Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Just cleaned up my e-mail inbox, but still got  a lot more to trash. Also got an e-mail this morning (in my spam folder) informing me that I had won $850,000 dollars on a lottery but I decided to let some other lucky person have it and just to make sure I blocked the sender.

[roundhouse]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Sun was shining earlier but now its come over a bit dull. It was predicted by the seaweed wranglers together with a bit of wetness this afternoon.

 

Did anyone else spot the young ladies sunbathing topless on the beach?

 

what train

[BoD]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Sun was shining earlier but now its come over a bit dull. It was predicted by the seaweed wranglers together with a bit of wetness this afternoon.

 

 

Did anyone else spot the young ladies sunbathing topless on the beach?

Were they Bo-Bo or Co-Co's?

[PhilJ W]

Were they Bo-Bo or Co-Co's?

Oh-Oh's.

[Barry O]

A bit of muddling done, some eyelid inspection undertaken and the huge win on the Euromillions (all £2.30 of it!) has been spent!

 

Youngest Herbert visited. He had played Hockey for the Club 6th team and was between games as he is also playing for the 5th team.

 

He has a new company car - a Mazda 6 diesel which, I must say is very comfortable to sit in and has a very nice head up display!

 

Time for a drink methinks!

 

Baz

[Tony_S]

Were they Bo-Bo or Co-Co's?

We were in France when Matthew was quite young. A young woman placed all her beach stuff just in front of us and removed her top and lay down. Our son mentioned to his Mum in a nice clear voice, “Mum, when that lady lies down she looks just like a boy”.

[Horsetan]

Oh-Oh's.

 

I'll have what she's having.

[lightengine]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Sun was shining earlier but now its come over a bit dull. It was predicted by the seaweed wranglers together with a bit of wetness this afternoon.

 

 

Did anyone else spot the young ladies sunbathing topless on the beach?

Double G scale methinks

[NGT6 1315]

E‘ning, folks. Just returned from a nice pub dinner and I doubt I can eat anything else tonight now!

 

Other than that, today saw us paying a visit to the North Sea coast and the Multimar aquarium and Wadden Sea info centre at Tönning. Well worth a visit as it’s small enough to be manageable even with young children but large and diverse enough to provide a comprehensive insight into marine wildlife in the North Sea region.

 

 

Oh crab.

 

 

 

Ray egg capsule.

 

 

 

Well, if rays aren’t friendly fish...

 

 

 

Brittle stars.

 

 

 

Between a rock and a hard plaice.

 

 

 

May I introduce you to Ray and Ray, the dynamic duo?

 

 

 

 

 

What I found seriously interesting was seeing not only mature jellyfish, but also juvenile examples and indeed polyps.

 

 

 

Seahorses resting.

 

 

 

I was quite surprised by how large lobsters actually are, too.

 

 

 

 

Sturgeons are rather impressive critters, aren’t they?

 

 

 

There be wolffish lurking in the dark.

 

 

Hope everyone‘s okay, especially John after his scare. RTAs of any kind aren’t fun really, even when those I’ve been involved in so far occurred only when I was on a tram and thus pretty safely ensconced...

 

Nightey-nite...

Edited September 22, 2018 by NGT6 1315

[jamie92208]

A'noon.

 

Yup, spotted the fattyclappers. Plus a train.....somewhere in the photos.

 

Some car shopping done for Mrs NHN, bought a C3 Picasso Exclusive (which it isn't, where do they get these names from) 1.6 diseasel, 2015 14k miles.  Spotless, quite pleased with it bar the fact its black, but there's worse colours - such as that brown B-Max I had! Practical little car, hope it is as reliable as its predecessor has been. Painless buying experience for a change, many used car dealers just rub me up the wrong way with their inane patter, but these guys are the biggest such on the Island and several of the many brothers and one sister (11!) that run it used to be customers when I had the Post Office.  Parents obviously didn't believe in contraception until they got the daughter!

Sounds like the grandparents that I never knew, My mother was the 6th of 7 girls, No 7 was Christened Hope as they wanted a boy, then along came Alan and then Martin.

 

 

Jamie

[newbryford]

Evening and day out.

 

Mrs NB's plans.

Attend a work conference in Stoke on Trent Thursday/Friday.

Drive home via the M6

Attend a Trefoil dinner at 7.30pm and then back to Stone) just south of Stoke for a Guide conference Fri-Sun.

(Stoke-home is anywhere between 1 1/2 and 2 hours on a good trip)

 

So I volunteered to drive her down Friday night and travel back by train Saturday morning if overnight bed space could be sorted. She arranged BnB for me for £15 and the return train ticket was £21. Leaving her with the car to drive home Sunday.

 

Duly arrived at Stone station to find my train cancelled. It was a LNWR London-Crewe via Northampton/Stoke service. However, there was a STP Rugby-Crewe running in the same times.

Realtime trains provided the answer - unfortunately, the timetabled train had hit something  near Northampton and there was a replacement running from Rugby

 

Confusion abounded amongst those not aware on platform 1, as the automatic announcement apologised for the 0904 being cancelled at that the next train was the 0904.......

 

Stone station is quite pretty.

 

Arrived at Crewe to find some large steamy green thing obscuring my view of a Royal 67.

 

I knew that Northern were on a strike day, but some services were listed as running - including two that would get me home from Preston (Plan B had Junior NB on standby to collect me from Preston).

Just approaching Preston on a London-Glasgow service, the train manager announces that the train was terminating there, due to overhead damage at Lockerbie. Limited service north or PRE and the next service was 1140 (50 minutes away). So the whole train decamped - many were already getting off at Preston anyway.

 

Northern strike - cue lots of confused passengers - including football supporters travelling from Luton to Blackpool and Bournemouth to Burnley, not knowing where to look due to the lack of Northern service - especially those bound for Blackpool who couldn't work out if North or South was the better option......

 

Meanwhile, I jump onto a Blackpool-Blackburn.

 

A quick look at RTT showed the Avonmouth-Clitheroe Cement train running a few minutes late and it was held at Lostock Hall Jn to let us take precedence towards Blackburn.

However, the tables were turned when it passed through Blackburn whilst I was waiting fro my next train and it duly held us up by about 5 minutes as we waited for it to clear the section ahead.

 

 

So - one of those journeys that could have gone seriously wrong due to trains striking objects [*], overhead and strikes, but all I lost was 5 minutes. Many people lost more. [*]

 

Golf planned tomorrow - shoulder permitting.

 

Stay safe folks.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[*] Later checking says train hit person, but don't know any more.

Edited September 22, 2018 by newbryford

[Barry O]

Night all!

 

Baz

[BSW01]

 

I’ve spent most of the day outside as thankfully the rain held off. I’ve removed some more of the old patio and cleaned up the bits that I’m reusing. These have been stacked neatly ready for reuse in (hopefully) the not too distant future. I packed up around 3:00 this afternoon and once I’d washed, changed and had a muggertea I spent an hour on the computer working on the circuits I devised yesterday evening. The next stage in development will be to build one on breadboard and actually try it out. I pretty confident, as the virtual ones have all worked. If all goes to plan, I’ll eventually be able to build a control panel that will operate 50+ points and 20+ signals, with only 4 wires linking everything together. All the signals and points in the scenic section will be operated by servos, whilst all the points in the storage area will be operated by solenoids. Besides the 4 control wires, the servos and solenoids will have their own independent power supplies.

 

Spent the evening watching a film and consuming a rather nice Shiraz.

 

Goodnight all

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BR60103]

First post of Fall, if the TV is correct.

University next door is having Homecoming which is an attempt to get the graduates to return and donate money. The students use it as an opportunity to drink more beer than they can handle. They seem to have lost the football game.

When I was at university, the only person I knew who went to football games was the newspaper's sports reporter.

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl Inner Temple Here,

About 5 hours sleep I'm attempting to doze on the sofa, but back pain and pain from right elbow is so far preventing this, I'm hoping ibuprofen will kick in shortly. That big slab Was The problem I think.

 

Today is a day of rest for a change, it is the RAF Neatishead reunion, I've never been to any reunion before, so that could be interesting, also it's a full access site visit, including to parts which were off limits when I was stationed there.

 

Thoughts on the trailer rebuild into old layout had the boat on a trolley so the weight was on the outer edges. The new layout will have the weight on its keel in the middle. I need to provide support for the keel and support to stop the boat tipping over, awl without pushing up the overall weight up above the 750kg unbraked limit.

 

Time try closing my eyes again.

[BlackRat]

Tiz raining.....the weather to be weathering wagons as opposed to weathering the weather and road conditions on the bike!

 

Mind you, getting withdrawal symptoms.....to the extent where I have to nip down to the garage just to look at her.......and you can't beat that garage bike smell.....

 

One for Chris......went to my old bosses 60th last night......he came out several years ago having endured years of bullying from within the Plod.

 

He's never been happier and we had a great evening.

 

Hope Scaleforum went well.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Weather: Dull, dismal and pouring with rain. It should brighten up this afternoon.

GDB:       Dull, dismal and roaring with pain. Well, almost as left leg and knee are not too good after being tackled by The Boss yesterday. I must be getting old as I would've shrugged that off easily a few years ago. 

It will be a day of taking it easy starting with a nice cooked breakfast which she has offered to do when she gets up and I can hear her stirring now. 

Following that some little model people will be looked at along with a horse and cart and one or two other bits that need attending to. 

After lunch I will settle down to watch Saracens take on Gloucester which should be a great game.

There may will be beer and wine involved at some stage as well.

Have a good one,

Bob.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

A bit chilly this morning up here.

 

Mugatea available thanks to her indoors.

I am off to lugerberuga today. May need to take the cricket bullsh!t bingo card.

 

Have a good day everyone.

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Persisting down this morning, I feel sorry for my mate and his young lad, they're bookied to go to a flying show at Duxford today. The forecast is that the rain will clear by lunchtime there but the wind will be gusting up to 40mph, I don't think they will see much flying. I'm off out now to the toy fair at Rayleigh, be back later.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all, 

 

And it is precipitating mightily so that part of the forecast was right.  As laddo is currently in Switzerland on a short break, and heading for an n.g. railway today I'm told, I'll have to move his car out of the drive in order to get mine out to go to Tesco for the papers - much faffing in the rain will be today's equivalent of Much Binding In the Marsh and no doubt with far fewer laughs.

 

Meanwhile in more exciting times Hornblower, Bush, and Brown have just been admitted to the chateau of the Comte de Graçay.

 

Have a good day one and all.

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a rather dull and cloudy but still warm part of the Cote D'Azur. After a good meal out last night I was positively encouraged to get out of the flat and take the photo's that I wanted this morning. Of course I obeyed thus instruction with alacrity, whomever he/she is, and set off.

 

The first thing I saw I had to record for Mick NB.

One of several contractors locos in the yard that don't seem to carry any number apart from the class V11. I believe that they are ex DB.

 

The yard was quite empty but I saw this steam age survivor and attempted an arty shot, tough two fences don't make that easy.

A reminder of the days when the magnificent 141R's ruled the coast. Unfortunately the huge concrete water tower has now gone. The sidings used to be full of sleepers from all the couchette and sleeping car trains but have now been remodelled into an EMU servicing facilty. Yu no longer see enourmous dark blue Belgian Slaapwagen's. That name conjured up all sorts of possibilities.

 

Finally another shunting loco that I've got to ID.

 

Then it was time to head back via the supermarket, where I found that in my absence the flat had been cleaned, swept and mopped. In penance apparently I have to cook scrambled eggs for lunch.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

Edited September 23, 2018 by jamie92208

[bbishop]

Jamie,

 

Disappointing back scenes!

 

Bill

[jamie92208]

Morning all, 

  

Meanwhile in more exciting times Hornblower, Bush, and Brown have just been admitted to the chateau of the Comte de Graçay.

 

Have a good day one and all.

I've now run out of Hrnblower books that I brought with me. He's handed over the Atropos and I will await his next adventure when I get back Home. Now I'm enjoying Vol 1 of Maury Klein's Union Pacific and have finally sorted out in my head the part played by 'Doc' Durant.

 

Jamie