Mothering Sunday

I don't know if this is a worldwide phenomenon but here in the UK, it's Mother's Day or Mothering Sunday. It's one of several days each year set aside for spending ridiculous amounts of money in card shops and florists.
My son is the most excited this morning person - he thinks it's like a Birthday and he's written his card and prepared his gift. He's now waiting anxiously for his mummy to wake-up... he's been waiting since 6am...
We'll of course be 'doing the rounds' today visiting my mum and mum-in-law.Oh what fun...

Modelling progress

A typical Saturday afternoon spent at my best friends. Incidentally, they are godparents to my son such is their close friendship. Each visit involves me giving 2 or 3 hours to the model railway I'm building. As mentioned previously, I've spent many years getting it to where it is now and I estimate another couple of years to get it anywhere near complete.

A particular problem hindering progress has been the track elevations and gradients. What works fine for one loco won't work for another so I've had to do a huge amount of tweaking and testing. I've decided to use fine ballast to mimmic the real thing and I'm using this to hold the track in position  rather than track pins. I have found these rather too severe and 'final' making any adjustments to track almost impossible. An area causing me considerable grief is at the north end of the layout - north being furthest from the camera in the above photo. The line turns into a bend which then elevates on a steady gradient. A slight tilt to the track has been necessary to prevent derailments and after several re-lays, I think I'm just about there. The ballast incidentally is sprayed with PVA mixed with water. When dry, this sets the ballast solid holding the track firm. I normally place a large weight onto 'troublesome track' and remove when the ballast is dry.

Up to a few weeks ago, track condition had been a real problem. As the layout is in a large shed, weather can play havoc with condensation the worst culprit. I read somewhere on the Net that operators of large model railway layouts swear by Wahl Oil. Apparently, despite being an 'oil', it has remarkable cleaning properties and leaves a ultra fine conductive layer which drastically improves transfer of current from track to wheel. So, I duly ordered a bottle or two and I've been amazed at the result after applying just one drop to each rail. Locos now run smoothly and without hesitation on all parts of the layout. I've also noticed the oil has managed to clean the loco wheels. Wahl Oil has to be the most essential accessory for any model railway and I thoroughly recommend it. Do though be careful with steep gradients. The oil can cause increased slippage on drive wheels, as I've found. In such cases, I've double-headed and run continuously for about an hour or so to disperse the oil.

I'll update on progress again next Saturday.

Something you don't see very often

Driving to mum's this morning, I passed a man smoking a pipe. Now that wouldn't have been very remarkable years ago but nowadays, it's something you don't often see. It wasn't a 'basic' pipe, you could see that money had been spent and care had been taken to make it look good. It was a rich mahogany in colour and a pipe typical of the fictional Sherlock Holmes - a real classic.
I did admire the fact that this chap, clearly mature in years, was walking with confidence, his pipe boldly displayed from his mouth. In this age, smoking is sneered at and attempts are now being made to hide it in the UK and push it under the counter - out of sight, out of mind...
I'd raise my pipe to him, if I had one. I don't - I used to, at school, many years ago. Not a period I'm proud of. I progressed to cigarettes, then cigars - which I smoked for many years up until about 2 years ago. I never quite kicked the habit. The birth of my son made me think seriously about it and in the end I decided to try one of these 'electronic cigarettes' everyone was raving about. They provide the full experience of smoking but without any of the harmful stuff - essentially it produces water vapour with nicotine. I'm still using it two years on, and I enjoy it. It gives me the freedom of using it anywhere, even indoors as there is no passive smoke and no smell. A wonderful little device and the best thing to come out of China since noodles.
Good luck to him! I expect in 10 years from now, we will be sneering at petrol and diesel cars as we glide past noiseless in our little electric pods...

Something nasty in the bath

An early start for us all this morning. I must explain that each Saturday morning, we have to get my wife to work so she can 'do' the hair for a woman who insists she has it done each Saturday at 8am. So we all have to run round like headless chickens getting ready to leave by 7.45 at the latest. If only this woman knew the combined effort required each Saturday to provide this service, maybe she'd think again. It's not as if the reward is worth the effort - it is not. Anyway, something was waiting for us (well me) in the bath this morning - a spider. Now, I'm OK with most insects and things with more than four legs, but when it comes to spiders I'm afraid I'm prone to freaking out - and that's exactly what I did this morning. My fear of spiders has rubbed off on my son and our dog come to that, for all three of us hurtled down the stairs to escape this bathroom menace... My darling wife is the only person who can confidently deal with them. We all stayed down there until the all clear was given and normal life could resume. So that was the first one of the year. We don't normally get them this early but it's starting to get mild here and that normally brings the buggers out. I have a little device, battery driven, that give out an ultrasonic beam of sound. This is supposed to keep them away so I've now switched that on. The dog doesn't like it much - she just sits staring at it. I must sound as if I'm petrified of the things - I am.

Broadcasting - News - Rob Brydon fools Ken Bruce radio listeners - Digital Spy

This was hilarious - one of the best April 1st pranks I've heard...

Broadcasting - News - Rob Brydon fools Ken Bruce radio listeners - Digital Spy

Farewell BBC Radio 7

Tomorrow morning, BBC Radio 4 Extra will replace BBC7. As a lover of radio, this is a special moment in radio history. From what I've seen, Radio 4 Extra will bring a lot of new programming to new and existing listeners as well as maintaining Radio 7's unique blend of new and classic comedy. It's good to see further investment and development in radio. As a radio listener once said 'I like listening to the radio because the pictures are better'... how very true.

New month, same old idiots

So bye bye March and Hello April... We start the month with a a visit to the local doc with my son. A swift check over and we're told he has a cold (which we already knew)... so that was time well spent.

I don't know if it's the weather but so far today, I have just seen idiots on our roads. Where I live, there is a generally poor standard of driving skills. We are surrounded by farmland and long roads with little traffic. I think this gives people the impression they can drive how they like, with absolutely no regard for anyone else. I do take extreme exception to dangerous drivers particularly when I have my son in the car with me. To give an explicit example, I was driving back from the doc's along a road that up to very recently had a 60 mph limit. It has since been changed to a staggered 50 mph, starting at 40 mph for the first few hundred yards. I am a stickler for safe driving, so imagine my anger when some blithering idiot decided he could drive as fast as he wanted and overtook me. The road is marked with think red stripes with white speed symbols and the lamp posts also display the new speed limit. 

The other idiots this morning included a woman who didn't know her right from her left and indicated right whilst turning left and someone else who thought that because he had a big car, he didn't have to give way when the law required otherwise. Unbelievable...

I've managed to leave my poorly son at my parents for a couple of hours. They have my sister's kids there today so he's very happy playing with them and didn't even notice the fact that I'd left.

Whilst there, they asked me to look at their VCR. It had been making a strange noise. True enough, it was and I deduced that a drive cog had worn out. They are still in the dark ages when it comes to technology and believe me, it is not a good idea to bring them into the 21st Century. I've tried. So imagine my horror when my father produced a DVD recorder - the same machine I had a year ago taken a month trying to teach them to use. I recall actually making myself ill at the time, it was that stressful. They simply cannot get their heads round the fact that a recordable DVD is not the same as a tape and cannot be re-wound and taped-over. DVD's have to be finalised and erased if you want to use them again. No, I think the simplest thing to do is to find a replacement VCR - they understand them and it means less stress for me. I should have hidden that bloody DVD recorder when I had the chance...

OK, that's off my chest.

I'm off to work on my model railway later. I'll get some more photos while I there.