Pete 75C

Bob! No! Don't do it! Things can't be that bad... Oh hang on. I've just noticed it's an electric oven...

Thanks for the memory jog. I remember "Minories Mk2" but have always thought it didn't quite "gel" with the original concept. Not surprising, really, once you start to extend... Looking at the AnyRail plan above, I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's not quite right.

I know. Early Risers is like the "Nexus" in the Star Trek movie "Generations" I saw on telly last week. You never want to leave...

From memory the interiors were wood panelled with off-white ceilings and the seat coverings featured a typical BR small chequer pattern in red/black/grey. if my memory is truly as bad as my wife keeps telling me, ignore the above...

Yup. I noticed yesterday that a tree on the street in full view of the living room window was turning an autumnal orangey-red and mentioned this to my daughter. She then told me that it was that colour all year round! That proves two things... I know nothing about trees and that 11 yr-olds are smarter than 47 yr-olds. Have a good Monday if that's humanly possible.

Thanks for the update Tim and I hope it goes without saying, please pass on our best wishes for a speedy return.

Morning! Have not had a chance to catch up since about Friday afternoon(ish). Suitable "Likes", "Funnys" will be clicked in due course and if anyone's going through a bad patch, you have my sympathies and support. I need to drive eldest into Dereham for some Air Cadet parade thing. He's busy shining shoes as I type this. He doesn't believe me when I tell him about spit and heating the back of a teaspoon which was a time-served trick back when I (briefly) served HM. Youngest needs to be picked up from Weybourne later after a sleepover. As Weybourne is at the heart of the North Norfolk Railway's 1940s Weekend, I shall no doubt get stuck in traffic behind a Sherman tank and a couple of Jeeps. A brief lunch and then back to Dereham to collect eldest. A multitude of mundane household chores to be fitted into the day as well. Day of rest? Day of rest, my ar*e... Have a great day folks.

Why is there no button to click for "Holy Sh*t!!!"...? That's a shame Steve but does that mean Melton Mowbray-a-go-go?

I'm with you on that one, Jock. However my mum was from Arbroath and no doubt would have voted "Yes" given the opportunity. She spent the last 45 years of her life in South London and moaned about the English every single day!

I remember seeing that film shortly after it came out. I don't remember much about the plot but I do remember being disappointed Jamie Lee Curtis's clothes didn't accidentally fall off. Not even once...

If I remember correctly, Unigate used to service our little corner of South London even though the Express Dairies bottling plant was only a few miles away. Do people actually still get milk delivered to their door? A quick Google reveals that they must do and the humble milk float has gone high tech...

I've obvously been living under a rock for quite some time because I've only just spotted this thread! Truly outstanding and very inspirational.

Mal - how does the hospital go about changing a pacemaker battery? I assume it's a surgical procedure? I'm genuinely curious - I have this ridiculous vision in my head of a long line of outpatients standing in the corridor connected to 9v wall chargers...

A bit late to the Photoshop debate but just to add my comments which may not be to everyone's taste... personally I'm a little sick to death of photoshopped images. They seem to pop up with alarming regularity on other parts of RMWeb and they just seem to scream... "look at me - I'm so clever". As has been mentioned - the ability to actually weather something to a believable life-like state takes skill and practise and is to be admired. The ability to Photoshop an image is, I admit, not something I'd know how to do but it impresses me no more than someone bragging about getting a new high score on a computer game. I'm very much an average modeller but without experienced modellers to aspire to, I'd still be on the carpet with a train set.

"Pea soup" on the North Norfolk coast would be an understatement this morning. Eldest is just off to do his paper round and I'm tempted to tie a very long length of string to him to make sure he finds his way home. He has "Philosophy and Ethics" first thing at school today which is far from his favourite subject. "I'm sorry I'm late miss, I got lost in the fog"... I wouldn't put it past him.

Jock, I don't recall any difficulties with varying shift patterns. We all seemed to get used to it pretty quickly. At my depot, a lot of the drivers would swap for permanent earlies or permanent lates and a couple would do whatever it took to get out of a night shift. Me, I just took it as it came. It was a pain being woken by the phone or doorbell whilst trying to sleep during the daytime after a night shift. I used to like the early shifts. Never any trouble ferrying commuters to work in London. The late shifts were a different story - quite often there was trouble on the train requiring police assistance or I'd get back to Horsham and find a couple of immovable drunks on the train when all I wanted to do was berth the train in the sidings and go home. I do recall physically throwing drunks out onto the platform but that's something you can't do nowadays. If I'm honest, my favourite shifts were depot shunter at Selhurst. You'd clock on at 00:01 for an 8 hour shift... you'd spend a few hours in the shunters mess room playing cards and drinking tea and then sneak off home at around 5am as the empty coaching stock started to head off out of the depot for the morning rush hour. The average was 5 or 6 moves from one yard road to another and a couple of unit splits. My main claim to fame at Selhurst was just after the New Shed opened and I'd qualified on Class 319s. I moved a 12 car formation out of the shed after maintenance and knocked off the pantographs on the first two units which had been left raised by a fitter. I got a detention and a couple of hundred lines for that... Happy days.

Trev, the San Diego option looks favourite, but only you will know which option feels right... just go with your instincts. If you can't trust those, etc etc... Edit: plus if you make the wrong choice, you won't be able to blame us...

How I miss 12 hour nights and then having to juggle domestic stuff and raising kids whilst trying to make sure I get some at least some sleep... The above was meant to have an ironic slant to it, but I actually do kinda miss it... strange.

I really must get some stronger reading glasses. I spent ages wondering "who's Gary?"...

Some of the best sunrises I ever saw were at a friend's farmhouse in Bagenalstown (Muine Bheag). People talk about a "big sky" and that was always the case there. Best experienced with steaming mug of coffee. Spoilt only by having to view the sunrise over the neighbour's plot of land. He ran a haulage business and always had around a dozen trucks in his "garden"... Some mental "view blocking" was needed.

Dull and damp in Norf Norfolk this morning. One of the wheels just fell off my wheelie bin as I dragged it across the gravel in the direction of the pavement. I do hope that's not some ominous warning of the quality of my day ahead... Whatever you're up to, may your wheels turn freely.

Sadly I don't ride on the road any more. There are, of course, two sides to each coin. Having commuted by stupidly big Suzuki between Croydon and Horsham for many years, for every idiot biker there is an idiot car/van/lorry driver. They're everywhere and leap out to ruin your day when you least expect it. I took a conscious decision some years ago that track days were the way to go if I wanted an adrenalin rush. I believe I came to that decision whilst lying upside down in a ditch picking chunks of A23 out of my right leg. My bike was in too many pieces to count and most of it got swept into a bin liner. Neil's occasional bike pics prompt an urge to get another one but the urge passes. Eventually...

Is that Aladdin's Cave of a timber merchant, A J Smith, still in Benfleet? I used to get everything from preservative to hardwood decking from there. They would send a "picker" to the docks to reserve the best timber as soon as the boat arrived. Always had fantastic service and amazing choice from them. Edit: I have a vague recollection that I might have asked you about A J Smith before, Tony. If so, apologies, my memory's a bit cr*p.

Some people wind me up. Car-viewing guy number 3 failed to show up yesterday. No phone call. Not even a simple courtesy "can't make it" text. Got a message at 10pm last night saying that he'd be here today between 12 noon and 4. So he's assuming I've nothing better to do than waste another afternoon waiting for him? Actually I haven't got anything better to do, but that's not the point! I've decided that if he does show up and he does want the car, he's not getting a penny off the asking price. Most potential buyers will offer something under the asking price "for cash" and that's fine, that's the way it works. Not this chap. Full asking price or he can simply p**s off back to wherever he came from... Oh, and by the way, "morning all". I'm not usually this grumpy!

Morning all. Third attempt to sell wife's car this morning. One "no-show" and then a guy that travelled 100 miles only to say "I thought it was manual"... I wonder what part of "semi-automatic with paddle-shift" he didn't understand..? Wish me luck, I want the driveway back. Pete.