MrWolf

Unless of course someone has been stupid (I am desperately trying not to write something offensive here) enough to send anything via Hermes, who dump a £150 item on your doorstep from where it is stolen by a wandering smackhead. Can you speak to anyone at Hermes? No. They keep you waiting half an hour and then cut you off. Can you email them? No. Will they honour their insurance? No. All you get is an automated message saying "The package has been signed for by a member of your household." No it hasn't. "You can view the signature on our website." No, you can't, because there isn't one. Is this an isolated incident? No. Third time this year. First two were via eBay and the seller of one refunded me, the other thought I was trying it on. The most recent was a private sale via an advert. The one time I hadn't said to the vendor: Whatever you do, DON'T send it via Hermes, because once they have your money they don't give a (insert expletive of choice) because they are unaccountable and un-contactable. I enjoy posting on here so I won't say exactly what I think of them!

Except that in the current circumstances the post office and couriers aren't taking signatures. We are stocking up the shop at present and receiving three or four parcels per day. Nobody is taking signatures.

Er.... Moving along swiftly... I think that some people simply get it wrong with postage costs, others take a wild stab in the dark and more than a few simply take something else altogether....

Having read the last two posts I find myself once again in the small North African town of Dafuq? I know that pretty much everyone likes to gripe about postage costs, but I have often wondered how one person can sell say a plastic LMS box van kit for say £10 and £1.50 post and the next person sell the same thing for £10 plus £4.30 post. They both arrive via 2nd class. The word chiselling springs to mind. It's not confined to model railway items of course. I recently bought a pair of brand new 26" bicycle tyres. Postage £3.50. Came in a package bicycle wheel sized. Someone is auctioning a pair of vintage 26" mudguards (half a wheel size) and expecting £20 postage - "because of the size" I have recently sent a pair of rear inner wings / wheel wells for a 1950s Vauxhall out, in a homespun cardboard box by Royal Mail parcel force on 48hr, insured for £250 - the cost? £21.00. Methinks the seller doth extract the urine.

My other bus is a Midland Red single decker. Ideal rear bumper sticker for a bus enthusiast. More original than "My other car is a Porsche".

For some reason that picture makes me think of riding on ancient Midland Red buses as a kid. The whole thing shook and rattled when stationary, smelled of stale air, old upholstery, hot motor oil and cigarette smoke. I avoid travelling on modern buses, (it's cheaper to travel by1961 Cadillac for a start) they smell of plastic, stale air and even staler passengers. Bleh.

Pets love to bring you presents to show you how loyal they are and how little they care about your soft furnishings. I had various gifts of rabbits and such brought into the house, even bits of a magpie. My then girlfriend and I were making dinner one day and he ambled through the back door and dropped a pheasant on the floor with a thud, looking very pleased with himself. My girlfriend looked at it and said: "Oh look, an ex-bird. Is it one of his or one of yours?

A lot of the moulds used in making many of the kits we build are ancient, some, like the ratio GWR wagons and coaches date back to the 60s. Although they have probably been built up and re-machined several times, you will get some flash. Others are basically produced on antiquated machinery in someone's garage using moulds inherited from other companies. So some cleaning up is inevitable. The alternative is that we lose these valuable resources forever and have to put up with open the box and put it on the layout modelling. Whilst that may be fine for some people, like collecting say new die cast model lorries in every livery possible and just admiring them, I would pack up model railways altogether as I was bored with out of the box toy trains by about the age of 10. Roughly when I built my first Airfix mineral wagon and sat painting all the insulators on their telegraph poles set a dirty white. Life would be boring if we didn't have to put effort, imagination and a little bit of frustration into achievement. Things might get so bad I might have to take up golf, about ten minutes before shooting myself no doubt...

Unfortunately that doesn't work on Miss Riding Hood. On the upside, she has given all my old motorcycles names and I am not allowed to sell them. The bike she is sitting on in the photo is called Katy after it's registration number, if I sell that, I will be in trouble.

That looks heavier than the old BEC white metal jobs from the 60's. Obviously RARE. Go on, buy it and shove an old Triang 4-4-0 chassis under it... There's a twisted side to everyone!

It's the opposite of the Leek & Manifold Railway?

Okay, just for those of you who are man enough to admit that they have a problem (100 bloke points to you amdaley!) 4. Never let her find out how much you pay for overpriced cr@p off eBay. We have a side deal tbh, she doesn't ask about the trains and I don't ask about her clothes.

Am I glad I didn't get rid of the box of unbuilt wagon kits nearly twenty years ago when I gave up on the idea of building a layout. (Though I do regret getting rid of the built and finished items, someone probably has an outside frame GW brake van with RW written on the floor!) It's a real shame that so many of the kit manufacturers have gone. Not all of us want shiny rtr instant collectors items! I had better get a bit of a production line going to create stock for my layout as I have only built half a dozen so far, or stick them all on eBay and buy myself a yacht / biplane / French villa...

"At least I think that's what the cat's name is"

It could be worse, you could be awoken by a creature known variously as the Giant Spoontongue or Giant Stickfiend. Which if hungry or in need of an early morning visit to the backyard would carefully place one fist sized paw in your eye and one in your groin then apply something upwards of six stones in weight. I do miss having a dog, but this place is pretty small and er indoors is severely allergic to furry critters.

Barton coaches certainly got to places as exotic as Morecambe Euston Road bus depot, adjacent to the old L&NWR station of the same name.

That's disturbingly true. Which is why I stick to the rules all men should be mindful of: 1. Never wake her up suddenly. 2. Never question the strange things she likes to buy. 3. Never contradict any claim that she has "nothing to wear". 4. Never buy overpriced cr@p off eBay!

Midland Red (Birmingham Midland Motor Omnibus) is a safe bet, their D9 double deckers were everywhere at one time and it is rumoured London Transport pinched a lot of the design for the Routemaster. Models are available!

Easy for you to say, you don't happen to live with a strange woman who owns several swords. At least we don't have a pond.

She's good at rude gestures. Claims to be "A bit broken". Other examples are hand gestures which I thought might be a little over the top / offensive even though you keep saying L@@K!

I remember Barton's having a depot in Leicester in the 70's, not far from the old Great Central station.

The man who has never made a mistake has never made anything.

Somehow I doubt that. Wagon kits can be fiddly. Crane kits put the F in fiddly.

No comment.

I've been following this wagon project and dug out of the doomsday box of kits, an unbuilt Cambrian GWR crane and match truck. I'll learn by your experience and build the crane jib first. That looks like the make or break element of the job!