station cat

Under normal circumstances maybe, but at a model railway exhibition? I have just had a phonecall to say my mobile is fixed. Considering that I only took it in yesterday and the bloke reckoned it would be 3 days before he got the parts I reckon that's rather good going I shall have to go and get it tomorrow, then Railex on Sunday. Now all I need is a ticket for Wembley on Monday and my weekend will be complete.

A lot of supermarket moves are seasonal - especially on fresh food. On fruit and veg for instance, you stock more salads in summer and more prepared veg in winter so the space needed for them changes - and then you need to move other stuff to keep those things together. So mushrooms, which you sell about the same amount of year round, tend to move around a lot. Preserved food and non food are a bit more complicated. With that, the moves are normally done with the aim of achieving a more logical layout(!), fitting in more products, or increasing sales of certain things.

Could a neighbour help out? Ie the neighbour orders the shopping and is repaid in cash?

It's a good thing your PE teacher wasn't on my course then, because that was about the only bit of dubious humour we missed. Today is may day off so I get to go over to Reading and try and get a new screen for my phone. Oh joy. Good thing they pay me extra for being a first aider isn't it?

Well said that man - hugs, best wishes and condolences to them as need them (and the list does indeed seem to have suddenly lengthened). On a related, but lighter, note I have just finished three days of first aid training. I'd encourage you all to go in for some kind of first aid training because it can, and does, save lives - one of the main things holding back the UK's survival rates for heart attacks etc is that so few people can do CPR. The course was very informative and extremely funny. Assessment was via taskbook which had a combo of things the instructor must see you do, things you need to write down and multiple choice questions. The first multiple choice question was things you can do to prevent infection and one of the (incorrect) answers was 'remove casualties clothing'. The next three days were spent making jokes about removing clothing (no we don't really do political correctness where I work). We also had a great instructor who encouraged 'casualties' to behave realistically rather than providing helpful hints to their first aider. Thus people were sworn at, pretend puked over, and not allowed to touch. But I think I might win the amateur dramatics prize cos nobody else thought of choking on their vomit (which is actually a major risk).

RIP Coolio. What a gorgeous boy he was

I changed my mind at the last minute. Since it was apparently too close to call I thought I had better choose between Labour and the Tories rather than spoil my ballot paper - I thought vote share could become a bargaining chip.

Who else is still up then?

I am strangely delighted by the idea of somebody being employed to count rivets.

The end of the line - literally - in Croatia features in this post by Football Special http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/74140-croatia-to-london-by-train/

I've been eagerly awaiting the Austrian pics. And they were well worth waiting for.

Tank cars for me, lots of scope for weathering and interesting liveries

Found it. It's got a lot of swear words in it...

I see Downfall is on this evening. I wonder what version of the Hitler rant will be included?

Apparently the Slovenian border police are pretty awful. Just what I need on an overnight train journey. In other news, having despaired at the cost of train tickets between Munich and Nuremberg (55€ for a one way!) I had decided t take the bus for 5€ instead. I went to book the bus just now and it had gone up to 13€. So I decided I'd have a quick look at train tickets again... I found one for 19€. Train it is then. Boy am I glad I checked.

Those are the ones on motorways then?

I also saw some white stuff on the ground today but down in Bucks it was cherry blossom And the bluebells have come out

Had another lovely day out at Hambleden, and this time I did manage to catch a loose horse. For those who don't know, eventing is a kind of horse triathlon in which horse and rider combinations take part in dressage (making perfect circles in an arena), showjumping (jumping knockdown fences in a large arena), and cross country (like cross country runs at school except with jumps and the competitors enjoy it). Over three days Hambleden staged a variety of classes: BE100 (max height of cross country jumps 1m), Novice (max 1m 10 cm), Intermediate (max 1m 15 cm) and CIC* which is a novice competition run under international rather than British rules. It should be pointed out that the jumps can be very wide as well as very tall! Anyway onto the pictures, all of the cross country, which aren't very good because I still haven't got round to looking up how to vary the shutter speed on my camera! Hambleden is famous for its bluebell woods Fence 12 on the intermediate course was looking especially photogenic Amongst the competitors was Kiwi legend Sir Mark Todd, winner of 2 Olympic gold medals and goodness knows what else. One of the great things about eventing is that the top riders compete against complete amateurs at low level events because they have to bring on their young horses. Intermediate fence 18 was this owl hole, rather narrow and witha very steep landing - which this photo doesn't really show Although the fences are very solidly built, they do break if you hit them hard enough. Here the fence repair team are at work on an obstacle which featured in all four courses Fence 4 on the intermediate course was an angled double of saw bench type things (ie this fence was followed by an identical one set at a different angle about three horse strides away). Many of the horses did not like the ditches underneath Another angled double, this time on the CIC* course. This rider is Belgian, Britain has the strongest eventing scene in the world and so attracts huge numbers of foreign riders This picnic table is about five feet wide This jump into water featured in the novice and intermediate competitions There was a lot of galloping to be done between fences My best picture I think

I had a lovely day watching the eventing at Hambledon today, though I did have to run after a loose horse at one point (didn't get close to catching it). I am going again tomorrow so I will post some pictures after that.

No chance of a refundable/ pay on check in hotel booking?

I too am a mammoth, which is just as well given that my Dad is too. Nothing much to report here, just a nice afternoon spent playing with ponies.

I've also got a Lumix and agree with what other have posted about them. Very nice little cameras

I still haven't figured out how to pronounce the name of the place I stayed in last summer- Zirl, in the Austrian Tirol. I'm not sure i've got Ulm right yet either, it seems to be a far bigger word than the number of letters would suggest.

The bird or the cat?

Those slabs look familiar Pete, very similar to ours. The big ones certainly are heavy so my sympathies if you have to do all the moving and laying yourself. I measure things in metric, imperial or both as is convenient. I'm quite capable of going to Jewsons and asking for a plank a foot wide and a meter long.