sixoh8sixoh

Morning all from Scottish HQ. Trying to summon up the energy to work for the last day of my working week and month! Back in the office on 11th April. Two weeks off! Almost unheard of for me. The travellers have been given 24 hours' notice to quit. I'd be surprised if they go though. Breakfast this morning was a slice of Bettys (of Harrogate / York etc) chocolate orange hot cross bun. Gorgeous. Followed up by a rather indifferent and disappointing bacon roll at work... Have a good Maundy Thursday everyone. (While I remember, I'd always thought that the amount given out to each person in Maundy money was equivalent to the monarch's age but it seems they receive four coins, valued at 1 penny, 2 pennies, 3 pennies and 4 pennies)

Don't worry, taken in good humour on my part (as I hope was my reply)! Maybe next time put a £20/hour parking charge notice up! Talking of unwanted vehicles though... When I was at Mum and Dad's over the weekend about half a dozen Roma/gypsy/traveller caravans arrived on the former caravan park about 300 yards along the road from Mum and Dad's house. That's now swelled to about a dozen. The police have been to visit them 3 times in the last 24 hours, once for a fight. I've been in touch with the County Council today and they were already aware but as it's private land it'll require the owner or leaseholder to get a court order to remove them. In the meantime they're leaving faeces and toilet paper in the lane behind the site. There's no running water or sanitation available (it was last used as a caravan park in the 70s or 80s!).

Rubbish idea, you want rid of them, not have them stuck there longer!!

Morning all from a grey and dull Scottish HQ on the very last day of the Fourth session of the Scottish Parliament (since reconstitution). after today, the electioneering begins. Tonight will involve getting clothes organised for my Easter break, heading east to the Carpathians on Friday night. I've got family in Peterlee and South Hetton. Dad used to have the chemist's in South Hetton for about 35 years (early 70s till his retirement in 2007. Crumbs, he's been retired nearly ten years and he still hasn't got a model railway...

Thanks John. I'd realised I also need the £7.50 Tyne Dock pack for accuracy, but the reminder's appreciated! That's a lovely looking wagon (well, as lovely as it can be considering the prototype...). I'll investigate those suppliers, thanks!

I'm hoping to get my hands on one of the Tyne Dock ones (though can't pre-order as I'm not an existing customer). Now all we need is someone to make some Consett Iron Ore Hoppers... I remember having one of the Hornby Consett hoppers (that was nothing like the prototype!) and the drop as a kid, and the Tyne Dock to Consett railway line ran within half a mile of my parents' house.

Morning all. I hope to have a slightly more relaxed day today at work. On a course at the dockside offices this morning then I'm planning to work from there for the rest of the day. Which will hopefully also include a swim and a run at the end of the day. I'm watching the events unfolding in Brussels too. I'm very glad my friend Aileen is back from her 2 years in Brussels now. Mal & Neil, thanks for the info about the Tyne Dock 24. There's nothing yet on their website. Went out for skiing with Aileen after work to Hillend. We enjoyed the novelty of skiing in daylight there, we've only ever done our lessons there after dark! Then met up with our friend Gill and my gf for a fondue night in town. Have a good day everyone!

Not long after I started in the Scottish Executive (as it was then) I was working in Private Office (I was a private secretary to some of the spin doctors) during the Purdah for the 2003 elections and of course everything came to a complete halt for a month. I'd not long started in the job, so didn't have mountains of filing to do (then again nor did most of my colleagues as it's for policy teams not Private Office to file stuff). As a result, we spent a good chunk of Purdah playing hangman and nipping out for ice lollies... Sounds like you had an enjoyable Purdah too! (Purdah is considered by some as politically incorrect now, and many prefer the term "pre-election period")

Morning all from a sunny Scottish HQ, and congratulations to Mike on the new arrival! We're into the last 3 days of this Parliament here in Scotland (it finishes on Wednesday night - not Thursday as I'd previously thought, so I've go an extra day of Purdah that I didn't know about! Had a busy weekend with heading down to Durham on Friday afternoon and then to Harrogate on Saturday for my cousin's daughter's christening. Then washed the car, made Sunday lunch (with Dad) for everyone and then drove back to Edinburgh via Glasgow! I'm now in work for a rest - though not for long as I'm leaving early today to go skiing at Hillend dry slope. This will be a novelty - first time I've skied there in daylight! Then off for fondue at a French restaurant in town. I'm firmly resisting temptation on the Sutton Class 24 at the moment. Though if they do the Tyne Dock - Consett variant I might crumble... Or a 25 or 27... I've been looking through the thread on here and spotted that Dave (Torr Giffard) was a regular contributor. Hope all are well or improving!

Morning all (just!) from Scottish HQ. Not had time yet to catch up on all the goings on... Opened the parcel. Unfortunately one of the air horns on the 37 is snapped and pointing at a 90 degree angle to where it ought to point, but I guess a wee spot of cyano should see to that. Certainly not worth the hassle of sending it back to Portishead... Doing a mad rush around Scotland for the rest of this afternoon. Have to pick Jamie up at school at 3, maybe into Glasgow to collect some framed prints, then down to Durham with Jamie. We're heading to my cousin's daughter's christening in Harrogate tomorrow. Hope everyone's well. TTFN...

Afternoon all from cloudy Scottish HQ. Polly - commiserations on your loss. I'm sure the good memories will keep you strong over the coming days. Full of busy as we approach the end of the parliamentary term here in Scotland. We're entering the final week of the session now, so we're in last-minute panic mode trying to get Ministers to agree to all the things we want them to clear before they hit the campaign trail. Hope Jock got on well at his appointment this morning. Hope everyone else is well or recovering! My parcel arrived yesterday but I've not yet opened it. It was propped against my front door when I got home last night. Not especially secure for a £200+ train set... Laptop's mostly working. Had a slightly frustrating experience with Apple yesterday - as the DVD drive isn't working, I thought it would be simple enough to buy an Apple USB superdrive and plug it in and use that (rather than repair as I'm thinking about buying a new iMac desktop in the next couple of years and the superdrive would be needed for that). Unfortunately the USB superdrive only works with Macs without optical drives. (Why?!) Ended up returning it within 6 hours of buying it and getting my money back. Have now purchased MS Office on download through work at £9.95 instead.

Morning all from a mizzly Scottish HQ. Well, after an initial failure yesterday, once I got home and tried again on wifi, the installation still wouldn't load. So I attempted a different iCloud address and hey presto, Yosemite installed - in less than half an hour. Then spent the rest of the night downloading and installing El Capitan - which works! Only problem is it hasn't cured my non-functioning DVD drive, but that was a long shot anyway. There's always camping at Castlerigg Farm near Keswick - I've done that a couple of times and enjoyed it. It's handily positioned for the Castlerigg Stone Circle, Keswick and Catbells (one of the prettiest of the Wainwrights). Fully agree with Jamie - The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop is an absolute must. Manna from heaven.

Morning all from a dreary Scottish HQ! Busy weekend including lunch with friends and their 18 month old girl, skiing and running with Jamie. I'm having fun with computers. I never did get to the bottom of installing El Capitan on my iMac without losing the emails I had from BT internet. I haven't tried again since so I may well do that at some point (though given the trials I'm going through just now, I may leave it a week or two). My MacBook Pro (running Yosemite) was full and has been running glacially slow so I decided to wipe it and do a clean install of El Capitan. I created a bootable USB drive of El Capitan, I backed up, I copied files to a flash drive too and then hit the wipe button. All good so far. Now it won't load the version of El Capitan on the USB stick, and doesn't like the idea of loading Yosemite (to then upgrade to El Capitan later) over wifi at the moment. I'll try again tonight at home. And if that fails, I guess a trip to the Genius Bar... Hope everyone's as well as can be expected. I succumbed to the temptation in the end and ordered the Highlander Bachmann set on Saturday night from Modelrailwaysdirect. No sign of it despatching yet though.

Morning all from a cloudy Scottish HQ. Hope everyone's well/improving and it's good to see Jock back in the fold. I'm desperately trying to motivate myself after a really busy week last week. And also trying not to spend £225 on the discounted Highlander digital sound set... GF has got a bad case of Gumtree addiction and has been buying furniture willy-nilly. My living room now contains a chest of drawers and rocking chair in the process of being upcycled, and my car now contains the base of a Singer sewing table and a footstool! Beginning to fear for my sanity as my flat is already overcrowded...

Yep - the HH ones are in the darker green and cream of the West Highland Line (Glasgow to Mallaig) and the Highlander ones are the set used on the Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh line. Bachmann are doing a coach and ex-class 101 observation car in the Kyle line green and cream (just announced).

Morning all from a sunny Scottish HQ. Mike's name finder worked well for me and where I met my exes but not current GF. My surname crops up most around Durham and South Yorkshire. Survived both the Committee appearance yesterday and the debate. Watched the Committee evidence back last night and cringed. I'm not a fan of seeing myself on tv as I never look or sound anything like I think I do. Flights and accommodation have now been booked for Disneyland Paris at the end of June and Jamie's mum informed... GF (Anamaria) is working on a new project - we picked up a very dark varnished welsh dresser on Sunday night and are "upcycling" it. The flat table surface on it has had a sand (needs more) and the cupboards and shelving is getting painted cream. It makes a huge difference to how it looks! Before I forget, it's popped up on FB to remind me - happy birthday Ian!

Get well soon! If you'd said it was your head hurting I certainly wouldn't have been surprised from the recent posts about inclines!

Good news, pleased to hear that Mal! Good luck and best wishes to everyone else under the weather at the moment (Jock, Debs, and all others!) Just waiting to be called down to Parliament to support one of our Ministers in a 6pm debate - the joys of being a policy official!

I hadn't been born yet...

Morning all from Scottish HQ! Short day for me as I'm heading down the ECML to Durham this afternoon. Then back up to Chester-Le-Street, then back down to Durham (no decent connections between Newcastle and CLS annoyingly!) Coming back up tomorrow, then getting a train straight to Dalgety Bay for a quiz at the Sailing Club there with friends. Then back down to Edinburgh. Sunday will be swimming lesson with Jamie first thing, then off to Glasgow Show (if BoD's left anything there to buy!)

Afternoon all from Scottish HQ. I've had another madly busy day, can't wait for Parliament to rise for the elections (though that does come with the downside of there being elections...). One month to go... Been down to see the Minister this afternoon, we're appearing at the Health and Sport Committee on Tuesday morning so had to go and brief her.

Afternoon all from a very sunny Scottish HQ! I had to head down to Durham yesterday (late) afternoon and then back up again this morning. Beautiful frosty morning, -3 in Rochester (north of Otterburn, not the one in Kent, I hadn't taken a detour!) and some very light snow as I drove up to Carter Bar and down to Jedburgh. Was playing roadkill bingo - spotted (already extinct, not as a result of me imitating the North Wales police...) a deer, 2 badgers, a fox, a hare and a pheasant. Just needed a sheep to get a full house... Great to hear Jock's on the mend. Hope everyone else is doing as well as can be expected!

That's the one - V Deep was owned by Hardeep Singh Kohli, though he's recently sold on his share in it. Hope everyone's well - it's been a busy few days for me, and this week's particularly hectic. I have to drive down to Durham after work today and be back tomorrow morning for work... Fingers crossed Jock's ok too. Hope to hear from him again soon.

Hope Jock's scan goes well, and as others have said, best wishes to Is, Mal and others too.

Afternoon all from a grey Scottish HQ. Went out for dinner last night at an Italian restaurant near the flat - GF and I had our first date on 13th Feb last year, and the first meal we had was in Giuliano's so we went back (although to a different branch as we had a 50% off voucher for that branch!) last night. Off out tonight for birthday meal and drinks with friends at a Scottish Indian fusion restaurant that we went to last month and enjoyed. My diet's taking a beating so I'll need to get back on it tomorrow...