andyram

You look funny

Skaleby West has a very special visitor today. A Stanier Pacific has never been seen on the branch before, and probably never will be seen again. But today this particular train is in honour of our dearly departed RMWeb friend Jock whose funeral takes place today. These were amongst his favourite classes of locomotives. RIP Sir.

My own special tribute to our friend. This "special" will remain at Skaleby West station for the duration of the funeral. I know these were his favourite locomotives. RIP Jock

Large Pacifics do not usually venture onto my little layout. But today there is a special, special. In honour of Jock, who I know loved these locomotives. RIP Sir

Morning all. I hope today finds you well. Thoughts remain with Dave and Is, great to see that you are still posting the great photographs sir. They do brighten these pages. Like many, thoughts lie in Clacton today. I wish Andy.p and Peter BB a safe journey there and back. They carry our thoughts and wishes to Jock and his family. I am sorry that I am not able to take up Andy's kind invitation to join them. Sadly, Sarah's ongoing struggles mean I really cannot leave her for the whole day. I will, however, raise a suitable glass to the memory of our old friend later. I do think we should all say a massive thank you to AndyB who has so eloquently put our thoughts and wishes into words. I will hold my hand up and say I joined the moist eye brigade when I read the piece. Sarah and Amber visited MiL yesterday. Normally her Thursday jaunts trigger some kind of steam railway day for me. I had passing thoughts of a day on the Severn Valley, but decided the school paperwork mountain took precedent. So, after dropping the girls off, I spent much of the day working interspersed with running a few trains on Skaleby West. Last night there was a nice little bonus with the arrival of the post (at 8.20pm no less!!!!). This included a parcel containing a long awaited DVD. As a fan of Gerry Anderson and his puppet series, I have loved Thunderbirds - it was his masterpiece. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the series some of the old team reunited to make three new puppet episodes of the series. They based them on some 1960's audio only stories, using the original soundtrack and shooting new material. The whole thing was funded through Kickstarter and I was only too willing to contribute. The reward, a copy of the finished DVD, landed on the mat last night. I admit that I cannot wait to watch them. I hope you all have a good day.

Thoughts are definitely in Clacton today. I know Andy.p and Peter BB are making the trip to attend the funeral. They carry, on our behalf, all of our thoughts and wishes which are so beautifully put into words by AndyB. RIP Jock

You don't think it was a cunning plan to confuse the Russians then??

I managed another running session today, and things took on something of a Western flavour. Small Prairie 4566 worked the passenger train whilst Pannier 5757 worked the freight. There are more pictures on the Facebook page.

Morning all and birthday greetings to Dave. I hope you have a good day. Things remain very grey here in Derby. Pleased to say I received a pm from Andy (leopard) to let me know he is ok which is good to know. Yesterday I took Amber out for the day to give Sarah a much needed break. My good lady is finding things quite tough at the moment, her rhinitis has flared up, Amber is not sleeping and keeping her awake and her mood is not great. It does make things tough for the two of us, all I can do is support her as much as I can. Amber is pushing her luck at the moment - we are definitely in the "ready for school" stage - the McDonalds based temper tantrum was a sure sign. Our trip out yesterday ended up taking us back to Masson Mill in Cromford. We were only there ten days ago, but Amber likes the soft play area. She had a good hour letting off some steam, we had lunch and browsed the various shopping outlets. The Hornby section is looking worryingly sparse. The time in the soft play area proved expensive. Whilst Amber played with a new found friend, I browsed the web using the free Wi-Fi. The result, a G scale truck has now been purchased from EBay. In the evening I caught up with an old mate in the pub. He is having a few problems at home at the moment and wanted to unload. I am beginning to wonder if I should take up a job as a counsellor! Today Sarah and Amber are off to MiL's for the day. I am going to drop them off and then will head home to get stuck into the school paperwork mountain. I may take the occasional break to run some trains on the layout or work on my other layout. Have a good day.

It was meant as sarcasm...I am getting a bit bored of this constant Top Gear bashing. I think the first episode has been picked over enough, I await the debate on episode two.

I reckon you should keep the buffer stops and have a couple of local reprobates leaning on them drinking beer or eating chips!!

You didn't like it then? You really should have said something!!

I believe that this series is only six episodes long rather than eight. The length was cut some time ago.

Morning all. Early Birthday wishes to Dave. I hope that you can manage a couple of drinks with your friends tomorrow, at least that can give you some time to relax. My good wishes to Is too. My condolences to Rick for your loss. Today has started very grey and wet. Even cat number two, who usually insists on an hour in the garden after breakfast, has turned on his tail and gone back to bed. The trouble is he seems to have a short memory, and within ten minutes he was being a little g1t. My breakfast has been taken like a jack in the box this morning - constantly having to get up to stop him clawing one item of furniture or another. This is his way of telling us he wants to go out! Hopefully he will go back to sleep soon. The day starts with a trip to the vets for cat number three. She is due her booster injection and needs some matted fur sorting. I am sure the vet will want to do something about an over long tooth too. It could be an expensive day, especially on the back of yesterday's car service and M-O-T. After the vets I can see a bit of a stand off developing. Following yesterday's picnic Amber became fixated with the idea of visiting the new McDonalds outlet. She has found out it has a play area and so has decided that this place will be her new Nirvana! Last night we experienced the worst kind of temper tantrum when I refused to go out in the rush hour traffic to take her to the place. I have promised to take her on Friday lunch time but I think she has decided that it has to be today's entertainment. Meanwhile I had promised Sarah I would take Amber out for a few hours so she could catch up on some of the jobs she wants to get done. Prior to the picnic, Amber was quite keen on a day on the Great Central. The weather and her McDonalds' play area obsession could result in plans being changed, although what we will end up doing remains a mystery. It won't be bl00dy McDonalds that is for sure! Enjoy your day.

Evening all. A cloudy day that descended into heavy rain by the afternoon. At least the bad weather held off long enough for Amber and Sarah to join the rest of their mother and child group for a picnic on the park. I was stuck at home without transport as the car was in for a service and M-O-T. I ended up trawling through a load of household cleaning which kept me away from the school paperwork. I will need to get stuck into that soon. My recent browsing through EBay has led to the purchase of a box of LGB G scale track. It amounts to approximately 12 curved pieces. I did miss out on the lot of straight pieces from the same seller. The result is another project is now on the drawing board. If I carry on like this I will turn into Andy.p. Regards to all, thoughts with Dave and Is again.

I am planning to lay the track on either concrete blocks or stone ballast. The track is LGB I think. At present I have no locomotive, but my preferred type would be DC track powered or battery. I have my eye on a very nice radio controlled German outline loco although I will need to save a little for that. The Bachmann Thomas range appeals to me (and my daughter). I have also seen the Locolines kits on EBay. These are extremely cheap though.

Several months have passed since my last post. The garden railway dream faded as last summer came to a close with preparation for the new school year taking over. Since then we have passed through Autumn, Winter and much of the Spring. But now those dreams are beginning to resurface once again. This week I have been back out in the garden digging out more flower beds and planting more stuff. I continue to look at the garden and think about where a railway may go. After last year's thoughts about 00 I have returned to the G scale idea. I think that it may be a better scale to start with. It is built for the garden after all, and I can learn the skills of laying track in the garden with the bigger stuff first. So G scale it is. A few days ago I was trawling EBay whilst enjoying a relaxing ale at home. Dangerous! I am now the proud owner of 12 pieces of curved G gauge track. Everyone has to start somewhere!

As I understand it, the films have been completed, but the studio sections are filmed throughout the series. For me it is the studio sections that require more polish.

BBC 3 exists as an online channel with programmes also, I believe, available via IPlayer.

Which is why all Championship clubs are breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Just watched the show on catch up and trawled through the four pages of general criticism that make up these pages. Interestingly, a year ago I started a Top Gear thread which I revisited after the show to read the comments. Surprised to find it locked in favour of a duplicate thread. I thought the duplicates got locked rather than original threads. The original thread was full of vititriol against CE before he had even done a show. It seemed most people were not prepared to give him a chance, and still aren't by the sounds of it. The new Top Gear could have been the best thing ever, yet many would have still slagged it off because they did not want to praise CE. I have always approached the new series with an open mind. I am not surprised that the first show stayed close to the original format. I think if he had completely thrown out the old format he would have been more widely criticised. I predict a gradual change of format over the series and beyond. As regards the show - I agree it had plenty of faults but, as others have stated, many series start slowly and develop as things bed in. I actually quite enjoyed it - there I have said it! So you may now shoot me down in flames! I enjoyed: * The nomad film, which was an enjoyable take on a TG challenge. * The Top Gun film with the dog fight between the cars. * The new take on the Star in a car. I like the tweak, to include a rally cross section, yet retaining the key parts of the original track. I felt Matt LeBlanc made a good start, a bit wooden at times, but needs time to develop his presenting skills. I was less impressed with CE. Yes he was too shouty and excitable at first. Yes that is his presenting style. But I think it was a case of him trying to build thinks up in a positive way. I hope he calms down a little over time. I also did not like the USA v UK challenge. It was a poorer TG challenge. However I know there are better challenges to come. There were some decent gags, but it was not the best. That said there were some poor challenges in the previous incarnation of the series. It was an ok start, with room for improvement.

Evening all. I hope you have had an enjoyable Bank Holiday. The sun has shone here and we have had a very good day. The garden centre was visited this morning. Amber begged us to have dinner there - and we did not need much persuading. Sarah and I had a very enjoyable Bacon, Brie and Red onion panini each whilst Amber tucked into the contents of a children's lunch box that she had chosen herself. Her added bonus was the free ice cream that came with each child's meal. She certainly enjoyed that! The vouchers were spent on a variety of plants which gave me my afternoon task. The job takes longer at present because of the need to dig out the flower beds. The back garden was completely turfed over by the builders just before we moved in. They did not make a great job of it if I am being honest, but since it was an expected freebie we will not complain. As a result, bits of the lawn edge are dying off already. As we get more plants more and more lawn edge is dug out and removed, with the lawn properly edged, to create the flower beds. The rear of the garden is really starting to come together now and is about three quarters finished. It took a good couple of hours this afternoon to complete the job of digging the next part of the flower bed, edging it and then planting the new plants. But I do feel that it was a productive time. I must admit that all plants are being carefully placed. I have dreams of laying track in the garden and I am careful to leave enough space in the flower beds for a track bed to be added. Sarah has not raised a protest...yet! On the subject of Andy (leopard) I notice that he was active elsewhere on RMWeb yesterday so hopefully all is well. I notice that his last ER post was at the beginning of the month when he admitted to being overwhelmed by things. I hope we hear from him soon.

Delighted for Wimbledon and their fans today. Great to see the "new" club carrying the on the club's traditions by climbing the football league. It will certainly make League 1 interesting next season. I am sure I am not alone in hoping that they finish above the Milton Keynes Franchise next season.

The well known cure is to eat baked beans and f@rt them out.

Morning all. A little grey this morning but, I believe, forecast to be dry. Plans for today are very loose, but will involve a trip to the garden centre as we have some loyalty vouchers to spend before the end of the month. We have built up about £15 worth of free spending credit so, if nothing else, it will buy cat number three a bag of his slimming biscuits (he really does need to lose weight). The fireworks continued until after 12.30 but fortunately did not wake Amber, although she did appear during the night and joined us. I did not get to see the new Top Gear last night as was driving back from the inlaws. I have recorded it and will watch it later. I popped into the Top Gear thread to see people's opinions and was surprised to see it locked. Reading back through the posts it seems to have been locked rather swiftly after one member ranted about ginger comments. Not condoning those comments, but worse arguments have been witnessed on other threads which have not been locked so the decision seems a little strange to me. Oh well. Best wishes to all. I hope you enjoy your bank holiday. I hope all are well. I have noticed the absence of my near neighbour Andy (leopard) recently. I hope he is ok.