world to think of daft things to say. Jim

Oh I forgot in that 2 weeks a visit to the Scarborough Cricket Festival i haven't been since I was 15. We saw the first day of Yorkshire v Nottinghamshire we were plagued by wasps

Good evening everyone The weather has been absolutely glorious, sunshine all day and very warm too, low to mid 20’s. The cellar has been cleared of rubbish and some items that needed recycling have also been disposed off, so there’s a little more room in it now. The big orange DIY shed was then visited and I came away with the timber for packing the door frames in the cellar. I measured up and started cutting some of the wood before dinner. After dinner work continued and the packing the frames, the frame around the small access door has been completed and a start made on the internal door has started. I didn’t get this finished, as I knocked off early as I had other plans for the afternoon. A neighbour dropped off some rhubarb on Sunday afternoon, so during last night’s Sainsbury’s Grand Prix, I bought a large punnet of strawberries. This afternoon I made some rhubarb and strawberry jam (3 jars) and a small batch of stewed rhubarb too, the aroma coming from the kitchen whilst I was doing so was very nice.