Dave Hunt

Not Fresh Flour by any chance? Dave

I shouldn't think so. Hangers are what you put your clothes on; hangars are where aeroplanes are housed. Dave

A good landing is one you walk away from. A really good landing is one when the aeroplane can be flown again. Dave

Well, after church and a walk I was about to go down to the shed when Jill reported that the garage roller door wouldn't close. After much fiddling and poking I managed to pin it down to a broken electrical joint on the control mechanism so luckily it was but a five minute job with the soldering iron - most of the total time taken was searching for a sufficiently long extension lead. I then did get down to the shed and started sorting out how to make the shearlegs I need for the layout as well as painting some of the harness on the dray horse. Dave

The only one of those I've had a go at is the Mk 6 Lightning and I didn't get many hours on it. Nearly got a ride in a two seat Viggen once but it fell through. Dave

Jill's secretary in Lincolnshire did an OU English degree after she had retired. When she went to the degree ceremony she was congratulated by all the great and good. Dave

Your wish is my command. The model was built about 40 years ago to Finescale standards then rebuilt a few years later to S7. The wheels are Alan Harris castings that I machined. Sorry about the fall plate being stuck up in mid air; I didn't notice until after I'd taken the pictures. The tender really is a brute. Some of the (mucky) gubbins including... ....... the inside motion..... ..... and the motor bogies. A close-up of one of the bogies. Each one has a small Faulhaber motor with a series of spur gears and finishing with bevel gears giving about 50:1 reduction. There is no gearbox as such but the gears are built in to the bogie frame. There is about +/- 0.5mm sprung suspension. Pickup is the so-called American system with the loco picking up on one side and the tender chassis on the other. The tender body is insulated from the chassis. by a .020" plastic sheet between the two I really must clean the fluff and other rubbish off the model someday but it doesn't seem to affect the running. Like Jamie's model, the tender is full of lead and weighs several pounds and the model will pull a house down although the gearing is a bit too high so its top speed is only about a scale 60 mph. Dave

One of the most widely used aeronautical terms I remember from my career was, “Ohhhh sh!!!!tt.” Is that from the French? Dave

Shortly off to church then providing that the rain holds off a walk may be walked. I announced yesterday that I intend this afternoon to spend some time in the shed working on the layout as I feel that my back may now be up to sitting at the workbench for a while providing I don’t lean forward too much. To that Jill said, “Good, it’s about time you started doing that again.” She also said that she may come down with me and do some of her artwork, which is nice. Dave

Well, you did get awfully hot and sticky round the nether regions in the cockpit of a Hunter 😉 Dave

Commercial quality - oxymoron? Dave

Well, the weather did indeed put paid to my hoped-for trip to Attingham Park this afternoon. Instead I tried to fix our ancient Technics record deck of at least 25 years of age which refuses to do anything remotely connected with playing a record. Sadly I was unable to find what is wrong so transferred my efforts to looking for someone who can fix it. I think I may have found one in Nantwich, which is only about 15 miles away so I've sent an email asking whether they can, in fact, help and hope to hear from them on Monday. My sons think that I should embrace new tech and get an Alexa or something rather than persist with vinyl records and such but although I have gone as far as CDs and even iTunes I still like playing my old discs. Dinosaur, me? I've even got an electric soldering iron! Dave

Babycham. Ah, Jill's tipple of choice as a teenager, always requested with three cherries. In those days our favourite watering holes in Liverpool included the Rose of Mossley or in town The Philharmonic. The latter has the only Grade 1 listed gent's loo in the country. Dave

In 2008 a chap who had been something high up at Bass bought a somewhat decrepit pub with a plot of land attached in town here and set about resurrecting the Joule's ale brand that had been produced in Staffordshire until the 1970s. His main reason for choosing that particular site was that it included a well, the water in which was from the same acquifer as that used by Joule's. From being a scruffy, run down pub it is now a very nice place to drink and enjoy some good pub grub with its own brewery making some decent beers. It also owns or runs some 15 or so pubs within 25 miles or so. Dave

That figures - I was planning to go for a walk at Attingham Park this afternoon. Dave

Does my double garage and 35ft x 20ft shed get me on the list then Bear? Dave Oh, and the fact that I’ve got cake in stock?

When Jill was a girl her brother would sometimes put a well-worn sock in her pillow case 😖 Dave

When we lived in Singapore our house didn’t have air conditioning, just ceiling fans, so Jill used to keep her makeup in the fridge. Like many other RAF wives she also kept freshly laundered knickers there as, “There’s nothing quite like having a shower then stepping into an ice cold pair of panties.” Dave

We have recently had the same happen to our conservatory roof but judging by the amount of splatter it must have been a South American Condor on its holidays. Unfortunately I can’t take the conservatory to the car wash and since at present I can’t ascend ladders we’ll just have to pray for heavy rain. Dave

For mice read DH’s forefinger (which nearly got chopped off as a result). Dave

Welcome aboard member No. 3. Dave

The most regular visitors to our garden are pigeons, blue tits, robins, blackbirds and various LBJs.* We used to have a family of greater spotted woodpeckers visiting daily by then a couple of years ago they suddenly disappeared and haven’t returned. We also sometimes see long tailed tits and starlings a bit more infrequently. * Little Brown Jobs - sparrows or dunnocks or whatever. My bird identification skills aren’t up to differentiating between them all. Dave

I’ll try to take some and report back . Dave

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

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