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And finally (for day) Away with the Prairies - 3

Away with the Prairies - 2

In order to not believe that LM only has Pannier's here is another group of rather nice looking locos Ken Dobetter (local LM photographer) has been engaged to take a series of photographs in and around the station. Here is a limited series from him titled Away with the Prairies - 1

Good moaning from the Charente where it is damp and cool. I expect to be summoned to Angouleme at some point today to retrieve the boss from what I now know as the house of pain. Apparently a male general nurse knows better than her diabetologue and GP, as to how much insulin she needs. He also knows more than her pain management specialist and GP about analgesics. On a brighter note I wilbe talking to young Emily and her mums in a short while. Jamie

We were taking our motorhome south in the early winter. In Georgia the weather was warm enough for us to de-winterize. When I turned on the water feed, there was a gush across the floor (linoleum). Luckily, there was a repairman in the campground. Turned out, the company we asked to winterize the unit had not drained the water heater and it had split in the Ontario winter. He managed to get and install a new tank over the weekend.

Good evening everyone Shopping has been shopped and the fridge/cupboards are now full. The weather was very kind to me during my walk to the butchers, sunny, but cold, I certainly needed my jacket on. After dinner, I sat and made a start on the micro shunting layout that I’ve planned. I’ve already fixed the track down, so today was mainly fixing the printed sheets to various thicknesses of cardboard, prior to cutting and gluing the parts together. ION. We know for sure that we have blue tits nest in one of the 2 boxes I put up a few weeks ago, as I saw one enter a box this evening. We already have dunnocks nesting in the hedge, so that now makes a second pair of birds that have decided to call our back garden home. It would seem that all my efforts to make the garden wildlife friendly have worked. To add to this excitement, Sheila spotted a robin in the garden this morning too.

Supermarkets. Harumph. I never stopped shopping in person during the pandemic. Back then I wore a mask. I still shop at the same place. It had changed hands to a large corporate chain before the pandemic. It was never the same. In the old days this location had a pretty 'decent' bakery - at least for cakes. (It's actually equipped as a very large bakery.) When it changed hands it was no where near as good, but if you weren't picky you could still make a 'simple' custom order. I went in today to order a cake for my youngest son's birthday. I wanted to order precisely what I ordered last year - small 5" rounds with two layers - and a particular topping (chocolate butter cream and a chocolate ganache). The young lady with purple hair and nose ring looked at me like I was from Mars. Just about every cake I pointed at in the display case was not available as a custom 5" round order - they all came in frozen from the corporate bakery. So "German chocolate cake" it is. My son won't mind. The supermarket chain is in negotiations to be acquired by an even larger chain (who has a store less than a mile away) - there are anti-trust / monopoly concerns about this merger. It makes me wonder if this is already impacting service. When the old supermarket was acquired by the larger chain they closed their existing supermarket across the street from the chain they now want to merge into. Those premises remain unoccupied 8 years later - except at Halloween when a pop-up Halloween store materializes annually, in Brigadoon fashion.

We went to Stratford to see a preview of Twelfth Night. We nearly came to grief on the expressway. Around a curve there were two trucks with flashing arrows, stopped on the shoulder. Then a truck stopped in my lane, following a road sweeper. I managed to stop as did the cars behind. But now I'm in a curve to the passenger side with traffic coming up the next lane, all doing at least the 90 kph speed limit. Luckily, one of the cars behind had enough view to pull out and the car behind and I both made it. 12th Night was good, although modern. SWMBO had a little problem hearing all the lines.

Mrs SM42 has just gone to put the milk bottles out and found that tomorrow's delivery has already been delivered. I suspect our milkman has plans for tomorrow. Maybe he's off to the NEC Andy

Electric roller blinds are wonderful - available as blackouts if needed. You can still hide them with conventional drapes if you don't like the look from the inside. Most of them are 'decorative' however. They are completely* cordless and remote controlled, with little batteries inside the mechanism. * Except when the batteries need recharging. I know people complained about floor-ceiling glass walls as a 'style' (it's not new - its "Barhaus school" from the days of the Weimar Republic, echoed in mid-century modern like the Eames House in the 1950s) but with reflective (on the outside) roller blinds the glass-house interior heating effect would be greatly minimized - though on a sunny wintry day it would be very energy efficient.

Bear here..... Extremelysillyo'clock........😒 BG

Scoff very quickly, Ben loves marmite and toast, as we found out while I was working on the neighbours printer. Of that the new cartridge has arrived. Today being museum day i was busy muddling, we had a coach load of visitors plus a few others.. how many reached my room?... 8... First muddle, Sand down filled cracks in broken wall poster, give background a coat of white paint... Done ok. Just finished that when the man with the broken springs in switches arrive clutching bits.. turns out not to be broken springs but broken plastic. You remove the square cap which reveals a round light fitting, behind that a round plastic insert that on inside had two plastic wedges moulded on in the shape of a pyramid with the top cut off. In the broken switches the wedges had gone. The biggest dimension was about 3mm and they were about 1mm thick. 1mm plastic card i had on the table already🙂 cut two wedges, stuck them in using plastic magic, and as if by magic the reassembled switch worked!!! The bearer of switches was most impressed, more switches will be delivered for repair next Friday . Then worked on the mini ultrasonic radar case, only it was more than the case, because it didn't have a case someone had broken a wire, go to land rover get gas powered soldering iron, and some heat shrink, a quick repair and all was good again, another customer impressed, then back to cutting up left over perspex to make a case. All bits roughly cut out, next week start assembling and rounding corners. Then the 1/1000 model of RAF Neatishead 1983, only had time to fit a chimney to the power station. On the 1/87 model of an Austin K6 and radar fitted tube to underside of radar . Made a close clearance hole for tube through the K6, dry fitted tube onto motor , all looks ok.. Then to the chippy for tea before off to the MRC, decided to fit stands for fuel oil pipes, about twenty all done ok, then did the verticals that supports the overhead heating pipes the involved sticking 1mm diameter rod onto a 2 mm by 4mm cross bar. Amazingly that went well so I planted them on the accommodation site. They and the fuel oil stands will need painting black next time. Need to order 1mm wire for the fuel oil pipes, and .5mm wire for the heating pipes. Muggachoccy gone, good night Awl.

I would ask if I can join too following a fall at Easter! Baz

As I'm sure you know, this is a problem for summer cabin owners on the tundra. A Swedish colleague had a similar problem with his summer cabin on 'the archipelago'. (Visitors to Stockholm will know this area - lovely.) His was a water line to a dishwasher if I'm not mistaken and being Sweden his cabin had beautiful wooden floors - because that seems to be the 'law' in Nordic countries. Did you at least replace the broken bit with PEX?

As a famous German fighter pilot put it, "The three most useless things are fuel you've used, runway behind you and height you've lost." Dave

Ey up! Back from a visit to Beamish (excellent apart from the weather.. sun, rain, snow and hail on occasion!) Then I decided to head to the Heugh Battery in Hartlepool ( which was attacked by German battlecruisers in 1914). Nice time was had (as was a bacon and egg banjo)... Main gripe.. lorry drivers on main roads. They should ban lorries from the major road system between 8am until 8pm. Why? Well they are governed to 56mph (the big 40 tonnesr have problems stopping if they go any faster) but insist on trying to overtake other lorries..pah! Beamish has been developing a new 1950s area. The work done so far is superb. Minors welfare (oap) cottages, council houses, police Houses (two semis with a police station tucked in the middle) etc. A trip on a bus and a trip on a tram.. excellent day.. but it meant an early bed time! Today.. no cricket umpiring any more but, due to most grounds being quagmire, few games to watch. Have a good day! Baz

It looks as though mice have had a nibble at the 4 o'clock position; Bear was a little dismayed to note the sticky goo didn't extend down the sides as well....or would have been if it wasn't coffee flavour....🤢

Canadian airlines seem to specialize in long-distance gliding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236 (claimed as a world record for unpowered flight by a passenger aircraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

At least it wasn't green (or Flying Scotsman 😝) Dave

There was a famous incident in Vietnam when a USAF F4 was hit by flak and lost all his fuel in short order. The crew were then faced with ejecting over hostile territory but the formation leader got the stricken aircraft to drop the arrestor hook then came up behind and lodged the end of the hook into the rain clearing slot just in front of his windscreen. He then pushed the other aircraft back to the south and when near base backed off so the crew could eject over friendly territory. I believe he got some sort of medal. Dave

The situation wasn't of my making - honestly. I actually got praise for coping with what could have been loss of an aircraft. It's too involved to go into in detail but it resulted from rapidly deteriorating weather that hadn't been forecast and multiple screwups by air traffic and operating authorities. The thing that saved me was that I got so p!ssed off with what was going on that I declared UDI and ignored what the above mentioned nerks wanted me to do, which would have resulted in us running out of fuel and jumping out. Dave

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I don't know where today's gone, I went shopping this afternoon and that took longer than expected, I guess that I'm getting slower as I get older. I withdrew some more modelling tokens this afternoon as I'm visiting the Ilford and West Essex exhibition in Romford tomorrow. The venue is Marshals Park academy in Petits Lane, Romford. There used to be an exhibition there a few years ago run by the now defunct Romford model railway club.

Well, that all went pearshaped... The above referring to yesterday, and only checking in now! Yesterday was "supposed" to be a regular day, whatever that means. However, Jemma was due to drop Whitney off here, take the water pump for the lake cabin, and head north to rendezvous with the Mrs. niece as they are now co-owners of the cabin, and install the pump, get the water running and spring clean for the season ahead. Issue #1 - the Mrs niece was down with some severe flu, so was not going to be able to go up there. Issue #2 - the Mrs, having NOT expected to be called for duty, had scheduled a fang removal and was therefore not at option! Issue #3 - Well not an issue but a bullet-point, it fell to be to VOLUNTEER to be a secondary party to the spring opening event. all went well getting the pump in place and hooked up, and THEN the fun started; Soon as we turned on the pump, started flooding the cabin with water - apparently over the winter, even though the system was drained the same was as we do every year, the main feed pipe for the cabin system managed to have a 1 inch SPLIT half way up the wall where the line feeds the various facilities. We quelled the flood, determined the issue and then had the enjoyable task of the 25 minute ride EACH WAY to the nearest hardware store for the necessary supplies. After returning and sorting the problem, which involved many choice words, a SECOND issue with one of the elbow joints was discovered... Second round trip to the hardware store. Solved THAT problem, and finally the water system worked and was certified by the chief inspector - ME - as ready for use. Problem NOW was it was almost 4-m, so no cleaning was managed with the exception of some quick vacuuming of the floors. Another trip by other parties will be required to do the spring cleaning portion of the tasks. There we are. spent THIS morning with taxi service and sorting access/payment for the flooring company who were scheduled to install a faux granite floating floor in the entryway of the rental house. Finished the day with some work, and am ready for the weekend! Weekend sees us having dinner tomorrow with our friends who've now returned from the Arizona winter getaway and Sunday attending the last of our church Concert series season performance. This one by a very good local tribute band presenting an Eagles tribute - "Takin' it To The Limit" Weather was delightful yesterday, but of course now it's the weekend, we're expecting rain almost all weekend. 8c and raining first thing, high of 11c expected and rain showing as 10-0% probability for now through Sunday evening!!! ☹️ Enjoy the weekend.

Morning, from a sunny and not quite as cold rock, 10c and still for once. I was absolutely cream crackered after 80 miles on bumpy roads on the bike yesterday, so not a lot else got done. Like Brian we have a lot of birds in the garden currently, nesting time obviously due to the amount of cargo they're carrying. New is a Goldfinch, very colourful little bird, and the woody woodpecker is going bonkers over the back somewhere in the old farm, must be making a new nest in a tree. Debs has just gone for one of her bird books as she has spotted something by the not-a-Koi-pond-anymore she is unfamiliar with - doesn't happen often as she's a keen ornithologist. Edit - a Linnet, not seen one here before.

...Said "There's nowt for it but stummick pump." They hadn't a stummick pump 'andy, But Pa did the best that he could With a bicycle pump as he'd borrowed, But that weren't a ha'porth of good. Marriott Edgar Jubilee Sov'rin

Some trains at Hathern on the Midland north of Loughborough. Hathern rear view of down ex pass Aug 72 C1042 Hathern Class 120 Nottingham to Birmingham Aug 72 J3013 HathernClass 20s 8013 & 8196 up limestone Aug 72 J3014 Hathern Class 45 84 up Sheffield to St Pancras Aug 72 J3015 Hathern Class 47 1810 down mgr Aug 72 J3016 Hathern Class 45 81 up Aug 72 J3017 David

Regrettably the only birds we see regularly are pigeons, starlings, magpies, a crow or two and nottalot else apart from flypasts by a squadron of parakeets. Once in a while a robin pops in to say hello but that's about it. We did buy a large bird feeding station a couple of years ago to try to attract more birds and got a few blue tits but it encouraged even more pigeons and starlings and the "deposits" they were leaving had to be seen to be believed so we gave up.

Good morning all, Dull and damp start earlier with more dullness and dampness forecast throughout the day. 6°C rising to a maximum of 14°C. Much aching all over this morning, particularly in the back, don't know why, I haven't been exerting myself apart from the daily hobble. @Barry O We're heading to Beamish in a couple of months Baz as we enjoyed our visit so much back in 2019. I think they were just starting the 1950s section then. The Boss also wants to see The Angel of the North as we didn't last time we were up there. Durham Cathedral is also a possibility. Rugby watched last night, didn't enjoy it much as there was too much kicking in the first half. Today Quins are playing Northampton at Twickenham, that could be a great match. The way the latter have been playing Quins will have to be at the top of their game and then some. The mobile phone Sim saga continues as mine still hasn't arrived. During a lengthy phone call in which "Dean" couldn't really explain what had (or hadn't) happened I was put through to "Amelia" who started off by saying "I understand you've lost your Sim card." Cue GDB almost exploding but I managed to keep my cool and asked how the hell I could lose something that I had never received! Another one is now being sent....and breathe. According to The Boss it's now timetogattamoveon, not quite sure why as nothing is planned....so far. Have a good one, Bob.

Morning all, Well, nearly there. To quote Moltke the Elder, “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength" Or, There's still chance for Cack, Lord of Chaos and Mayhem to visit himself upon us but pretty much all that needs doing at this stage is done. I know that testing of layouts has/is being carried out...... The ablutions are being visited......( yes, it's THAT time of year..) Journeys are being commenced.......... And demos are being finalised....... A couple of reminders then........ Doors open at 10am tomorrow morning. Please park in the local area with due consideration for local residents. Bring and buy purchase is by way of cash or cards. Catering should be the same if we can get the second card machine up and running in time but in case of drama, best have a cash reserve. Traders again are all cash and card. Remember......entry is free but a donation at your discretion will go towards ensuring we ARE able to do this again next year. There will be suitable receptacles available. So finally, to anyone and everyone who is making the journey to see us, we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Have a safe and enjoyable journey. Right, I'm off to have my wool done.

There was another version that had the goat destroying a U boat that surfaced just offshore. I might even be able to type the words out if my forgettery ©Chrisf allows. Jamie

Don’t blame the Wing Commander. He was - as they say - following medical advice. Having recently had surgery, our <boy in blue> is still recuperating, both physically and psychologically (any major surgery has a degree of psychological impact*). Therefore I advised him that the sight of pachydermal and ursine freeloaders wallowing in, and stuffing themselves with, CAKE would set his recovery back a couple of weeks. Being a sensible chap, he heeded my advice and thus had an enjoyable and stress free birthday. * this is actually true.

It depends upon the cake. The cheap ones from the supermarket not only use the cheapest ingredients (e.g. synthetic vanilla flavour vs real vanilla extract) but are also full of all kinds of interesting (ahem) “stuff” to facilitate transportation and extend shelf-life*. Furthermore, far too many are (unnecessarily) sickly sweet. These are definitely Not Good For You. At the other end of the scale are those cakes (homemade or from a patisserie) that are made from best quality ingredients and are sweet but not sickly so. These tend to have a very short shelf-life - in terms of edibility as well as availability (as in they get scoffed quickly). These aren’t terribly good for you, although a slice or two as part of a balanced diet will not go amiss. I can’t remember the last time I ate a shop bought “industrial quality“ cake. The last slice of cake I had was from a variation on a boiled fruitcake that I made last weekend, where – instead of boiling the fruit– the raisins were left to soak overnight in an Irish whiskey liqueur. The result was more than scrumptious (as was the rhubarb crumble cake I made the weekend before that). * an interesting bit of trivia: Mrs iD loves “sliced white” for her toast (we all have our little foibles), so one week I bought a loaf of “sliced white” for her and made my usual wholewheat loaf (just flour, water, salt, fresh yeast [and a little bit of sugar to keep the yeast happy]), as Mrs iD only ever eats a slice or two of toast, the “sliced white” hung around for a bit. By the end of the week the homemade bread had gone hard as a rock (but still edible and used for croutons) whilst the commercially made bread - full of preservatives - had gone mouldy!

Should be green! BTW, a belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Air Vice Marshall Hunt.

I remember reading about that incident. The pilot managed to glide over 40 mile and received an AFC for his efforts. One of those events where having plenty of altitude is definitely your friend.

I don’t think,I have a bucket list. There are I suppose a few places I wouldn’t mind visiting but I can’t say I am eager enough to create a list. I suppose being well enough to go to the places Aditi would like to visit . As for activities ,I don’t want to fly in a balloon , go diving or learn to dance. What my heart attack did do was make me realise that if you do want to do something it is probably better doing it while you can.

I'm passing on my knowledge - after July I will not have the responsibility. My reasons for doing this are to warn people and it will be in the presence of two senior members of the faculty who have an interest. I'm retiring - I can make these sort of comments :)

Had I been able to get the fake jackshaft idea to work those very shallow footsteps all round would have grated - I mean, imagine a 4mm crew member trying to climb them. So I thickened them up with 60thou then drilled and filed out all 12 openings - that kept me occupied for a couple of hours....actually I thought it would have taken far longer, but I got into the swing of it, so to speak! The steps were then backed with 10thou. I felt that before going any further I had to check whether the Hornby chassis could be shortened to fit between the bufferbeams, and this is where the scrap chassis came into play. The thick flexible plastic used by Hornby in years past is quite tough and difficult to saw - however it yields to the brutal use of a Stanley knife fitted with a new blade! Try that on a 'Nellie' chassis! I was pleased to find that, when shortened to just fit within the bufferbeams, the inside ledges at each end sit on top of the chassis frames and it looks just about right: Overall height compared to other stock is OK; the buffers are a little too high (well it IS Tri-ang!), however the weedy tapered buffer stocks - which I believe were never fitted with buffers in clockwork form - need replacing so mounting the new buffers slightly lower down would be the easiest way to resolve this. So the butchery to the scrap chassis shows what I need to do to the new one - but more carefully! Sawing and filing may work better on this as the Chinese chassis appears to be made from a harder, more rigid kind of plastic, but as far as I can tell they are both products from the same tooling. I think this needs to be tackled next since, if I really can't get the chassis and especially the 90-degree-turned motor to fit, further work on the body would be futile and I have lots of other things to be getting on with instead! However last night I couldn't resist fitting the front radiator grille from a Lima Class 08/09 - it's not glued in yet and I may bring it out flush with the front. I have some spare etched brass grilles - mostly twin - left over from a couple of A1 Models Class 22 conversion kits (appropriately NBL then!) but at the moment I'm undecided about the bonnet side detail. Also coupling fitment and body-to-chassis securing need some thought...... I have an idea about its final appearance, but as it involves 'wasp stripes' it will depend on the length of the journey between now and then!

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

Goodnight and

Oh, there’s lots of opportunities like that! How about 3, waiting to depart Exchange ? There's two here where the lines temporarily terminate. ...and two here waiting to depart for Exchange. The D49 has a passenger service of mainline stock which will be given priority The other train, a freight was quite lengthy and thus required class 4 power. There's also a couple around the back of Bradford which have been sitting there for a couple of weeks.. The J50 is on the wrong road it would seem but is likely to set that Twin set back into the station at some point. Theres even two more in front of the last two! Another V2 ready to move off from Goathland before the GN tank can resume shunting. Squatch

It's now 16 years and 26 days since I retired. I worked for 37 years 6 months and 9 days to get my pension which means I've got 21 years, 5 months and 14 days until I've collected my pension for as long as I paid into it. That is of course if I live to 92.

... in my time at the university I’ve probably given about a thousand lectures and two and a half thousand seminars and workshops ... https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/04/26/covid-by-age-comparing-other-infections-writing-the-handover-lecture-six-thousand-hours-of-boring-people/

Evening all. Dave mentioned Old Farts, we were six today, and circumnavigated the island - I knackered now. No that's not me, I'm not that fat! Rant Incoming:- When I got home Mrs NHN was toting a new battery for her car - it had been a bit lazy to turn over recently so we had planned to replace it this weekend. Soooo, I thought a ten minute job. Pah. I hadn't reckoned on Citroen's (it's a C3 Picasso diesel) decision to hide the battery securing bolt UNDER the ECU, and the battery cover under another cover with a sort of spider web of heavy cables that stops you from getting the under cover under the other cover off. Then getting the ECU out - yes, another cover, there's a theme developing, then three awkward plugs, and a tanged latch....UNDER the ECU - so basically you have to rive it out, to then undo the battery support plate. By then my good humour was sorely tested I can assure you! It would have been impossible to make it more awkward. The only saving grace was the ECU didn't forget its name, or most of the settings, radio, phone etc, just the clock was wrong. Pah does not cover it.

Forgot to mention, today is 22 years since I last went to work for pay, where has the time gone. Only 6 yrs and 8 months till I will have draw my pension for longer than I paid it. Even better I got paid for another three months due to accumulated leave etc. Jamie

Just back home from the hospital. I nearly walled a male nurse up. he refuses to give Beth more than 5 units of insulin before a meal when her prescription says 16. Also only paracetamol for pain. However she is in a better way today and has done some physio, the pain relief situation is dire so I actually agree with her that she would be better at home. The surgeon saw her and says she can come home when the pain is under control. Some economy with the truth may be needed. I have watched her manage pain for 30 years and trust her. Jamie Now back home.

That reminds me of an immortal few lines in one of the MASH books where Hawkeye uses the belly button to reconstruct another piece of anatomy then remarks ". She'll have to find somewhere else to put the salt next time she eats celery in bed". Jamie

When I got home this afternoon I had a look in the garden and found a small patch of pigeon feathers so I think the sparrowhawk has been back to try again. There is no dead pigeon in the garden so it has either escaped or been removed by the hawk. I wonder which? Earlier I forgot to mention that I saw a lot of house martins and a few swallows at Rocky Island all busy catching insects. David