The Night Mail

[Tony_S]

23 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

It's probably why Dave only drinks coffee.

 

Having discussed putting sheep and their droppings into one of the fields on his line,  I suddenly wondered where he gets his ground coffee from?

I have been placing 4mm/ft scale sheep on field. I was a bit worried about a cliff edge and what to do. I think it would have been ok for goats. 

[Happy Hippo]

35 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I have been placing 4mm/ft scale sheep on field. I was a bit worried about a cliff edge and what to do. I think it would have been ok for goats. 

Remember the Goat Lords of Llandudno?

 

They rule the streets!

 

 

 

 

 

[Mike Bellamy]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 . . . . . . medically recovered but his mobility had suffered greatly and he was taken into a community hospital in Ludlow for recuperation - Ludlow being a mere 60 miles from us. Sadly his mobility did not improve and after several weeks the physiotherapists declared that they could do no more and would we please arrange for him to be moved. The options were for him to return home with carers visiting or go into a care home and eventually we persuaded him that the latter was the better solution so three weeks ago he was taken to a home just six miles from us. Since then I have been occupied with a plethora of legal and financial dealings that I won't go into but suffice it to say that they are long and drawn out and won't be resolved for a long time yet.

 

Good to have you back with us Dave - the issues with your dad are very similar to father-in-law last year who fell a number of times after becoming very unsteady as old age caught up with him about 10 years after a stroke. The final straw was when he lost his balance getting off the toilet, fell backwards and cracked his shoulder on the edge of the WC. A&E wanted to send him home after putting his arm in a sling, until we asked if they had actually seen him stand up - the nurse admitted that he had been treated on the ambulance trolley that had brought him in and so they hadn't had him standing at all. Obviously with one arm out of action he couldn't use his walking frame and stayed in Lincoln hospital for about 4 weeks - this was the height of second lockdown and so we couldn't visit at all. Two weeks at Gainsborough for rehabilitation which didn't do much good then back to Lincoln again as he got a water infection.

 

By the time he was "medically recovered" again he had lost the use of his legs and had to be hoisted in and out of a wheelchair. We got him into a home at Grantham and then had many many trips from Derby for the house clearance and sale. We now have no worries about him as he's in a good place with happy and friendly staff - as a result we are now taking holidays again making use of our touring caravan and don't feel quite so guilty about not visiting every week. Luckily we had arranged Power of Attorney a while ago for both Financial and Health & Welfare and so my wife was able to make all the arrangements for him. 

 

There is light at the end of the tunnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

.

 

 

[Tony_S]

When we last went to stay with friends in Norfolk we were taken out for a fish and chip meal in Cromer. I liked watching the goats there. They live on the cliffs and control the vegetation. They didn’t wander round the town though. 

[iL Dottore]

Interesting beasts, goats. And pretty smart as well (I think they are considered to be smarter than sheep).

They are also, from a culinary point of view, as useful as sheep: apart from the cheese made from the goats milk, the meat from goats makes for excellent curries, stews, grills et cetera. Unfortunately, at least here in Switzerland, goat meat is very hard to get hold of – except around Easter when in many parts of Switzerland kid is traditionally eaten. Which is a pity because I really like fiery curries and some of the fieriest are from West Africa or the Caribbean and require either kid or goat meat. Many curries from the Indian subcontinent also use goat meat. Although, or so I understand, nowadays many restaurants substitute lamb for the goat meat.

 

Good to see DH back. 

[AndyID]

Speaking of cobbles there was a cobblers shop in Paisley that was in a block of tenements that was about to be demolished due to "modernization". They put a large sign in the window which read:

 

"WE ARE STICKING TO THE LAST"

[pH]

It’s not just Alcos that smoke:
 

https://www.railpictures.net/photo/804686/
 

[TheQ]

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I have been placing 4mm/ft scale sheep on field. I was a bit worried about a cliff edge and what to do. I think it would have been ok for goats. 

Sheep don't need a cliff to walk off, they are masters of winning Darwin awards.

 

I already have Shaun wandering around the station platform, there will quiet a few on the roads as well as the moorland.. Think there may be 500 eventually..

[TheQ]

I think it was in "Coot Club " they mentioned the old way ..

Kettle /teapot permanently on the low burning stove, add a tea spoon of tea every time you pour a cup... never Empty the pot of tea leaves until you couldn't get any more water in it.

[Happy Hippo]

54 minutes ago, TheQ said:

I think it was in "Coot Club " they mentioned the old way ..

Kettle /teapot permanently on the low burning stove, add a tea spoon of tea every time you pour a cup... never Empty the pot of tea leaves until you couldn't get any more water in it.

Another that sticks in my mind are the 'Billies' who were a father and son team in Swallows and Amazons.  They were charcoal burners and for some reason kept an Adder (Vipera berus) in a tin box.

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Interesting beasts, goats. And pretty smart as well (I think they are considered to be smarter than sheep).

They are also, from a culinary point of view, as useful as sheep: apart from the cheese made from the goats milk, the meat from goats makes for excellent curries, stews, grills et cetera. Unfortunately, at least here in Switzerland, goat meat is very hard to get hold of – except around Easter when in many parts of Switzerland kid is traditionally eaten. Which is a pity because I really like fiery curries and some of the fieriest are from West Africa or the Caribbean and require either kid or goat meat. Many curries from the Indian subcontinent also use goat meat. Although, or so I understand, nowadays many restaurants substitute lamb for the goat meat.

 

Good to see DH back. 

I went to a Gurhka restaurant in Aldershot once and there were many goat meat curries on offer. Not as fiery as more southerly Sub Continent foods but absolutely delicious with creamy sauces. The place was spotless and the service auperb.

 

Jamie

[bbishop]

17 hours ago, bbishop said:

 

I use dried tea leaves as ground cover, sprinkled on the final skim of plaster.  Don't use coffee grounds, they are hygroscopic.

Dave, lovely to have you back.  Bill

..... or did I mean deliquescent?  It's almost 50 years since my chemistry degree!  Off to Lord's later for a 20/20 match: not my favourite form of cricket.  Bill

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, bbishop said:

..... or did I mean deliquescent?  It's almost 50 years since my chemistry degree!  

 

I think that the term "Yucky" would probably cover it Bill.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

of I went to a Gurhka restaurant in Aldershot once and there were many goat meat curries on offer. Not as fiery as more southerly Sub Continent foods but absolutely delicious with creamy sauces. The place was spotless and the service auperb.

 

Jamie

 

When I was on the jungle survival course in 1968, one day my team of four were suddenly surrounded by a group of Gurkhas, which almost resulted in the brown trouser syndrome. A British officer stepped forward and said, "You chaps on the survival course? Many apologies if we startled you but we were just using you for a bit of surveillance practice - hope you don't mind." After our pulse rates got below about 200 and he asked where we were heading for. He then got two of his lads to go on ahead and find a good camping spot for us whilst others of his platoon got a brew and some nosh on the go. I don't know what was in the stew but it tasted good, especially after three days of the grot we'd been living on and when the two scouts came back they'd not only found us a great place to camp for the night but had blazed the trail for us. I just love the Gurkhas.

 

Dave

[Gwiwer]

5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

at least here in Switzerland, goat meat is very hard to get hold of …... Many curries from the Indian subcontinent also use goat meat. Although, or so I understand, nowadays many restaurants substitute lamb for the goat meat.

First of all belated birthday wishes. These wishes have been delayed due to a fault with the signalling system (I fell asleep before posting) and you may be entitled to Delay Repay compensation. 😂

 

Goat meat isn’t readily available in most supermarkets that I have ever shopped in here nor is it on offer online from the likes of Ocado. It is easy enough to obtain if one happens to live in an area with a large Caribbean population and sometimes from Indian outlets. Neither are in abundance locally to the Hill of Strawberries. 
 

I can get goat meat from specialist online sources but it’s usually on tbe bone and more expensive than good steak. Many goat dishes do use meat on the bone but at the offered price per kilo knowing half the weight will effectively go to waste it’s a costly treat. 
 

I recently found a supplier offering diced goat meat off the bone and at a quite reasonable price. It arrived, I took one look and understood why. It’s about 50% fat and gristle. When cooked (even very slowly) it came out like leather. So not the good deal it might have been. 
 

I love a good goat vindaloo. I’m prepared to investigate Afro-Carib dishes which is a cuisine I’m not terribly familiar with. To date the best goat curries I have enjoyed were in a small family-run restaurant in the “Indian Republic of” Dandenong, in Melbourne’s SE suburbs.  An area where meat and dairy goats are also reared commercially and as a backyard hobby. 
 

Dragon-in-Law seriously thought about meat-goat farming at one time. She had in her mind that all you needed was a lot of grazing land (which she then had) and some goats. Ah no. It’s far more complex as she found out and abandoned the required government learning after half an hour in the class!  

[New Haven Neil]

In my old team tea bags had a strict hierarchy, but it wasn't what you expected.  The really, really strong, leave the bag in if you can, builder grade tea was for the delicate young blonde probation officer, the dead bag was then used to make a mug of slightly tainted water for the ruffy-tuffy, almost-got-his-30-in police inspector who was the overall boss.  Role reversal!

 

Nice to see Dave calling by.

[Happy Hippo]

Whilst Dave and I were swinging the lamp and resting on sandbags yesterday, the subject of simplification came up.

 

Without wishing to bore you all, I'll leave out what was said, but I did decide to carry out quite a bit of simplification on the electrical side of Pantmawr North.

 

Dave thought this was probably a sound idea,as he is a great believer in simplicity:  Which is probably why I ended up in the army!

 

PN is very much a DCC two wire system, which works, but the need for the motorising of  the signalling and point work was requiring a separate power supply and the incorporation of the Megapoints servo controller and relay driver to operate the points and signals.

 

Plus of course, I had to build all the signals.

 

It seemed a lot of work for such a small layout wen in all honesty, the Servo control board would be better used elsewhere.

 

So, this morning we (Gordon and I) stripped out three Cobalt motors off Splott West Sidings.  although I do have a specific driver for these to run with the Mega points system, they are quite capable of running in their original 'stall format', so this meant that the crossover and the single turnout for the sidings could be operated from two dpdt switches.

 

Signalling has been revised.  There is now just a pair of lower quadrant home signals to control the through line, whilst the crossover will now be controlled by a pair of  ground discs.  In reality they would be independently controlled, but I've decided to drive them off the stretcher bars of their respective turnouts.  They will really function in the same way as the old fashioned point indicator changing as the turnout changes route.

 

I accept that this wasn't really the way things were done but it reduces the control panel right down to 5 switches.  Two for signals, two for points and one push button for the uncoupler magnets.

 

Although I do have some signals in build, a generous donation to the railway budget has allowed me to purchase a pair of the Dapol  GWR LQ home signals which will operate in much the same way as the turnout motors.  since they are plonk and play, all I need to do is provide a power source.

 

This change of tack should theoretically speed up the build process.

 

I did say theoretically....

 

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by Happy Hippo

[jamie92208]

53 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

When I was on the jungle survival course in 1968, one day my team of four were suddenly surrounded by a group of Gurkhas, which almost resulted in the brown trouser syndrome. A British officer stepped forward and said, "You chaps on the survival course? Many apologies if we startled you but we were just using you for a bit of surveillance practice - hope you don't mind." After our pulse rates got below about 200 and he asked where we were heading for. He then got two of his lads to go on ahead and find a good camping spot for us whilst others of his platoon got a brew and some nosh on the go. I don't know what was in the stew but it tasted good, especially after three days of the grot we'd been living on and when the two scouts came back they'd not only found us a great place to camp for the night but had blazed the trail for us. I just love the Gurkhas.

 

Dave

My friend who was in armoured cars also has respe t for the Ghurkas.  In Borneo he was out on pateol withanother Saladin when a British Ghurka officer asked him for help.  They had sone I Indonesian Guerrillas trapped in a cave but didn't want to storm it.  They as Keith if he could put a few rounds of 76mm i to the cave. Keith obliged and there were no Ghurka casualties.  When they got back to camp and i dented for some more 76mm ammo the proverbial hit the fan.  Apparently  there was a line on the map beyond which the main armament was not to be used for political reasons.  Everyone p,eaded ignorance and Keith and the two crws got a case of whisky from the Ghurka  officer.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

2 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

My friend who was in armoured cars also has respe t for the Ghurkas.  In Borneo he was out on pateol withanother Saladin when a British Ghurka officer asked him for help.  They had sone I Indonesian Guerrillas trapped in a cave but didn't want to storm it.  They as Keith if he could put a few rounds of 76mm i to the cave. Keith obliged and there were no Ghurka casualties.  When they got back to camp and i dented for some more 76mm ammo the proverbial hit the fan.  Apparently  there was a line on the map beyond which the main armament was not to be used for political reasons.  Everyone p,eaded ignorance and Keith and the two crws got a case of whisky from the Ghurka  officer.

 

Jamie

These maps were about as much good as a chocolate fireguard.

 

I had a similar incident with an officer from HQ berating us over a small shooting incident.

 

'You can't shoot from there'.

 

'We didn't, we shot from here, which is quite legitimate. The RoE make no prohibitions on firing south from say  A-X into Z, only that one cannot fire to the south, from anywhere south of point Y.  We were well north of  point Y so the prohibition could not apply.' 

 

Shortly afterwards (about 12 hours in fact) the RoE were revised.

[Tony_S]

26 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

We were well north of  point Y so the prohibition could not apply.' 

Did the weapon have a very long barrel?

[Tony_S]

59 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Role reversal

Normal here for tea too. Aditi drinks it strong with a tiny splash of milk and I have it the exact opposite. We don’t share a teabag though.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

When I was on the jungle survival course in 1968, one day my team of four were suddenly surrounded by a group of Gurkhas, which almost resulted in the brown trouser syndrome.

 

Bear has been to the much-missed open days at Fawley Hill; Lord McAlpine entrusted security to retired Gurkhas - they were "getting on a bit" (and some).  However they had a certain aura surrounding them which quietly said "don't f. with me, sonny, cos' you WILL regret it....."

Very nice people - Bear is a fan.

 

47 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Apparently  there was a line on the map beyond which the main armament was not to be used for political reasons. 

 

Rules made by shiney's flying a desk that don't have jobs like going into caves after the bad 'uns.

[Happy Hippo]

17 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Did the weapon have a very long barrel?

No it was the wrong rifle(s) for the job.

 

If we could have had an L96A1 with a scope, rather than a couple of bog standard SLR (L1A1) using iron sights at over 400yds, we would probably have been more successful with a lot less noise.

[br2975]

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Interesting beasts, goats. And pretty smart as well (I think they are considered to be smarter than sheep).

 

.

Being a Welshman, a lifetime's  experience dictates you are correct.................

[Tony_S]

54 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Rules made by shiney's flying a desk that don't have jobs like going into caves after the bad 'uns.

At the end of WW2 Dad was stationed in Flensburg. There were persistent rumours about former Nazi officials attempting to cross the border to Denmark. Also rumours about Werwolf resistance units occupying abandoned  mines. Nobody seemed keen on entering the mines to check, just in case they weren’t rumours. So they usually just collapsed the entrance, after calling out to see if anyone answered. The “resistance gang” attacking army convoys turned out to be criminals rather than guerilla activity.