RMweb Premium Andy Hayter Posted December 24, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 24, 2023 Agree Enjoy Then look forward to the drive back. 🤥 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted December 25, 2023 Author Share Posted December 25, 2023 Oh the journey's not yet done as in two days time we're off to Porn ic sans dog for New Year's Eve and then back here on the 1st and then home with dog on the 2nd. Stay safe and enjoy Boxing Day, Philip 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted December 25, 2023 Author Share Posted December 25, 2023 Ooh, I forgot to say that Mrs Philou came up trumps as she had got from my fave emporium Lord & Butler, a Rapido 15XX with sound, no less, and without any hints my end! Nice looking loco in lined black and early crest, but I may have to wait until 2157 to run it in (2157 is a date mentioned in the accompanying notes). 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
37Oban Posted December 26, 2023 Share Posted December 26, 2023 13 hours ago, Philou said: Nice looking loco in lined black and early crest, but I may have to wait until 2157 to run it in (2157 is a date mentioned in the accompanying notes). I wouldn't wait until then! Been there, it's not a good time to visit, over-crowded and anyone who models anything from the previous centuries gets, er, re-educated! Roja 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted December 26, 2023 Author Share Posted December 26, 2023 2 hours ago, 37Oban said: Been there, it's not a good time to visit, I understand that it's probably not a good thing to wait that long anyway - something to do with warranties, or somesuch ......... How are you all? Fed up or just fedup? Hope you've had some plum pud - none here unfortunately :( . 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold lezz01 Posted December 26, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 26, 2023 The curried goat went down a storm. With enough for 4 more meals in the freezer. Regards Lez. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
37Oban Posted December 26, 2023 Share Posted December 26, 2023 Roast best rib of beef and all the trimmings and plum pud yesterday, cold beef with leek, red pepper and cauliflour in a cream sauce tonight all prepared by me! Roja 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold lezz01 Posted December 26, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 26, 2023 Tonight it's either kebab or leftover Lancashire hot pot depending on how we do with the things that need doing as we are both off work today. TBH it's going so well that we are nearly done now so we should have everything done, tools put away and our feet up in about an hour. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? Regards Lez. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Andy Hayter Posted December 26, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted December 26, 2023 Chapon (capon), pigs in blankets with all the trimmings yesterday and Aberdeen Angus with Yorkshire pudding this evening. Too full for plum pud* both nights. * and we do have 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold GWR57xx Posted December 26, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 26, 2023 Fillet steak a la Beef Wellington yesterday as a special treat. No Christmas Pud though, but I wouldn’t have been able to find room for it anyway. Something a bit lighter today. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted December 27, 2023 Author Share Posted December 27, 2023 Mmmmm ..... sounds like you all had a good Christmas. Beef Wellington, curried goat, beef rib, c(h)apon (we had that), pud ...... mmmmmm. I do have a hankering for a good UK style Xmas dinner despite having been here 21 years - pigs in blanket, devil on horseback, the little trimmings that just make it so - British - yes and even the humble Brussels sprout tossed in the frying pan with finely cut bacon - even the kids eat that! Have a good day, Philip 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted December 31, 2023 Author Share Posted December 31, 2023 Today's the day! I'm doing this now as it'll be hectic later and likely to be rather jolly to, so ........... Happy New Year to you all and thank you for your thumbs up and support in my endeavour. Hopefully progress will continue at a good pace through 2024 - real life notwithstanding! Good luck too with your particular layouts/constructions. Best wishes, Philip 6 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 Hello chums and chumesses, Well the New Year has definitely begun, so welcome back! I'm home and so is Mrs Philou plus dog. Rain, rain, and more rain for 500miles! Oh, and the strong cross-winds on the motorway today - not much fun at all - but we got back a little before nightfall to a very cold house but three happy cats who were pleased to see us - awww. No modelling today - can't think why though. Restart tomorrow even if for only a short time as I expect the barn will have cooled right down as well. More tomorrow, Cheers, Philip 5 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold lezz01 Posted January 2 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 2 Happy New Year To you and yours Philip. Regards Lez. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Andy Hayter Posted January 2 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 2 Best wishes for '24 from me as well. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 3 Author Share Posted January 3 Hello everyone, It was a start ...... and that was about it, really. I did go into the barn and it wasn't as cold as I thought and retrieved the wall that I had nearly finished before the holidays, made some slight adjustments to the fit and grabbed all my materials to continue cutting and papering. Unfortunately Mrs Philou's friend (and mine) called around and an exchange of holiday notes ensued - that was modelling time down the pan before lunch. After lunch it was walkies and I hadn't been in long when our Dutch neighbour called by for a further exchange of holiday notes and to say they were off tomorrow - so most of the afternoon disappeared too. I did manage however to get the third pilaster made up and all the copings cut ready to finish off. This led me to have altercations with the printer as I couldn't do what I wanted to do directly from the laptop and had to use the titchy tiny screen on the printer to enable an enlargement of a copy of some stonework to be printed. Hoorah! you'll all be saying - but no - Mrs Philou has lost her Hotmail account password and she can't access her Gmail one either (incorrect password) so the last of the afternoon was spent trying to sort that out - but I'm none the wiser despite having sent my inside leg measurements and the promise of a kidney from my first born to Microsoft so we can recover the account - I'm not holding out much hope!! I might get a little done tomorrow morning before we head off to Big town to buy enough food for Christmas lunch on Saturday (yes another Christmas lunch - this time with my daughter, partner, grandson and his other grandmother plus world and dog :)) ) I think I may have over estimated the amount of work I felt I should have got done today. Never mind, it'll come together - eventually! More tomorrow - maybe. Cheers, Philip 1 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 Well tomorrow came and went and became today with nothing done except putting some wrappers around the buttress caps and then wrapping up parcels for our second (or is it third) Christmas lunch. Bit of a house clean too as with three cats and the hairy Lump, there tends to be a collection of tumbleweed sized hairballs that chase each other around the floors .............. So that is it for a few days - Christmas lunch, then a Sunday birthday party lunch and Monday fibre is being connected from the street to the house - yay! However, I have to get the club's financial report ready for the AGM a week tomorrow so there'll be much getting paperwork up to date - another day I think. So just maybe Wednesday I can get back to 'work' :))) . Cheers everyone - enjoy the weekend as it's just begun! Philip 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffP Posted January 6 Share Posted January 6 Fibre? That'll be France Telecom-Orange, then? Best of luck.🤫 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 6 Author Share Posted January 6 8 hours ago, JeffP said: That'll be France Telecom-Orange, then? We..e..e..ell yes but no but ...... apparently France Telecom as an entity doesn't really exist - it's all Orange. In this département, the overseeing cable backbone provider (the physical bit) is Orange and the fibre here was laid outside the door 4 years ago and we were expecting great things then - but we are the very last district to be physically connected to it. To break up the Orange monopoly as a provider it was specified that once the backbone was laid ANY provider could have access and do the final connection. We've gone with SFR as they're the only ones that bothered to call and sell their wares. The département also specified that the connection to the fibre from a private dwelling should be free - as in free beer whether 4m or 400m away. The downside is that our final bit of the connection from the house to the main will be aerial despite the fact that the conduit is outside the door and the draw-cable was put in place last summer. The whole shebang has cost the département €200M in cable laying and final connection to the box inside the house. As ever the optimist, it should all be done tomorrow, but in case there's no message on here tomorrow night, you'll guess that we have had a problem! If the technician cuts us adrift from Orange and doesn't reconnect us, then we're stuffed as there'll be no phone - fixed or mobile and therefore no t'intertubes either! Fingers crossed. Cheers, Philip PS: I did say rather flippantly yesterday that today was our third Christmas meal - wrong! Mrs Philou did the maths at table today - the seventh! 2 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 7 Author Share Posted January 7 Hmmmmmm ....... brain-fart alert! Yesterday's tomorrow is Sunday, the fibre isn't until Monday which is now tomorrow - d'oh! :)) 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 Good news! Despite the over-night snow (only about 10mm) the SFR technician turned up and started giving the existing cabling the once over. 'Harrumph. The existing telephone cable's buried in your wall.' 'Not so. Just where it came out was a touch of plaster applied to give a nice finish to the paint.' He then observed that the phone cable then went into an internal conduit which, as I explained to him, goes into a roof space where it goes into a box and then splits up to serve 5 outlets. Despite the cold, he didn't want a hot drink and set off back outside and tied the new fibre cable to the existing telephone cable and then came inside again, up his telescopic ladder and pulled the old cable that came through the wall without resistance drawing the new behind. He pulled a huuuuuge length of new into the house and then tied the end of it to the the bit hanging out of the internal conduit. Off he went taking his telescopic ladder to the roof space. 'There's light already laid in there for you'. 'Hmmph, fibre-glass.' 'Yup, fibre-glass insulation.' No more was said and he drew the old and new through the conduit into the roof space and then proceeded to try and determine which cable went where as I never marked them - not ever intending to touch them again. After half an hour of tugging on the cables (all CAT 5) and no success, I started to tug at my end to see if he could detect which one was moving - no luck. I asked him eventually what it was he wanted to do. Turns out he wanted, for reasons of aesthetics, to pass his fibre through my conduit into the roof space and then back down to where the terminal box was to go - distance of over 20m. Why do it the hard way? The terminal box would only be 5m away from where it came in from the outside - d'oh! Mrs Philou and I said just take a short cut and we'll hide the cable by either painting it white from its existing black or put it inside some self-adhesive mini-conduit. The inside job was then completed in 5mins! I have a length of black fibre cable to paint later and it so happens, I'm going to have re-decorate anyway as it's been a very long time since the walls were white-washed (oh yes, real white wash!). By midday, we were wired up and I'm connected - it's not blazing fast as this laptop is starting to get old (tested it on another system and it was veeeery slow) - but it's x9 faster than before, so I'm happy. No modelling update and the club's finances must take priority tomorrow as I'm legally obliged to present accounts due to the laws (not regulations) governing societies (Associations) over here. Toodle pip, More tomorrow, Philip 10 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 I'm afraid finances trumped modelling today - everything came together but as I've only got the bank statements to work from, I'm lacking the receipt details to put expenditure in its right category (oh yes, no lumping of everything into one column!). The proper accounts, as done by the mairies over here, can have a fair few hundred codes for all sorts of different expenditure - we're spared that! The day was partially taken up by Mrs Philou wanting to access the new contract with SFR and unable to get her password to work - as with every other site she seems to access - I have no idea of what goes on. I just type in the info required and away I go. By the time that was sorted it wasn't really worth starting any modelling. Tomorrow will probably be a non-modelling day too as I need to go see Hon. Chair and Hon. Sec and fill in the details and do a proper cooking of the books (only kidding - honest!) so that the accounts are in a form that are clear to anyone who would like to have a look at the details, no point doing accounts otherwise. I dish out a four-liner for the members to approve at the AGM that just shows start of year balance, end of year balance, income total and outgoing total. There is an accompanying generalised breakdown of income and outgoings (where things are lumped together). The detailed output where everything is grouped by class of expenditure is attached to the minutes but I don't distribute that, but it is available to view by everyone. This last sheet and the approved four-liner is what would be sent to the Préfecture if asked. Hey ho - and people wonder why the retired never have any time! More tomorrow, Cheers, Philip 1 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 Hello chums and chumesses, On the home straight - the club's accounts are balanced without any cooking, I may add. There had been a lot of movement this year through the accounts but only because the club had been able to attend a lot more shows and exhibitions than before and everything fell into place - but there were a lot of loose threads that needed tying first. It all took much, much longer than anticipated as the itemised sheet has twice as many entries compared to last year, hence no modelling at all and no update yesterday! Tomorrow is the AGM and I have a huge pile of paper to dish out :( so I'll probably be away most of the day. Can I hope to do a bit on Sunday? Cheers everyone and I'll let you know how I get on. Philip 1 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 Hello chaps and chapesses, It was a near-disaster yesterday at the AGM. I had three sheets in varying details of the accounts ready to give to everyone plus the now jigsaw spreadsheet for me and the Hon Chair and Sec to have at hand during the meeting when I noticed that the simple resumé (the one to be signed off as the correct record of the statement of balance) was not correct! Very much an EEEK!! moment. Fortunately the meeting hadn't started and I had to strike out the one figure and insert the new by hand (and no Tippex either) and sign the correction. The rest of the data and other sheets were - luckily - correct. As it turned out, it wasn't to be our usually comfy meeting as the local town maire turned up together with a big-wig from Paris (Hon Sec from the Railwaymen's Clubs Union (UAICF)). They had a perfect right to be there as we receive grants and subsidies from both and likely to get double this coming year (1200€), a sum not to be sniffed at. In the end it all went well following a mea culpa from me (being interrupted in my flow whilst correcting and printing the day before) and the accounts were unanimously accepted and signed off - phew. There was a question that threw me completely by the UAICF Hon Sec as to why there was a big discrepancy between income and outgoings (€1500) for the one show (so happens sponsored by the UAICF) whereas there wasn't very much for all the other seven. I didn't understand the question as I couldn't see the point - in the end it became clear as it was the first big show (for us) of the year and it was income from tables, meals and the bar that gave us a good return, whereas the others we were there as guests and therefore no income for us on those days only outgoings. In the end all was well. Today, well it was today and it was far as it went as I thought I'd better start the year properly and created a new set of accounts! Tomorrow, time is mine! Yay! Cheers, Philip 4 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philou Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 Hello chums and chumesses, After a stop - start day, I finally completed the short retaining wall and coloured it with my usual black and green weathering pastels. I haven't photoed it yet as I want to give it a waft of acrylic matt varnish first and it was too darn cold in the barn - -5° today and I doubt if the spray can would have worked well anyway. Down to -7° tonight so I may have to hold back any spraying until Thursday when it'll warm up. Anyway, save for the spray it's now finished. I shall now start on the retaining wall facing the branch fiddle yard. I may do some plain arches to break up the facade a little - no batters - just plain vertical faces. I could just go for KISS as I'll have three different styles otherwise and I think the engineers of old would have kept styles to a minimum. Any thoughts? I'm happy and it's moving again. Cheers, Philip 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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