andyram

Poor game. I have seen better football played on local park pitches. I have seen snippets of Rooney’s interview which stated we had battled well. I am not going to suggest we descended to the hoof it level of our hosts because our football has been dire all season. A draw a fair result. Both keepers made one decent save each. We were a width of a post away from a winner. Barnsley should have had a penalty. The horrible little man with the whistle, Keith Stroud, always likes to be centre of attention but seemed to forget himself today and had a fairly quiet game. Usually his errors are against us, but today’s decision to book a Barnsley player for diving in the box after a clear foul by our player was a rare one in our favour. On most occasions he can’t point to the spot quick enough! Those are ninety minutes of my life I won’t get back, but made palatable by the two pints of Stout I consumed. Anyway, moving away from a load of balls! Greetings to one and all. Not much to report today apart from frustration at DPD. They have been delivering to my shop for 2 and a half years. They are well aware that I don’t normally open until 10.30am and that I live 40 minutes drive from the shop. It is therefore no help to send me an alert at 7.30am stating my delivery will be arriving from 8.15. Result being the delivery rearranged for tomorrow. Stay safe. Andy

Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall

Good evening all and a happy birthday to @jonny777. There has been plenty of talk about last night’s two hour waste of air time. However I can thank Harry Hewitt and Meghan for one thing - the removal of one of the biggest self centred, monumental egos ever to darken the television screens. I think I heard the sound of Jeremy Clarkson’s and Sir Alan Sugar’s uncontrolled laughter from here. I am sure Piers the p****’s absence from the screens will be short term and someone will pick him up. Until then good riddance. Meanwhile, today was spent clearing more of the marking in between catching up on some household tidying. In the afternoon some orders were deposited at the Post Office and I had a pleasant drive out to a village on the Derbyshire / Leicestershire border to deliver another order. Tomorrow there is an exciting box of goodies on its way containing a “Steady Aim” for the “Cock O’ The North” who will be trying to be a “Sun Catcher”. Stay safe. Andy

Evening all and I hope today finds you well. Yes I did catch the Harry Hewitt and Megan interview although not by choice. Sarah decided to forego the football on Sky to watch it - come on, own up, who has pinched my wife?? Am I going to offer my thoughts on it? No! I won’t waste my time. Amber has returned to school today. This morning seemed stressful. I think she had mixed feelings but was looking forward to seeing her friends again. With Sarah at work, there was some time for quiet this morning although much of it was spent marking yet more dreadful assignments. After lunch I headed up to the shop to collect the items sold over the weekend so that the could be packed and sent out. I arrived to find the place in chaos. Workmen are renovating some of the properties in the centre, creating two new holiday lets. They are also completing the renovations to the cafe in the yard. Their supplies of floorboards had just been dumped across the front of my shop door. When I enquired to the workmen how I was supposed to get in the shop I was greeted with a vacant smile and a shrug of the shoulders. They soon moved them when I climbed onto the pile and walked across so that I could unlock the shop and go in. I returned from the shop around 3pm. It proved to be a bad move with school traffic resulting in a much longer journey. I have not seen things this bad in twelve months (even when the schools were open). Stay safe. Andy

Evening all. Congratulations to Dom and Elsie. Also many happy returns to Jill. Today we have had decent weather with some good spells of sunshine. Three different walks were undertaken today (shhhhh don’t tell Boris). Actually all were related to collecting Sarah’s Avon books. No wonder my phone recorded over 15,000 steps today. The most achieved in a single day all year by a long way. No wonder the legs feel a bit tight now. Night all. Andy

The lower building is the one I originally planned to use and it definitely matches the houses. I also think it is more in keeping with a terminus station. The brick colour is also similar to the one used on Skaleby West. This allows consistency for the whole branch. I think I became distracted because the other building looked ok in the earlier stages. That is a very good thought Polly and an interesting concept. I think I warming to the lower option as the main station building but the idea of swapping buildings in the way you describe is definitely worth considering.

More great photos of the Standard 3 - one of my favourite locos. You make an interesting point about people on layouts. I read the views of others on this subject in some magazine articles. Many said that people stood in fixed, frozen in time, "action" poses look wrong. This is a very good point. I do have figures on my layout, Skaleby West, but they are limited and I try to consider non-action poses such as some people sat relaxing on the station benches or a train spotter sat on the bank overlooking the station area. The only exception to this are the station master who is learning against the toilet checking his stop watch and a beekeeper who is stood checking his hive in the cottage garden. Your layout looks great.

36 DAYS TO GO After leaving the back scene to dry last night I have tidied things up with small applications of glue to areas where it had not stuck down. The layout has now been put back in position with pegs attached to ensure that the backscene and glue make contact. The platform pieces and other buildings have been returned to the board and I have experimented with the look of the two different station buildings. The first photo shows the Goathland type building which I had initially used to test how things fitted. The second photo shows the planned building, now liberated from store, being test fitted. Not quite sure which one I prefer. You will note that the Bachmann Thomas continues to be the motive power of choice although this can be attributed to my daughter who likes to run the loco around with a couple of wagons. She is back at school tomorrow so I may get the chance to swap the loco over.

Looking forward to attending this year. I have everything crossed that it will go ahead. Andy A2B Model Railways

We will have to wait a week then!

and Ronald McDonald

Since You've Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson

We have heard that before. I think you said that after Kings Moreton was sold and the next minute Seven Mills was springing up!

Evening all. Generic greetings including the relevant congrats and commiserations as appropriate. The recent late nights have caught up on me and I have been very tired all day. I did manage some modelling this afternoon and evening with more progress made (see Skaleby East thread). Stay safe, stay sane. Andy

37 DAYS TO GO Where did the week go? The last few days have raced by with no further progress and we are almost a month away from the deadline. The belief that I can get the layout done for April 12th is beginning to wane. Today has seen more work on the layout however. In preparation for laying the platform, I have glued down an extra layer of cork to build the platform up to the correct level. I have also located the chosen signal box and have test fitted it into the preferred position. I had originally intended to place the box in the space between the loop and the loco siding. I tried it there, but felt it may look cramped with the coaling stage placed there too. This evening I have glued down the back scene. I am using one of the Gaugemaster scenic backscenes. Hopefully my wife will not mind that this is currently drying on the floor of the spare bedroom with books and magazines weighting it down. Meanwhile, I can confirm that the result of the Facebook vote has christened the layout as Tommore Bay.

I had the same call this morning and there have been many such calls over the last few months - Amazon Prime, Tv license, HMRC, various banks and even NHS test and trace. All wanting you to press this number to confirm something or respond to a "strange activity" on your account. They pick things to throw doubt into your mind and, by selecting topical things, they try and make it sound real. No surprise it is HMRC at the moment as we reach the end of a financial year. That is how they catch people! Since my personal mobile also doubles up as the business phone, I seem to get other nuisance calls - various previously unheard of companies wanting to take on my business electricity, phone service or broadband. Nowadays I put the phone down and block the number. Stay safe, stay sane. Andy

I am sure they would.

I suppose it had to happen that Seven Mills would eventually be put up for sale. I hope everything is ok Andy considering the comments you made about "having to set it" etc. Although my personal interest is more in the direction of the steam era, I have enjoyed this model just as much as all of the others. I hope that, once it has found a good home, there will be another masterpiece for us all to follow the construction. On the subject of Seven Mills, I look forward to watching the upcoming videos (I have not yet had time to catch up on 75B). I wonder if the guys in Matlock Bath are looking for an O gauge display too.

These "scalpers" as they are known are notorious at these times. EBay has plenty of these people selling the console for inflated prices. I would sooner wait than give money to these people. Whilst the ethics of the practise is debatable, the one thing that can be said is such purchases would not have the same security as one made from a known retailer in the event of something going wrong.

Evening all. My good wishes all round with supportive thoughts to those who are suffering whether it be tooth ache or post jab. Thank you to all who offered comments about the shortage of a certain part which is adding to the shortage of the Sony console. I had been aware of this issue via the news and it certainly is one of the issues impacting on supply. Meanwhile the search continues yielding nothing but more frustration. Last night I checked a few sites from my iPad whilst partaking in a pre-bed drink. The usual out of stock messages dominated. Then I called up the Argos app. A couple of days ago I had managed to add the item to the trolley but got no further. The item had sat, faded out, in the trolley ever since - until last night when it appeared in full colour with the phrase "available for same day delivery" alongside. I clicked on it, got to the item page - but instead of the opportunity to complete purchase it had the "out of stock" message. Knowing how Argos have a habit of restocking items at silly times, I spent a while refreshing and checking but to no avail. The only result was less sleep than required and a day spent feeling very tired. Ironically, the situation has not changed and the item still remains in the trolley with the same delivery message followed by the out of stock alert at checkout. This morning there was further frustration. The large toy supermarket - Smyths, was due to be restocking today. Laptop was on as soon as I got up and regularly refreshed with nothing happening. At 8.35 (precise time I know), I went to make breakfast - came back with tea and toast to find the whole allocation for the day had been on the site and sold out in less than ten minutes! Internet sites are certainly not my friends. I also awoke to an alert from the shop site. A decent sized order which was very welcome. However, the order was made up of 5 x a specific GWR wagon from the 2019 set of releases. These have long since sold out and, so I thought, had been removed from the website. This has happened a few times recently where the site engine does not fully remove the item even when it has been deleted. Very annoying. Occasionally. it has been caused by me forgetting to update the inventory on some days. The result of this order being that I will have to disappoint the customer and refund. I have, this afternoon, undertaken a full stock take of current and pre-ordered wagon stock to make sure the inventory is up to date. The benefit was I found a couple of others that had slipped the net although, on this occasion, it was the website error and not me! Stay safe and sane. Andy

Evening all. Another late check in with generic good wishes, congrats and commiserations as appropriate. Sadly, as outlined in earlier posts, the search for Sony’s much sought after games console again proved fruitless. I note the comments of some on here about “marketing”. I have been involved with buying consoles for over 30 years. There are always issues with supplies of any brand new games console. They simply cannot make enough for the demand. The pandemic has certainly made things worse in terms of supply and the ability for customers to order them. The websites simply cannot cope with the traffic. It has produced a much more difficult situation, probably increased by some wanting them sooner than normal because of the lockdowns. I usually hold off for at least six months to let the demand ease, usually not purchasing until May or a June. The lockdown and Sarah offering to buy it for Christmas has meant I am amongst those looking to purchase early. The chances are it could well be May and June before I do get my hands on one. Back to things which many more ER’s will relate to, I have heard from the advertising team of Hornby Magazine. As expected, they were full of apologies for their error and have refunded the price of the advert. They have managed to change it to the correct ad for the digital version of the magazine. That is as much as they could have done. It is another cause of frustration however because it does reduce the publicity of the special offer. Back at home, Amber has started to make an effort to make up for her actions yesterday. She has accepted that she did the wrong thing. Home schooling was completed in good time and to a good standard. She has made a start on the tidying up too. Long may it continue. Stay safe. Andy

Likewise. No luck here either. Very frustrating.

The object of my search is indeed the PS5. Video games, even at the ripe old age of 45, are still one of my vices (along with beer, whisky, Derby County and model railways). Throughout the first lockdown I regularly indulged in the Call of Duty games after both Amber and our foster child had gone to bed. The games were played, online, with my best mate Mark - chatting over the headsets. At least it was some kind of socialising! Solo gaming these days are usually restricted to the Train Sim World driving game - usually taking the Class 47 or 33 along the West Somerset (no steam trains as yet). Sadly the frustration continues. The "Game" store contrived to kick me out of the store as the stock went live this morning. I have three different bundles spread across three different devices all sat at different stages of the longest check out queue I know. I guarantee that I will complete none of them - and I only want one! Stay safe - whilst I try and stay patient and sane! Andy

Evening all. Good to hear that @New Haven Neil has joined the jabbed club. In terms of needles - I did not look so could not comment on the size of the needle. I did not feel a thing - but the administering nurse looked quite attractive (although she was wearing a mask) so that helped to take my mind off things! I hope the side effects stay away. Happy birthday to @Ian Abel Good to see @grandadbob making an appearance - sorry that you are not feeling your best and I hope you feel better soon. Here in a grey South Derbyshire it has not been an especially good day. Mainly things that would be classed as first world problems but, in the light of another disrupted night's sleep, take on even bigger meaning. It begin with a fruitless online search for an item this morning. Placed said item in trolley at Argos. Got to check out - then found listed as unavailable for both pick up at all local stores and home delivery. Then it appeared as available to collect in Long Eaton, but when I proceeded to payment screen it was back out of stock again. The same cycle was repeated 4-5 times over the hour before it booted me out completely. Amazon showed stock, but jumped straight to error screens too so no success. The tiredness, coupled with the internet frustration, meant it was difficult to concentrate on the marking workload and some fairly dire assignments which needed marking. The mood was not helped by receiving my Hornby Magazine and discovering they had messed up my advert. Instead of repeating the one I ran in March, with details of my current special offer, they substituted it with the previous month's ad! Since the offer I was promoting ends at the start of April it is a costly error! They have apologised and promised to refund the cost of the advert, but it does not really compensate for four weeks lost promotion. This afternoon Amber seriously found her nine year old feet and overstepped the mark. We have a small park opposite our house which she likes to go on. I took her over for half an hour this morning as a break from her home schooling and my marking. This afternoon she wanted to go again. Both Sarah and I were too busy and said no. The little madam decided to answer back and say she was going to go over on her own. Then, when our backs were turned, went and did just that. Now, she is nine, so we may consider letting her over there for a short time on some days. We can keep a check on her out the front bedroom windows. The fact that she did it when we had said no was not the wisest move. When I collected her she found some of her electronics had vanished and will now need to be re-earned! As if all that was not enough - a certain Mr Rooney decides tonight's game at Cardiff is the perfect time to play the kids! Result - a 4-0 loss! Could be worse - at least Forest lost! Stay safe. Andy edited to remove typos

I have just found this thread. Love the quality of modelling and the way you have depicted some of the scenes from the books.