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Feeling a bit reflective this evening. Exactly a year ago, I posted on Facebook how I felt I was suffering from depression and needed to see a doctor. I was seriously concerned over finances (I'm a peripatetic music teacher by trade) and felt there was little hope. My own modelling interest had pretty much gone. 12 months on, and Scaca Fell, the first stage in my Skarloey Railway odyssey is complete and I'm currently writing up the article for Railway Modeller. Just a reminder to myself, and others....that anything is possible!

Once again a bit early today as the pharmacy has rung to ask if I would like to have my flu jab this afternoon rather than in a few days time. Today's photos are once again from Buston Barns, on the ECML south of Alnmouth. Buston Barns 45104 down p w Oct 87 J9321 Buston Barns 43159 up 4th Nov 89 C13837 Buston Barns 91004 down Dec 91 J12972 Buston Barns 143608 Newcastle to Alnmouth Dec 91 J12975 Buston Barns 47833 down charter 26th Nov 94 C19874 David

We are having a thunderstorm. There was a power blib earlier. Nothing major but the TV converter was rebooting and the internet radio cannot connect to the server. Will reboot after I finish ERs. There are tornado warnings (or watches) in the northern part of the county. We had a phone call this morning that my sister-in-law is to be moved to palliative care. This prompted an immediate trip down to see her. They finally decied that she has lung cancer, then she caught sepsis and pneumonia and UTI. (My interpretation from my wife's talks. Her son will fly in from Alberta later this week (after much persuading). The thunderstorm has paused.

For anyone interested in the day to day impact the cracked sets is having: Since the end of May a train plan has been written around the principle of 65 service diagrams a day with nothing diagrammed spare. (Pre cracking the train plan was based on ~75 units in traffic and 5 spares.) Initially it was quite a struggle to actually get 65 units in traffic and it was quite common to have much nearer 60, the worst day I can remember was 56. This resulted in lots of 5 vice 10 and 5 vice 9 which clearly wasn't very good and as more people returned to travelling some services have been very busy. Since the end of August however there have regularly been 70+ units available for traffic. There are still some shortformed services each day and this generally relates to the maintenance plan not meshing with the diagrams right now. For example, a unit departing Penzance in the morning coming in on a layover at North Pole and being kept back on depot for an exam that night or similar and another unit being required to cover the rest of the diagram that day. That's the short summary. Each day as part of the prep for a unit on a depot an inspection is conducted to assess any new cracks and if any existing cracks have worsened. If they have then the unit is stood down on depot and further non destructive testing is required before the unit can either return to traffic or require moving to North Pole for welding repairs. Units that fail the further testing and require a move to North Pole have to do so under a concession signed off by senior managers in engineering, there usually aren't any special restrictions to these moves (speed limits or similar) and on the odd occasion and move has been made in passenger service. (Finding available drivers to move units additionally from Penzance to North Pole is nigh on impossible.) Units do fail the checks every now and then but with spares now available most days these don't impact the service like they did when we were scraping the barrel each day and a lost unit meant lost services. Units that make their way to North Pole under concession appear to be lined up for some kind of remedial welding. This, I don't think, is a long term fix but rather keeps the unit safe and serviceable for the foreseeable future. There are still talks ongoing about what a long term fix is and it is likely that when this is agreed upon the units will go away to an external site a couple at a time for fixing. But for the time being whatever work is being carried out is boosting the fleet availability slowly. The downside of every cracked unit needing to end up at North Pole is that North Pole is very full and leaves little additional room for ad hoc failures to be dumped on depot or for there to be spares on depot. More than once units have come off depot in to service late with the reason being someone needed to play Tetris to manoeuvre a unit out of the way. This has led to a drive to get more exam work undertaken at other depots around the network; Laira will now undertake major exams on IETs (except for roof work which has to be subsequently carried out at either Stoke Gifford or North Pole) and do one or two a week. Other changes to alleviate the unit shortage has been 387s to Bristol Parkway - this has been mentioned before in this thread - and there appears to be no end in sight to their use. Indeed tests through to Cardiff have now taken place. To help bolster the 387 fleet, since 2 units are now in service everyday to and from Parkway, the 3 units acquired from C2C are now joined by 3 units from Gatwick Express. The C2C units are generally only found on the Newbury shuttles as they do not have receivers for the SDO beacons required when working 8 or 12 car formations on Paddington - Didcot services. They could run if boxed into the middle of a 12 car formation. The Gatex units do have the receivers and can be seen working into and out of Paddington daily. Permission has been given for Class 800 units to finish at depots in the West of England and receive servicing. Previously an 800 could not go on to Laira or Long Rock depot for 'contractual reasons'. This agreement has probably been the single biggest development for fleet controllers as it reduces what has felt like four fleets of entirely different trains into two fleets; 800s and 802s. Unfortunately 802s still cannot end at Swansea Maliphant and 800s cannot couple to 802s. It has been done for rescue/recovery and by accident but officially they don't play together and can't do so. If this were to change (and it is constantly mooted) then you have 5 and 9 car trains and little else matters. As it is you have to be careful when 800/5s go into the West of England making sure they are not planned to detach and reattach to an 802! GWR are still yet to run the all singing, all dancing December '19 timetable with 'super-fast' services running non-stop to Swindon/Chippenham or Bristol Parkway. These are still omitted from the timetable as part of the reduction to get the IET diagrams down to 65 a day. The hourly Cardiff services (which help to provide a half hourly service to South Wales alongside the hourly Swansea's) are cancelled along with IETs to Bedwyn. There are one or two exceptions to this pattern (1B20/1L29, 1U18/1L57, 1K18/1K25 spring to mind.) There are also a few services that are now diagrammed for 5 cars that might have previously been 10 cars. It largely feels like a 'normal' timetable now, just a far cry from what we were gearing up for in Jan/Feb '19! (I accept that in a crack free world the timetable might still have been de-scoped a little due to covid). The DfT are involved in thrice weekly calls with GWR and Hitachi to keep up to date and on top of the rectification work and the plan going forwards and the pressure is definitely on to run as many trains as possible as passengers return to rail travel and greater scrutiny is now on shortformed services and delivering the seats to plan. The fleet still feels like it is in a slightly vulnerable position. I have no statistical evidence but I wonder if each unit is averaging more miles/hours in service than they were before. Issues like engines GUs failing or units with diesel only or other restrictions seem to be more frequent and perhaps that is because units are getting less maintenance time on depot. There are still anywhere up to a dozen set swaps at various locations, but mostly Paddington, performed daily to tinker and manage where specific units are ending each day according to their defects, fuel miles, prep hours and exam requirements. Clearly for the passengers most of these swaps go completely unnoticed as they take place between services, it is just the ops staff that have to manage the juggling and re-platforming of services. Apologies for the rather long information dump and any industry jargon, I thought an update might be of interest as to what repercussions there still are.

Just using up a picture I had in the folder.....courtesy of the Squadron Leader

Tony, It was nice to see you yesterday on your visit to Retford, I hope all the visitors enjoyed their day. The railway worked well apart from one broken tie bar.Tony Gee brought along this beauty which is going to be finished as “Valour” in full Great Central livery. Here she is hauling the up “Heart of Midlothian”. This train consists of 13 coaches and if Retford was completely flat she would have had no problem hauling this train. However Retford does have an incline on the GN main line where it crosses the GC fiddle yard. Considering “Valour” is made of brass I think she did very well to haul this train. Most of the principal expresses on Retford are hauled by locos made of white metal but some have plastic bodies but this only works if there is room to add extra weight such as on A4s. This is a new Retford locomotive 61464. This is a B16/3 I made from a very old DJH kit. This was actually her first run on the layout and she’s hauling an up fully fitted freight. She’s not yet quite finished, she needs weathering. There is a photo of this loco on shed at Retford in GN loco sheds Vol 2. Sandra

Evening All Well what fun we're having here at present - NOT, but after apologies, and generic greetings, I will explain how things seem to be falling apart here with the house move. We placed offers on two properties a couple of weeks ago, one was 25k YES 25k over the asking price - the other was a few K over, Well on Monday BOTH of these offers were blown out of the water, and left us with an able buyer, who offered 6K UNDER and then demanded exclusivity - which we foolishly agreed. So on Monday, we did a trawl and found a few properties which we might like to view - went down - first one was a dump, and that we polite - agent described it as Requiring some updating but guided to reflect that and will undoubtedly sell quickly. well it wasvirtually uninhabitable - and I mean that - we felt we needed a shower when we came out of it. I have complained that we have, between 30747's lost wages, hotel, meals and petrol, around £200 - will be get a reply - I doubt it. Second was just off the main A49 in Hereford, as was the third in Ludlow,also a few yards from the same A road. I've got to say that we are a bit down, to say the least. Fodder run tomorrow AM - back tomorrow (?). Regards to All Stewart

Hello everyone, after what can only be described as an interesting few weeks... ("Challenging" has been banned in this house as a bull**** buzzword...) I'm back with a little bit of progress to report. The river board has always been a bit of a bête noir because I haven't even attempted to model water since a rather disappointing experiment with resin when I was about twelve. For this scene to work, I had to get things right. I have deliberately made the river about 20% narrower towards the backscene in order to create an illusion of space and distance. I also made the river banks separately using a stiff mixture of plaster and PVA to give a crumbling soil effect to the bank's as per the real river Clun. I spent a fair bit of time mixing a sandy pink acrylic paint base layer for the soil. That received a brown wash, followed by highlighting with progressively lighter shades of the base colour. I then put in a short of tide mark for the natural water table. Next I got to do the more fun part, I built up the areas of deposited stones below the banks and the scattered larger stones in the watercourse itself. The stone is the real thing, gravel recovered from the banks of the river Clun during the only vintage motorcycle event that we have been able to attend this year, held just a few yards up the road from Broome station, the facility that actually served Aston on Clun. The bed of the river was painted with a mix of brown, tan and green that as a base coat looked like fresh cow muck. Lighter and darker shades were brushed in to the wet paint. Then came my non favourite part. Coffer dams were constructed of masking tape and a thin layer of Rustin's gloss polyurethane varnish Wes dropped in with a large brush and worked amongst the stones with a small brush, so that the tops of exposed rocks remained dry. A bin liner was stretched over the area to keep out dust and the river ignored for a week, before repeating the process. In high summer, the movement of the water is barely noticeable from fifty feet, so I wasn't too worried about trying to model ripples. Normal viewing distance is over 200 scale feet remember. (That's my excuse, dissenters will be sent for re-education / special treatment.) I think it's kind of worked! We are likely to be moving house in the near future, but neither of us think that is a valid reason to stop building Aston.

Morning, lots going on to delay me this morning. 19c and sunny now, a lovely day in prospect. Just had our MHK around (= Fraggle MP) to discuss a democratic (non-political) matter, of which he was absolutely flabbergasted to hear - phone calls were made in my presence, which may well cause some serious heat for one or two individuals. As an ex-civil serpent myself this causes some dismay, but someone in a particular department to do with our forthcoming general election here needs a rocket. If not a permanent rocket. I suspect some underhand skullduggery, and the discussion witnessed appeared to prove me correct. More I can't say, this may go legal.

Good moaning. It's rained overnight and did so yesterday afternoon. One or two things got done though. The shopping in the morning then some leaking pipes on thevpool solar heating were replaced. UV damage. Then some friends called and I've made arrangements for Mike to come and lay a concrete base for the new pool shed once we have winterised the pool. All good stuff. This morning I'm waiting in for Nurse Dominique to come and remove the staples from my bonce. If she is here erly enough I'll then head for the tip to get rid of a trailer load of garden rubbish. What an exciting life we lead. I might even head for the shed and do some 7mm scale work. Brian, I hope that things go well at the Christie. Regatds to all. Jamie

J50 68940 was captured on film crossing the disused rope hauled tramline once used to haul coal up to Queensbury from Hole Bottom pit. The photographer would have been standing on the walkway connecting the the two subways at the Halifax corner of Queensbury triangle.

If we move across to Platform 6, we will find that Leicester's nearly new Standard 4 has backed on to the Ely-Birmingham.

Good morning everyone Up early so I can get to The Christie for my 8:30 blood test! Luckily, most of the traffic I will encounter is heading in the opposite direction, but some road junctions can be a nightmare. Once that’s done, I need to call in at the pharmacy to pick up my prescription, I will then complete the Sainsbury’s Grand Prix. Once that’s done, the rest of the day is going to be spent relaxing I’ll be heading off to Vickie’s to have a look at their shower, as it has stopped working or is working intermittently! Back later Brian

Greetings There was no work in the jungle yesterday due to rain. If this morning is dry there is a bit more removal of vegetation which could be done and room in the garden waste bin for the fruits of my labours. All I have to do then is to remember to put the bin out for emptying tomorrow. This evening sees the Area Group meeting in Harpenden, which means Chris versus the M1 again. It also means that I will need to set the video recorder to capture a programme on BBC2 about what koalas do at night. Something tells me that these delightful furry marsupials have not [yet] discovered clubbing, but as we all know, life is full of surprises. Let the imagination run riot ... Best wishes to all Chris

Good evening everyone Like yesterday, the weather has been kind to me and no rain fell. But also like, there were a few drops fell, but thankfully they weren’t followed by proper rain. So more progress has been made on the fireplace wall, I’ve now reached the height that I wanted it to be, there are a few bricks left, about 18, but about half are damaged, there are also a few half bricks too. To use these up, I thought of building 2 small wing walls, one each side of the fireplace, just large enough to disguise the fencing behind the wall. However, Sheila isn’t completely convinced that they will look right. So my plan is to temporarily stack them where and how I plan to use them and see what she thinks. An early night tonight, as I have an appointment at The Christie for my 3 monthly blood test at 8:30 tomorrow morning, the results of which I will get next week.

Just a further quick update. We are not alone it appears. This was found on our garden path a couple of days ago. About 3 feet of a sloughed skin from a grass snake. How far down the drain it continues I haven't yet investigated. That's the fourth we've found on that area over the last 4 years. two in the last 3 weeks. They can grow up to 5' long and a couple of inches diameter but are harmless. They apparently keep the small rodent population down quite well. We did see one a couple of years ago at the top of the garden. Jamie

I would like to offer Bear an explanation. My late father spent some time on the sub-continent with the Military Police in The Last Days of The Empire. His view of the area to the northwest was that the year has two seasons, Winter and the Fighting Season. The inhabitants actually liked an invasion force as it provided a willing opponent and they didn't have to fight amongst themselves to pass the time during the better weather.

If a bear isn’t allowed to have a front garden bike shed do you think ramps are allowed so he can keep one in the hall, or front room if he doesn’t have a hallway?

Come on Mr Bear! The solution is obvious and starring you in the face: Have one of each! Of course you'll have to build a bigger lean-to but just think of the fun you can have trying to decide which one to take out each time. You know of course the formula for working out how many bikes you should have? Ideal number of bikes = N + C where N = Number of bikes currently owned & C is any integer constant greater or equal to 1 I suspect as the years pass it might be as well to have room for a little old Honda SS50 or a Fizzy (well, maybe not a Fizzy; have you seen how much they want for those particular 50cc mopeds these days ). Anyway those joints of yours aren't going to get any freer and muscle strength will decline as retirement goes by. Ultimately you may be confined to barracks, the lean-to and its contents will be redundant and you will be forced to amuse yourself by doing railway meddling .... I'm intrigued! Will do, but we'll have to be careful as talking during detention could lead to further detention. Hmmm, I see a plan forming

' afternoon all from red dragon land. Sunny Down in the woods... Dying tree on the downstream side of the farm track. Leaves are still persevering up in the canopy I spent a bit more time wrestling with the pencils until the sun came round to the side and threw highlights everywhere as above...time to go! Basic shapes so far. No depth, yet. Looking too patchy. No coherence. Not looking right. Although, I have covered a larger area this time. Hopefully, I will be able to turn it around a bit tomorrow and get it looking more like a lumpy stump. Many thanks for all your ratings and comments (support) on this subject. It really does help and is much appreciated! I decided to get a few more blackberries on the way home - just as well I was not expecting to get more, they were not as abundant as the last few days. Still plenty of berries waiting to ripen, though, so I may get a few more for the freezer in the days to come. Late lunch beckons. Ah, yes, before I forget, another hazard - purple fingers. Catch up later. Fitt and Elfie fighting off the prickly things... Take care all and stay safe. _________ Best wishes Polly

Now I was fairly certain that Cucumbers and pheasant were known to some Romans (they did travel a lot) but the cucumber arrived in England after the Roman period. Pheasant probably travelled with the first Roman invasion. This research happened when there was a query about bunny rabbits. Definitely introduced as a foodstuff by Normans but bunny bones were found somewhere in British Roman remains. Perhaps a pet. Also I forgot to include the Schlutzkrapfen as being from Alto Adige aka Sud Tirol. We went to a restaurant in that region. All the menus were bilingual but the Italian side was covered in stickers. Aditi’s Dad was really interestedly in food origins and would often regale us with things he had discovered about where stuff originally came from, and how it affected religion.

Muggacoffee being consumed, I've been busy. Nurse Dominique appeared early and extracted the staples with remarkably little pain. Even better, nothing fell apart. Perhaps Beth's mantra of "where there's no sense there's no feeling" applies. Then off to the tip with a full trailer of garden rubbish. Return and refill the trailer with normal rubbish such as cardboard, off again and back by 10.40. A bit of admin done so coffee had been earned in my opinion. Brian, glad you got there eventually, hope the results are good. Jamie

Good morning again. The traffic going to The Christie was fine up-to the junction I wanted to leave the M60, then it was nose-to-tail for the next couple of miles, then all of a sudden it cleared! At that time of day the car park is usually empty, thankfully it was today and I just made my appointment with a couple of minutes spare, next time I think I’ll leave 15 minutes earlier. Anyway, all went as well as these things can go and I was heading back to the car by 8:45, I was parking up at Sainsbury’s by 9:15 and home for 10 o’clock. The shopping is now all packed away and I’m sat with a well earned muggertea. Back later

Morning all, It seems to have ceased draining outside but I am still confined to the inner sanctum of the Hill of Strawberries. Dr. SWMBO ventured forth for a riverside breakfast at a favoured cafe and reports there are a few folk about but not many. She also walked up to the shop in the rain late last night to get some Lucozade. She has her star moments that's for sure. There seems to be a lot of work taking place upstairs since the girls moved out. I know the kitchen was in dire need of a refit and the bathroom far from splendid. They seem to be getting new radiators as well. Either than or they have a terrible infestation of some huge boring life-form drilling into the structures. Please note this is not a reflection upon any individual past or present We await results from the PCR lab but remain confident they will be negative. I continue to cough at times but it is not continuous, clearly relates to other chest issues and I display no other symptoms of the Most Dreadful Lurgy. Meanwhile it's muggercoffee the first and to keep resting. It seems to work. Stay well.

Morning all. I remembered to put the bins and bags out early this morning. My replacement garden bin arrived the day after I enquired about replacing the broken one. The sticky permit seems to be lost in the post. We will see what happens. It isn’t raining and I think it won’t rain again today. Have a good day. Tony

All is quiet at Upbech Drove.

I ain't got one of them so made me own. And train to go with it.

Afternoon All A couple of days ago I posed as bonus question to my aviation quiz, What is surprising about the international radio telephony distress call "Mayday""? It is, fairly obviously, derived from the French m'aidez but what is interesting about it is that it wasn't one of the many French words adopted into aviation's vocabulary such as aerodrome, hangar, longeron, aileron, fuselage etc. but was invented in Britain. In the early 1920s, Frederick Stanley Mockford, was in charge of radio communicatios at Croydon Airport and needed to find a word that would both clearly indicate distress and be internationally understood by both pilots and ground radio operators. The morse code SOS, used in radio telegraphy wasn't clear over early radio but at Croydon (and I suspect in France during the war) he'd heard French pilots saying m'aidez (help me) He anglicised that to Mayday and it was adopted, orignally for cross channel flights in 1923 and later universally . Mockford is generally described merely as a senior radio operator at Croydon but he was far more than that. Having been a telegraph operator for the LBSCR he'd joined the Royal Flying Corps at the start of WW1 where he specialised in wireless telegraphy. In 1917, as Wireless Officer (2nd Lieutenant) Mockford, he was responsible for the installation and training for two-way radio telephones in all aircraft. After the war he became an official in the new Air Ministry, (his military record runs from 1914-1922 but he was likey a reservist post war) and was involved in the early development of wireless services for civil aviation. He was the first air operator’s licence examiner, and in 1923 became the senior radio officer at Croydon Airport. He is said to have been responsible for the first phonetic alphabetic code used for radio in civil aviation but I've not been able to verify that. He went on to work for Marconi until he retired. Despite his signiifcant contribution to aviation safety and commuinications he never received any British honours though he was honoured by Iceland.!

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I've been measuring up the old bed that I had designated for the charity shop but I have decided to use the bits elseware. The base is 18mm plywood measuring 80 cm X 2metres and 18mm ply is going for £36 per square metre! I've also realised that the side frames would have made an ideal handrail for the stairs, pity I didn't realise that a few days ago.

I went two Retford yesterday two pick up a locomotive from Sir, and two shew sum Dinghams working. While i was, their @t-b-ghad his Valour running pulling a fourteen car train really well. This won from won of Tony’s estate sails, has found a good home. It’s going to be an interesting makeover project. (Its hard work writing this bad )

@polybear Yes I had seen that report about the engine oil, with Enfield way out on top. One of the factors considered when ordering the Meteor, as well as examination of the build quality of the demo bike. This is in a different world to the Bullets, equivalent to the current Triumphs I'd say. Chunkier than the Japanese, but it has all the hallmarks of something over-engineered to gain market acceptance of a 'new breed' of Enfield. Much like Honda did with the VFR750 after the VF750 camshaft debacle in the 80's. It is alleged they made a loss on every VFR at the time, but it regained their reputation. The Meteor for £4k, looks like a loss leader too, I see the prices are steadily increasing in India for them, it'll happen here too once they have market position. As for those yummy 650 Interceptors......get one ordered now!

May I offer the idea of something more appropriate? Diabetic Gummy bears would be interesting (read Amazon reviews). Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare. 5 hours sleep and then... no more.. Going home last night most of the way a small grey car at the front of the queue.. 30 mph in 30 limit.. in 40 limit... in 50 limit.. in 60 limit.. There was a very long queue.. Going to work this morning, Silver Volvo at head of queue, But.... It did sometimes reach the speed limit,, it accelerated, with all the urgency of a slug... Then every road junction, pedestrian crossing, bend in the road, it braked well below the limit, even when there was no car or pedestrian anywhere near them.. Very overcast this morning no sign of the great fried egg, though strangely the wind was warm even though it was coming from the east.. Ben the I don't like the dark Collie still went out though, I think he was desperate.. SWMBO arrived home from the weaving group with news, a member has offered the use of an industrial sewing machine... Now what's the price of marine boat cover material? £8 a yard I'd need 6 yards so £48.. Cost of commercial boat cover for similar sized boat.. £250 and that's a mass produced one, not a made to measure as would be needed for a one off boat.. Material will be ordered soon... As it is, Blue Moon is having a over deck cover, not over boom, So it's very simple to make, the material is 5ft wide, the boat is 4ft and a little bit wide.. Plenty of spare for seaming and a bolt rope inside the seam. Now for sails, material costs £100, commercial sails £1000... BUT... It's a LOT of work, they are difficult to make well, and getting the design right could be interesting.. More research needed on that one.. Also been costing ropes.. No way round that, other than not buying from a chandlery, prices for the same rope (Dyneema SK78) from a climbers store or general use company are half that of a marine shop. I was thinking of all blue ropes but I think a rats nest of a dozen of them might get a bit confusing, so colours will be sought even though that means purchase by the metre not the roll.. Yesterdays major system was OK and now in use, I'm now working on the most ancient system we have left, It officially dies at the end of the year as unsupportable.. It's replacement I've been calibrating for a couple of years.. But now they've decided to make that dual use to calibrate two different products. So I spent yesterday afternoon combining spreadsheets.. DVC, DCI and Resistance are measured the same way but more measurement points are required, the ACV and ACI measurements are done completely differently. A lot more to do on that yet. Time to.. Take the next measurement.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Arthur Itis gave a few kicks this morning but soon went back into his hidey-hole. I'm running low on Nurofen so thats on the shopping list for later today. This afternoon the chap is coming round to finish off the hand rail on the stairs. I would have preferred a wooden rail but with the cost of timber going through the roof it would cost over £200 for the rail itself (£70 per metre!) But leave out the loo paper?

Just two from last night. Rail milling machine again, bescot to Stoke bescot before putting the locos on the train and Stoke after a change ends, the possession was taken around the train in the platform nuneaton to Carlisle tonight, should only be Warrington but the relief turn was uncovered so I’m doing the whole lot, keeps Carlisle up to date on my route card for a bit longer!

Been to work today and goods ordered as suggested and will be supplied FOC to the good cause.

The rest of my carefully crafted week, arranged around a bit of cleaning and tidying and lots of modelling activity has been left in tatters. Nyda was informed yesterday evening that one of the Guides she'd seen on Monday evening (ironically at the first face to face meeting in 18 months) has tested positive for Covid. On a brighter note, I was asked to look at a 4mm scale 52xx (ex GWR 2-8-0T) that would not work. Checked on rolling road: Nothing. Removed loco body and motor: Check motor away from loco ...it works. Replaced motor and it's all going again. I suspect that the motor clamps over the worm gear was misaligned, causing the worm to bind against the crown wheel and stall the motor. I have to say that the chassis of these more modern Hornby locos are far more sophisticated than my old Triang Jinty with it's X04 motor!

Rained off outside jobs again this morning. Enjoying a mug of coffee though a certain little doggy is making his mind up if he wants to go out or not This damp weather is playing havoc with my knees

Bit of Tractor action this morning.

Oi! Flyboy! This is getting dangerously close to Captain Cynical’s Territory, Brother! Don’t you remember the demarcation lines agreed upon by the SVFJAT (SuperVillians for Justice and Allied Trades) and NHOTR (Noble Heroes of The Realm) unions? YOU take care of the smiting and defeating of the enemies of the people, WE take of the merciless, cruel and extralegal extermination of the same. If you wish to revisit the lines of demarcation, then table a motion at the next HaVUP (Heroes and Villains United for Progress) Conference in Barnsley in November. Otherwise you could find yourself in a dispute situation with the Brothers. With fraternal solidarity Captain Cynical mega-shop-steward SVFJAT.

Today may have been our last defacto day of summer. It was quite lovely - sunny and around 28°C. Temperatures will start to fall for the remainder of the week and over the weekend our first serious rain in months is forecast - perhaps accumulating to about 30mm - with the first snow of the season in the mountains. I'm quite looking forward to the rain. The garden will love it.

At Platform 3, we now see the 3.58 Grantham local, a job for a shabby local B1.

Think I'll be giving ERs a miss for a while, not the same as it used to be.

I’ve added a little more ‘coal dust’ but I’m going to leave it at that otherwise I’ll end up going too far quite pleased that the baseboard join has become a little less obvious Hopefully I will get a bit more ballasting done towards the end of the week, I’ll have some time to myself Friday afternoon/evening so I’ve got no excuses really….although I’m sure I could come up with one if required

And so the Control Panel is now ready for fitting of the Switches and LED's.

Morning awl. Keep the hangar doors closed for now but we'll check Met later to see if it's worth wheeling the kites out. And in some cases straight in the back pocket out of sight of d'Revenue ...... I would have thought exactly like some other services ...... Was it wrong for me to have had a wry chuckle to myself when I believe some financial support was finally offered to the self-employed during the current pandemic based on a percentage of their audited turnover? I don't believe back pockets figure in those accounts even though, I'm guessing, some back pockets can be extremely large Now that is a very amusing image and now I have an ear worm going around in my head and a little (dynamic) vision of a little furry paw repeatedly pointing skywards. If only such images could be turned into mpg4s, they could go viral! On second thoughts maybe it's best if some of those "Mind Movies" stayed in the mind! Fear ye not! Even though it is true Puppers does indeed run the School of Only Biking in Decent Weather (and also the complimentary School of Only Biking in Daylight) there are only a few times throughout the year when the bikes have to be restrained for any length of time; "suitable" days can appear at a moments notice so get it ordered. That's an order! And I fear that it will be forever so and on that rather depressing and frightening thought I will bid you all good day. Alan

Like a scene from a Bond film... DH is brought in by Henchmen and forced to his knees in front of a Hippo sitting on a large throne, stroking a black panther which is sitting on his lap. 'I'm not going to kill you Mr Hunt, I'm just going to make you model the GWR!'

Sadly Bear has joined the "Puppers School of Suitable Biking Weather" - and cold, wet and dark just don't feature...... Couldn't we have a little fun first? Perhaps a food drop (Tesco throw-outs) so we can watch 'em squabble over it? And if some naughty Punk Rocker were to have laced it with Moviprep first..... Chris - you've only gone and done it now. Bear has this unshakeable image of Kev the Koala dressed in a white suit doin' his very best John Travolta "Saturday Night Fever" struttin'..... In other news: Tiler is due between half eight and nine. Hopefully. So Bear has a slightly constrained routine today as a result. And Bear's News Items for the Day: 1. The bitchy in-fighting has started already; welcome to Pol**ics guys.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58560923 2. Excuse the use of capitals, but....BAS*ARDS...... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58555694

The Sqn Ldr's preference would be to wait until the scrotes in question were on Puppers' island then to provide transport for some items of a high explosive nature, e.g., 1,000 lb LGBs, that would be delivered ballistically into groups of organisation members with the fuses activated. Alternatively they could be presented with some air to ground rocketry and/or 20mm cannon shells at high velocity. Such largesse would be quite free of charge. Dave

Good moaning from the Charente. The Tardis is still in Limon, Costa Rica on the 4th January 2007. From my previous viewpoint this was the main track into town. I then walked won the west side of the complex and after passing a small church that was in full voice got this photo of the workshops. I think this gives a whole new meaning to 'a source of spares' Walking back the loco that had hauled us that morning was being serviced. Good well ventilated access. I took the above photo through the wire mesh of the gage and suddenly found myself being question is Spanish by an armed security guard with a shotgun. My Spanish is very limited but he relaxed when I said that I was English but beckoned for me to come inside. I obeyed of course and was taken to the managers office. Fortunately he spoke good English and was very pleasant. I explained who I was and that all I wanted to do was take some photos. He then said, go wherever you want and have a good look round. This tiled map was on his wall. Limon is marked and the commercial banana port is on the north side of the headland. He told me some of the history of the lines. Apparently two different companies met at LImon. One that served the south and the other that went north and west towards the capital. They were all nationalised but some years ago an earthquake severed the line to the capital and they have had to keep the freight service for the banana trade running on what they had in their area when the earthquake struck. They get about 9 metres of rain per year but have survived and were trying to make money by running trains for the cruise lines. I then set off to make my way round the workshops. Jamie

In paying the fitter you can save a bit of money. The carpet shop is very likely to be VAT registered and would have to charge you the VAT. The fitter, having a much smaller monetary turnover, is unlikely to be registered for VAT so there would be a saving of 20% on the fitting. I think this also the case with kitchens and quite probably other services. Robert