The Night Mail

[J. S. Bach]

Speaking of sheds (we were, weren't we?), I am thinking of one more, a small one of 10' x 10' or so just for the 52" cut lawnmower and other associated yard tooling. The main consideration will be the ability to ride the mower in as it is a beast to try and push!

 

The door opening has to be at least 6' wide and 7' tall.

 

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Had we bought a camper van like NHN has,

 

Ownership of which is hotly disputed by a small but vociferous purple donkey.....

 

[Hroth]

27 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Speaking of sheds (we were, weren't we?), I am thinking of one more, a small one of 10' x 10' or so just for the 52" cut lawnmower and other associated yard tooling. The main consideration will be the ability to ride the mower in as it is a beast to try and push!

 

The door opening has to be at least 6' wide and 7' tall.

 

 

I thought Hustler was one of those dodgy 70s top shelf mags...

 

(It's content would be classed as "tame" compared with that available on the internet nowadays!)

 

[AndyID]

37 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Speaking of sheds (we were, weren't we?), I am thinking of one more, a small one of 10' x 10' or so just for the 52" cut lawnmower and other associated yard tooling. The main consideration will be the ability to ride the mower in as it is a beast to try and push!

 

The door opening has to be at least 6' wide and 7' tall.

 

 

My largest shed can easily accommodate my tractor complete with attached backhoe, or to be more accurate it could easily accommodate it if it wasn't for all the other carp in there. I thought 20 x 36 feet would be more than enough. Another 50% would maybe do the trick 😁

[jamie92208]

52 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Speaking of sheds (we were, weren't we?), I am thinking of one more, a small one of 10' x 10' or so just for the 52" cut lawnmower and other associated yard tooling. The main consideration will be the ability to ride the mower in as it is a beast to try and push!

 

The door opening has to be at least 6' wide and 7' tall.

 

Now that the Rover 75 has departed from the to end of the shedpwhich is 100 M Sq.  I am able to drive the lawn tractor I and then do a 3 point turn so I can drive it out when it's next needed.  Just saying. 

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

36 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I thought Hustler was one of those dodgy 70s top shelf mags...

 

(It's content would be classed as "tame" compared with that available on the internet nowadays!)

 

This is a Hustler:

 

content://com.android.chrome.FileProvider/images/screenshot/1693940156785857040164.jpg

[J. S. Bach]

4 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

This is a Hustler:

 

content://com.android.chrome.FileProvider/images/screenshot/1693940156785857040164.jpg

I remember one of those came into NAS Lemoore, CA when I was stationed there. When it departed, it probably woke up the surrounding area out to about twenty miles or more! Probably the nicest but fiercest looking bomber the USAF ever had!

[J. S. Bach]

27 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

My largest shed can easily accommodate my tractor complete with attached backhoe, or to be more accurate it could easily accommodate it if it wasn't for all the other carp in there. I thought 20 x 36 feet would be more than enough. Another 50% would maybe do the trick 😁

No, Boyle's Law would be operating here and the carp would expand to fill the empty space. 🙄

[Happy Hippo]

24 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

No, Boyle's Law would be operating here and the carp would expand to fill the empty space. 🙄

My garage appeared remarkably empty when we left this morning.

 

I presume it will be ram packed when we return!

[Northmoor]

6 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Currently in Reading.

 

Tomorrow a train a from here to Gatwick.

 

A bit of a disjointed start as the drive was getting resurfaced today, so we had to partially load up and then shift the car to a neighbour's driveway last night.

 

20 tons of T*rm*c was being dropped on the neighbour's portion of the drive as we left.

Make a Hippo noise as you pass Blackwater, it's the nearest station on the line to us.  I'll listen out.

 

Just witnessed a meteorite coming down East from here, really bright but didn't here a sonic boom or a bang from impact.  No doubt it'll soon appear in home CCTV clips posted on news websites.

[PhilJ W]

Apart from the three sheds (one falling down and the other two too small to be much use I also have a garage. It is adjacent to my property but I only rent it. Like most garages built before 1960 it is too small for a modern car so its used as storage for various tools that are too large for the sheds or need to be more secure such as my ladder. Also I keep my small trailer in there. It is the end garage of a block of four, each 16' X 8', I once had visions of purchasing all four and knocking them into one.

[Winslow Boy]

8 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Bear is currently sobbing uncontrollably.....

 

Now see what you've gone and done.

[Winslow Boy]

7 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

That's a relief, just 400 Sq M in the main one plus 70 sqm in the woodshed and 18 Sq M  in the attached aviary where the hens (RIP) used to live

That's great news Ian. 

 

Jamie

Perhaps I need an extra column?

[Dave Hunt]

56 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

This is a Hustler:

 

content://com.android.chrome.FileProvider/images/screenshot/1693940156785857040164.jpg

 

The B58. Not something I'd ever like to fly. Can you imagine what would happen if one of the outboard motors quit at Mach 2? It was notoriously difficult to fly and had very high takeoff and landing speeds. Nearly a quarter of them crashed.

 

Dave

[Winslow Boy]

50 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

My garage appeared remarkably empty when we left this morning.

 

I presume it will be ram packed when we return!

Probably with the ten tonnes of tarmac left over from the path resurfacing.

[polybear]

20 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

The B58. Not something I'd ever like to fly. Can you imagine what would happen if one of the outboard motors quit at Mach 2? It was notoriously difficult to fly and had very high takeoff and landing speeds. Nearly a quarter of them crashed.

 

Dave

 

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.......................

 

Later versions of the B-58 provided each crew member with a novel ejection capsule that could eject at an altitude of 70,000 ft (21,000 m) at speeds up to Mach 2. Unlike standard ejection seats of the period, a protective clamshell enclosed the seat and the control stick with an attached oxygen cylinder, allowing the AC to continue to fly even "turtled up" and ready for immediate egress. The capsule was buoyant; the crewmember could open the clamshell and use it as a life raft.  Unusually, the ejection system was tested with live bears and chimpanzees; it was qualified for use during 1963 and a bear became the first living being to survive a supersonic ejection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

My garage appeared remarkably empty when we left this morning.

 

I presume it will be ram packed when we return!

 

Tell me about it.....just 'happened'

 

[J. S. Bach]

53 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Just witnessed a meteorite coming down East from here, really bright but didn't here a sonic boom or a bang from impact.  No doubt it'll soon appear in home CCTV clips posted on news websites.

It does not become a meteorite until it touches the Earth; the atmosphere does not count.

[Dave Hunt]

15 minutes ago, polybear said:

Unusually, the ejection system was tested with live bears and chimpanzees; it was qualified for use during 1963 and a bear became the first living being to survive a supersonic ejection.

 

Did he get cake?

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

This afternoon I got the two breakdown vans I'm making finished to the stage of painting and sprayed them with red oxide undercoat. Tomorrow is topcoat time, which is something I always dread. I feel a nerve calming libation coming on.

 

Dave

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I have been to Reading.

 

Oh, wait, not that one! 🙂

 

I'm sure I've told this story before but a few months after we moved to Reading, Berks, we received a postcard from one of my wife's former Polish colleagues that had spent over a month in the post and had a US Postal Service rubber stamp "Not Reading, PA". The sender had forgotten to write "Anglia" or "Wielka Brytania".

 

Another of my wife's colleagues from Poland, an American, visited us. At first she pronounced our town's name Reading, as in reading a book, but being a skilled linguist it didn't take her more than a few minutes to start saying "Redding".

[Dave Hunt]

22 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'm sure I've told this story before but a few months after we moved to Reading, Berks, we received a postcard from one of my wife's former Polish colleagues that had spent over a month in the post.......

 

Ten years ago we went to visit a friend in Spain who said, "I didn't know you'd been to Australia again." We told her that we hadn't since our last time there three years before. "Oh," she said, "Only I got a postcard from you last week that was sent in Australia." The mind boggles as to where it had been for three years.

 

Dave

[Compound2632]

17 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Ten years ago we went to visit a friend in Spain who said, "I didn't know you'd been to Australia again." We told her that we hadn't since our last time there three years before. "Oh," she said, "Only I got a postcard from you last week that was sent in Australia." The mind boggles as to where it had been for three years.

 

Now just the other day we got a postcard from my brother and his family, who were on holiday in Valencia (Spain, not Ireland). it was a while before it dawned on me that the picture was of St Marks Square ans it was from Venice on their Interrail trip last April. I'll expect their card from Spain roundabout Christmas.

[MrWolf]

4 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Speaking of sheds (we were, weren't we?), I am thinking of one more, a small one of 10' x 10' or so just for the 52" cut lawnmower and other associated yard tooling. The main consideration will be the ability to ride the mower in as it is a beast to try and push!

 

The door opening has to be at least 6' wide and 7' tall.

 

 

That's very flash! Brake steer I presume? The temptation to hold one brake and floor it until you're dizzy must be huge!

 

And is that a cupholder next to the fuel tank!?!

 

When I had quite a bit of land, I had an ancient device called a Trac-Grip, largely because it was in danger of being scrapped and was powered by a sudevalve BSA engine. 

 

 

It got used for everything round the garden and yard once I'd rebuilt it. It was also used for carting the mower about.

That started off as a Hayter orchard mower with a 4hp Tecumseh engine. That threw a rod and the only vertical shaft engine to hand was a 16hp V twin Briggs from aan Errut diamond concrete grinder. Slight overkill but with an adapter made from 1/4" plate, it would mow anything.

At the time I was helping a friend restore a wartime BMW motorcycle and sidecar from a pile of bits. The mower was parked too close and ended up in panzer grey with a totenkopf painted on the fuel tank, inspired by a not very serious heavy metal band called Lawnmower Death.

 

Someone who I worked with had an old 16'x8' corrugated iron garage and they asked if I would demolish it and take the scrap away. 

Being a fan of both corrugated iron and traditional sheds, I numbered all the bits up with a metal marker and sliced off all the old J bolts with a grinder, de-rusted, zinc painted and reassembled it as a home for the Trac-Grip, mower and assorted garden tools.

I considered it doing my bit in the war on waste whilst thoroughly enjoying myself!😁 

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

This afternoon I got the two breakdown vans I'm making finished to the stage of painting and sprayed them with red oxide undercoat. Tomorrow is topcoat time, which is something I always dread. I feel a nerve calming libation coming on.

 

Dave

 

You're not alone there, but I dread applying transfers even more!