The Night Mail

[SM42]

Today is a special day. 

 

Anyone of a Catholic persuasion will be especially aware of the significance of August 15th

 

It is a holiday here. Almost everywhere is closed. 

Festivals and events abound. 

 

It is also nNational Armed Forces Day, so lots of military type events are everywhere. 

 

We have house guests ( Mr SM42's school friend and family) and we about to head out to the tank museum, I think, followed by a food festival in town. 

 

You have to love Poland in August. 

Festivals everywhere 

 

Weather today 32c with thunderstorms. 

 

I will be damp either way. 

 

Andy

 

[Happy Hippo]

I do not need anyone to come up with a PO Wagon in my honour.

 

Can you imagine something along the lines of the Happy Hippo Effluent Company?

 

I presume it would have to be a tank wagons of some description.

 

Although it could bring about the next DCC evolution,

 

Digitally controlled aromas.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

Anyone of a Catholic persuasion will be especially aware of the significance of August 15th

We aren’t Catholic but we have been in many places that are on this date. So when I read Jamie’s post I mentioned to Aditi that it was a holiday in France she said it was Maria Himmelfahrt  (lots of holidays in Austria) but had a complete brain fade about what it was in French. I said I would look  it up on Google but my iPad automatically translates French to English. As soon as I found it she remembered. 

[Happy Hippo]

4 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

 Maria Himmelfahrt 

Rolling Thunder?

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

Today is a special day. 

True. Late MiL's (Deb's mum, not Sherry's) birthday. Being from a Catholic family she was nicknamed Sumpy!

[Tony_S]

10 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Rolling Thunder?

Very appropriate for Italy. Ferragosto was celebrated with huge amounts of fireworks. At one hotel we stayed at there was a gala dinner of so many courses we lost count. Then the waiters carried a huge cake covered in candles shaped like one of the local palazzos round thr dining room. Aditi was really embarrassed when they stopped at our table and asked her to accept the first slice. 

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

The PO wagon idea is a good one Jamie. Bob Essery had several wagons carrying the names of passed friends.

 

Dave

I did try to do a 2P in memory of Jock 67B who was a mainstay of ER's.  Sadly 467 wasn't a 2P.  Good luck with your search.  

 

Jamie

[polybear]

VSBT's to Dave H 😢

Incidentally, I've just checked progress regarding the delivery of LDC I sent to you - it seems to have taken a detour to somewhere called "Hipposhire" and the driver can't be contacted.  All very strange.

[New Haven Neil]

Sorry to hear your news, Dave.  Our most sincere condolences.

 

Funny Jamie mentioned Jock - I was just talking about him last week with a biker pal - Jock and I had many an off-forum chat about bikes, his dad was rather infamous in bike circles too.  I miss him so much, for someone I never met, just talked and wrote to.  Near the end there was a BSA Gold Star special rally here, and I sent him a load of photos from it, he was over the moon with them.  He was gone just days later. 😪

 

As Ian said, remember the good times.

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

VSBT's to Dave H 😢

Incidentally, I've just checked progress regarding the delivery of LDC I sent to you - it seems to have taken a detour to somewhere called "Hipposhire" and the driver can't be contacted.  All very strange.

Crumbs!

[Sabato]

 

 

Happy Hippo

Posted 1 hour ago

Crumbs!

 

Well sweep them up quick, they could be used as evidence.

[Happy Hippo]

What crumbs?

 

[jamie92208]

So e ecellent moist Gi ger cake has been consumed here.  I belueve I may be allowed some more tomorrow.  It's honey and banana loaf tonight. 

 

Jamie

 

Safely across the channel

[Happy Hippo]

I was looking at Pantmawr North and felt perhaps it would lighten the mood if a couple of trains were to be parked up.

 

Here we have 7444 on a short cement train waiting in PN's No 1Siding, whilst D9518, having run around it's train, is now propelling an open wagon with an unidentified part for the Pithead gear into the Colliery sidings.

 

 

 

Quite a bit still to do, including an awful lot of weathering to locos and stock. 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Happy Hippo

[SM42]

Thunderbolts and lightning.

 

Very very frightening

 

Sums up the weather here at the moment. 

 

Andy

[New Haven Neil]

Same here last night - several houses in the Big City struck, some big damage.  Very unusual here to get flashbangs like that.

[SM42]

Today was very warm and the tank museum was absolutely packed

 

Free entry including rides on this

 

 

A 1942 Chevrolet

 

Meanwhile kids were being entrusted to a man on a motorbike, no seat belts and a gun  to play with.

 

It is accepted that most people are generally honest and kids can look after themselves 

 

 

More worrying were serving soldiers offering their side arm to people to look at, but you had to wait for him to take the magazine out first. 

 

Worse still, kids being taught to use an RPG, loaded. One hopes it was deactivated. 

Muzzle awareness was not a major concern except with one soldier demonstrating a machine gun. Maybe that one was real. 

 

I dread to think what would happen if a firing pin was ejected. 

 

Some general views of the display area

 

 

 

 

No safety barriers around moving vehicles  Just an expectation  that people will move out of the way.

 

It was a little shocking to have a display of vehicles destroyed by Ukrainian forces. 

 

Whilst I accept the propaganda value, I couldn't help feeling uncomfortable that people probably died quite recently in these vehicles and whatever your opinion that has to be a little disturbing. 

 

 The Poles however have a very low opinion of Russia so it is not surprising..

 

Andy

Edited August 15, 2022 by SM42

[simontaylor484]

The destroyed Russian vehicles were probably a gift from Ukranian farmers. They seem to have more heavy armour these days than they know what to do with.

 

 

[SM42]

For the tram enthusiast, some of Poznan's newer trams from Modertrans and Solaris

 

 

 

 

 

Andy

[Dave Hunt]

11 hours ago, SM42 said:

Today is a special day. 

 

Anyone of a Catholic persuasion will be especially aware of the significance of August 15th

 

As well as being the feast of the assumption it was also my best mate's birthday and the date of the annual wine festival in Competa, the village in Andalucia where he lived after retiring. Hence, as sometimes happened, we found ourselves staying with him and his wife on August 15th, by the time we'd watched the procession round the village, accompanied by a few beers, then wandering round the festival and sampling the wine, and ending up having a few drops of bubbly plus other libations in his honour, it was definitely not a day when we could count on going to bed stone cold sober. 

 

Although she moved back to UK  after my mate's death, his widow kept the house in Andalucia and we will be going out there with her for a few weeks in October. At the same time two of my old schoolmates and their wives will be just twenty miles away in Nerja whilst another one plus wife will be coming over from their place in Portugal. There is a beerfest at a German bar in Nerja that just happens to coincide with us all being there. Oh, dear....

 

Dave

[Tony_S]

We had double glazing fitted about 15 years ago and I removed the wooden blind that had been in the utility room. I carefully stored it on top of some cupboards. It was originally fitted so our hamster didn’t get sun shining in her cage. The blind had been fixed to the wooden frame but when re installed would need fixing through the plaster to a steel lintel. This I know from other places,in the house isn’t easy. As we never got another hamster I never bothered to put the blind up. Apparently Aditi, although not a hamster also would have liked the blind restored so mentioned it this morning. As expected it was an awful job considering all it needed was four 6mm holes drilling. During the process my Bosch SDS drill went bang and emitted a lot of smoke. The bits that went bang don’t seem to be available. I finished the job using a small electric drill for the masonry drilling and found my ancient Bosch drill for the metalwork It is about 45 years old (so old, it was made in Switzerland). Each hole needed a new drill bit. Anyway the blind is up and I don’t even think Aditi could pull it down. She is very good at finding (totally unintentionally)  anything not fixed firmly.

[SM42]

10 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

There is a beerfest at a German bar in Nerja that just happens to coincide with us all being there. Oh, dear....

 

Dave

 

Oh what luck 😉

 

Andy

[Dave Hunt]

1 minute ago, SM42 said:

 

Oh what luck 😉

 

Andy

 Absolutely - not at all planned 😇

 

Dave

[Tony_S]

While doing the drilling which involves kneeling on a work surface and sink, I did have to ask Aditi not to keep coming into the utility room to observe progress. I did say it was a bit like Schroedinger’s cat and being observed wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I then had to explain the cat in a box experiment. I think Aditi didn’t initially gather it was a thought experiment rather than a practical. I think her comment “Schroedinger must have been upset about someone doing that to his cat” was what gave me a clue. 

[Dave Hunt]

Quite a good day today. I went out to a convivial lunch with the local Probus club then when I got home at about three o'clock Jill announced that we were going to spend the rest of the afternoon in the shed where I got some more of the wagon kit done as well as adding a bit of fencing to my layout. All good stuff for the soul and hence I have once again kicked the black dog back towards the kennel.

 

Dave