Darlington_Shed

Agreed! There's something so distinctive about the colours, particularly of the brickwork that tends to a rather glaring shade of pink. On a related subject, has anyone built a GWR "pagoda" shed? The basic walls and associated details look easily doable, but that droopy roof seems potentially troublesome. For info, I'll be modelling in N Gauge 😟

Greetings! Just back from a very enjoyable evening at a riverside gastro-pub in west London. Colloquially known as Boys Night Out, it's a bunch of old blokes whose daughters were at primary school together - the mums were always organising coffee mornings and lunches so us dads mounted a counter-offensive. Mums' events have been very sporadic for more than a decade but us dads are still going strong - 7 or 8 old gits, usually involving copious quantities of dead meat and red wine. What could be better?

Amazing how much time we save with all the new technology, isn't it?

Well, congratulations. Sometimes it just feels like fate. But if that's the master bedroom in one of the estate agent pics, that bed is much too small. Just saying...

Crikey, no-one told me there was rationing 😧

The Portuguese (in my humble opinion). Mrs Shed and I will be in Lisbon in September where I intend to undertake extensive research.

Greetings all! I have just returned from a trip in the footsteps (vapour trail?) of our resident aviator... in and out of Malaga airport, with 8 days of poolside frivolity in between. A minor point of interest - for years Malaga spent quite of bit of money and effort branding the airport in the name of Pablo Picasso, but this week I couldn't find a single scrap of evidence that they had done so. Wonder if the old boy has fallen foul of the modern morality police. In other news, before I went I invested in access to the full digital archive of Railway Modeller and spent many happy hours looking over some classical small layout ideas. A plan is forming...

Ah, but the nom de forum was chosen before WB's lamentable lack of sheds was exposed. I would* have been more sensitive, had I known. In other news, I have shed 12kg so far in the on-going weight-loss regime. I hope to shed more. *Possibly. Perhaps.

Has been so at least since the time of the pharoahs.

Sympathies! Feel that way myself. I have been AWOL for a few weeks, temporarily (I hope) resident in the Slough of Despond - a hideous place but rather more attractive than the Slough of Berkshire. No real reason apart from a complete lack of mojo, struggling with the knackered left knee and right ankle, and the (welcome) fact that daughter is now resident at home with a new job - but one which requires her to work from home several days a week and meaning she has taken up residence in what was once designated as "the modelling room". I have a long list of things that might drag me out of this miserable state but they include repairing the rotted steps to the workshop (can't be done because the knackered knee prevents me from kneeling), working on my nascent model railway (because daughter is resident in the room), and building the many model aircraft in the stash (because I can't be 4rs3d to set up on the dining room table on a daily basis). I have, however, been a daily visitor and extend the relevant wishes to those who have celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, surgical procedures and sunry other events large and small. You have all been a comfort!

My vote would be for coaches, obviously, but also a heartfelt plea for any of the P7 hoppers.

Greetings all. Just completed the first month of the new diet and exercise regime and happy to report that weight loss to date is 5.2kg. I doubt I'll be able to keep up an average weekly loss of around 1kg but it's a very encouraging start. Equally pleasing is the fact that on Saturday I completed the first complete circuit of the local park - a 20-minute walk that I haven't been able to do since I crocked my knee last summer.

Hmm... I am uncertain about the attractions of "special effects". I have most* of a bottle of Woodford (a Christmas gift from SIL) but have happily enjoyed it in traditional form with the addition of an ice cube or two. * It was somewhat - enjoyably - depleted in the early hours of January 1!

Looks very good, Jamie. You might need to do some re-pointing on that church end wall, too.

I was introduced to Mr Wyndham by my O-level English teacher and was instantly engaged. I've read all of his books (I think) but the two that remain firm favourites are The Kraken Wakes and, more so, The Day of the Triffids. Recently came across a wonderful TV adaptation on Prime Video from 2009 with Dougray Scott, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson and - ahem - Eddie Izzard; well worth watching IMHO. Hope Horace continues to improve 👍

The topic sent me back for a rummage through my research folders. This site is a great resource: Goodearl furniture and sawmill About halfway down the page there's a good picture of a modern (gigantic) extractor, and if you thoroughly explore all of the linked pages you'll have a good idea of exactly how a sawmill processed trees into timber and related products, including the saws, the cranes, kilns for drying the timber, and plenty more. Hope this helps.

Not an expert, but I have always planned for a sawmill on my (unbuilt) layout and did quite a bit of research during lockdown. If you look at the first link you posted to the Kibri sawmill, you'll see two metallic extractors on the roof of the building, and I'm pretty sure that at least one of these will carry sawdust: Those sorts of extractors - and associated ductwork - appear in many pictures of sawmills. Here's one from just before WW2 at Crook in Co. Durham: (from the Britain from Above website) As @phil_sutterssays, sawdust is not only highly flammable but explosive, so closed extraction systems are common. In addition to possible use as a fuel source for the sawmill itself, particleboard was invented towards the end of the 19thC so sawdust and woodchips became a commercial product after that, but particularly around WW1 and WW2 when timber supplies were affected by the wars.

Ooh, I did. Hilarious! And I can also recommend the little known follow-up, 'MASH Goes to Maine' - you can learn a lot about the female fertility cycle, and US politics, among a great many other things.

Good point, and likely explanation. I'm also pretty sure that the lack of alcohol (specifically red wine) is having an effect. As m'learned friend Rumpole regularly observed, a tumbler of claret every evening keeps a person astonishingly regular.

"That which is new shall be old, and that which is old shall be new again" - from The Wisdom of the Shed And on the subject of things that are old, I am four days into a diet and fitness regime under the stern supervision of Mrs Shed. Low carbs, green vegetables, no alcohol, and much stretching, bending and the repetitive lifting of small weights. Results so far: a gain of 1.2kg. I am dispirited.

Brave man... I doubt I'd be able to get up again!

Happy new year to all! @Gwiwer- you look like you're on your knees there. Second bottle? I haven't started with the hard stuff yet - red wine so far, and maybe a dram or two before bed. Hic!

She does, in fact. Which I built for her, on her allotment. And what do I get in return? Infectious diseases!

If you mean you watched the first three films of the franchise, then surely there's no controversy. Although I did greatly enjoy The Mandalorian after discovering that my daughter was paying for a Disney+ subscription. And was subsequently delighted when I found that Santa had delivered a Razor Crest model kit on Christmas Day.

I have, for some time, thought that we no longer have a "national health service". What we have instead is a number of regional health authorities/hospital trusts and, like restaurant franchises, the quality can vary enormously. I don't pretend to know what the solution might be, but it's surely way past time that we have a grown-up conversation about the future of healthcare in this country. And no, I'm not in the least bit optimistic.