New Haven Neil

Well, ours is...BR (S)

Evening. Wow, 24c sur le rock, there's a lot of pink folk about. Calamine sales will be through the roof tomorrow. The NHN's did go to archery, stakes are raised.....only 6 in the round, Mrs NHN third with a personal best 300. Two of the guys were really having a good day, 326 and 324. It was scorchio even down the very wooded and shady glen, absolutely lovely day. It was a long round, it was after 5 when they finally finished, so we were forced to go to Peel seafront for fish n chips it was still really busy, pink fraggl-lings running about everywhere. There really will be some sorry folk later, when will the rank and file learn to protect from UV? We are both now absolutely shattered, so to ruin the evening the p1ssheads next door are in the garden with music blaring to spoil the peace. This will mean it goes i=until the wee hours when one of us in the street call the police, who will be waiting for the call - every Bank Holiday weekend this happens. Bound-over to keep the peace again no doubt. #sigh#

Good morning, from an oddly warm rock. 19c at 0900hrs, there will be fainting Fraggles all over the place, unaccustomed to such equatorial temperatures. It's going to be nicely warm here at last. It's an archery day for us, so down the glen we will go - I'm torn between that or visiting Groudle Glen and having a ride on the railway and barracking my pal who is under footplate tuition today, but I shouldn't really, he needs to concentrate. It'll be busy down there and TBH I'm not in the mood for crowds so the field archery wins out. I'll be there forever yacking with the lads and lasses if I do go to Groudle, and its my turn to cook later so may end up in doodoos if late. That's cooking slightly above Bear LDC/Pizza level, but not up to iD's standards I'm afraid.

Cheers Dave. It's nice just to play trains sometimes. Three friends visited, really nice afternoon, one is new to live steam but he gained a lot of confidence. The line has severe gradients (some are intentional, some less so....) so you have to drive properly.

Today we have been mostly....

A'noon. Had a couple of good friends around for , you know, vapour powered things in the garden, BQ, and chat. One friend brought his wife who hadn't been here before, as she didn't want to be left at home but she was worried about it being a boring boy-fest - she had a great day and professed to having really enjoyed watching the trains (and yakking with Mrs NHN of course). Result. 20c all day too, this is like Saharan temperatures to a Fraggle. 3rd result! Mrs NHN also had her first go at cooking on the BBQ as she usually makes me do it, and that also went well - another result! I'd post a photos but......our overlords watch.....

Evening orl. Apols for absence. As I said the other day, my life is not my own currently, Mrs NHN being off for a few days! Mad day today as usual around her, she lives life at speed. Having a few friends around tomorrow to run hot water vapour powered devices, so tidied the railway up a bit this evening, and did likewise with the vapour devices, to test you understand. Fun. I felt several earthquakes on our visits to New Zealand, like Baz. Mostly in the Blenheim area where the out-laws lived at the time.

No idea, TBH.

Yes, Collister and Callister are common names here, but not as common as Christian -- my Mum's maiden name.

Yes, we've been there a couple of times, had a drive on the 7 1/4. He and old Pete come here to run trains in our garden when on their annual train holiday over here, been a sort of tradition for years. He's also done loads of work for Groudle, tanks and cab for Brown Bear and coach chassis.

That's all we need really! Take care.

A friend here had it, he described it as 'feeling like I had every illness I have ever had (he's 63) all at once'. Not nice if you get it bad.

Aha! Browsing Facebook (sorry) I came across this superb demonstration for the difference in the cab roofs. Robbed from the NYMR page, sorry I can;t recall the photographer, I hope he doesn't mind. Standard 08 type on the left, earlier on the right. Subtle, but there.

Mrs NHN has an electric car at work, a Renault Zoe. It's lifespan is declared as 8 years for the batteries. Not great in my world. She hates the very sight of it..... but needs to drive it most days. It is very difficult to manoeuvre slowly in confined spaces as it is overly responsive to the accelerator, moving it say just a foot or so is beyond all the crew in the team who have tried unless you left foot brake, which does not come naturally. The lack of aural feedback also makes it hard to keep to low speed limits. I know its at or near the bottom of the food chain of e cars, but they're 30 grand.....oof. I await hydrogen fuel cell technology to punt lithium batteries off the planet.

Not allowed in, weren't ever in the EU. Back Door Slam were OK, but I suppose our finest export singers were the BeeGees. Christine Collister has a fine voice too - her parents are friends.

British? Wot with Jamie being some kind of exile and all......surely the eurovision Jamie Guest....oh perhaps not, we'd never win.

Morning, the rock is once again sunny, and actually not too windy this morning but only 10c feels like 7. Allegedly. Robert/Eric, is that our mutual friend you refer to? Mrs NHN is off until Tuesday now, so my life is not my own... Orders have already been posted, then she's off out with her mates for a picnic so at east lunchtime will be peaceful.

.....and toots when we press F2!

Like.....

Like so - robbed off the interweb.

My next door neighbour 'back home' had the Airfix mountain job with Minis - was it Monte Carlo? Cardboard sheets slotted together to hold the track up a steep climb - too steep, the cars could hardly get up it!

As we didn't fit in to any of those tiers, I'm glad we're out of that particular crock of red cardboard!

Phew, off the hook. Another thing I like in language, are 'sayings' - the derivation of. 'Off your trolley' always amused Mrs NHN, whenever we ride the MER, and occasionally do lose our trolley. 'Going through the motions' was less appealing.....

Morning, from a very windy rock. 10c feels like 6, looks like........ I won't be walking far! Showers predicto-guessed at by the twirlers too. Best wishes to the Q family, Puppers and all others on shed for valve and piston examinations. My day's plans are disrupted by the weather, as outsideness isn't very pleasant, and all tasks and plans are/were indeed for external activity. Tch. Oh I see iD has just quoterised me, off to see what I have done wrong!

Yes, yes and thrice yes! This is still one of THE layouts for me, I can't really explain why, but seeing it in those old RM's when I was a lad just fired me up. It still does.....