Early Risers.

[AndyB]

 

Desk IS the Somme, plus 200 e mails, Court to prepare for on Wednesday.....and 6 working days to go.  I'll be leaving 199 of the mails I think!

 

 

 

Neil, I've no doubt you've done a load of outstanding work over the years. Make sure you leave a load of work outstanding now!     

[trisonic]

Phew. Made it by the skin of my teeth.

Better make the coffee, again.....

 

Make the most of your time everybody, this ain’t no rehearsal.

 

Best, Pete.

[gordon s]

Some good news! I suspect there is still a long way to go, but good news nonetheless..

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/michael-schumacher/10902455/Michael-Schumacher-out-of-coma-and-leaves-hospital-after-skiing-crash.html

[New Haven Neil]

Now that is the best thing anyone has said to me for ages, AndyB!!!!      

 

Jock, I'm not really 'retiring' per se, merely retiring from my current position as a Manx civil servant.    My future is here:- http://www.track-shack.com/ working part time for a dear friend   that owns the business.  I'm 'only' 55 so have a few years in me yet to keep Mrs H in the manner etc etc.  Hard stuff, but someone has to do it, unfortunately I don't get to play with the goods.

[trisonic]

 

Once more for the Old Bill, or Ian.

 

How can PlayStation match that? Exiting a right hander drifting to a 90 degree left. Full visceral experience.

 

Tilbury about 40 years ago......

 

Best, Pete.

[DDolfelin]

You might also be referring to the North Wales Ambulances!

 

True - although most of them are permanently waiting outside A&E at Glan Clwyd Hospital (with patients but not patience).

Stupid system.

[gordon s]

...and me! Nice pic, Pete. Takes me back to racing at Rye House in the late 60's.

Edited June 16, 2014 by gordon s

[trisonic]

...and me! Nice pic, Pete. Takes me back to racing at Rye House in the late 60's.

Gordon,

Unfortunately my only surviving karting photo....at the end of her days my Mother destroyed all my photos at home.

I preferred Rye House too. I put it up re the youngsters in Ian’s photo of Le Mans (a few posts back).

 

Best, Pete.

[gordon s]

I have an idea my parents have one of me in a similar pose. From memory there was a guy who acted as circuit photographer and took pics of every driver for you to purchase after the race. Thanks for the memory. Took me back to a special place...

[trisonic]

Yes, he toured the circuits and supplied just about everything in “Karting” magazine. Kimbolton was my favourite.

 

At the Tilbury meeting in my photo there was an extremely young David  Coulthard busy winning the “Britain” class.

 

The engines in the “National” class were only 100cc but that little Parilla would rev to 17K rpm! About 18 bhp? Can’t remember. As the frame only weighed about as much as a push bike it was fast enough...

Remember the gas tank butting up against the goolies? That and Castrol R, Aaaaaaahhhhh...........sniff that breeze.

 

Best, Pete.

[Jock67B]

Now that is the best thing anyone has said to me for ages, AndyB!!!!      

 

Jock, I'm not really 'retiring' per se, merely retiring from my current position as a Manx civil servant.    My future is here:- http://www.track-shack.com/ working part time for a dear friend   that owns the business.  I'm 'only' 55 so have a few years in me yet to keep Mrs H in the manner etc etc.  Hard stuff, but someone has to do it, unfortunately I don't get to play with the goods.

Sounds great Neil - no excuse on the modelling front then? Hope you thoroughly enjoy the change!

Kind regards,

Jock.

[Robert]

My Cousin got hold of a second hand racing cart at one point - absolutely incredible it was too.  I seem to remember that it had a JLO Engine, and was direct drive (ie no clutch).

 

I have absolutely no idea how fast it could actually go, but it seemed incredibly fast as a child.  I am four years younger than my cousin, so it was a bit of a handful for me but I remember stripping it down to get it running one Christmas.  The Carb was knackered, so we ended up taking the carb of my Dad's CZ Motorbike (with his permission ) to get it running.

 

As for Castrol R - nothing beats that smell - unmistakable!  They still make it too.

[Oldddudders]

Young driver? A new record this year, with Matt McMurry driving the Caterham at the age of 16!

 

Le Mans is held close to the longest day so the night-time part of the race is shorter. Night atmosphere is different. Here's the scene at 22.40.

 

 

And looking the other way - Trisonic Pete to note the big wheel is now at Maison Blanche. The fairground is nothing like the tat of yore. Actually much has been modernised over the years, and much of the old atmosphere has gone, but things like the loos are now excellent.

 

 

Next morning, after a couple of hours kip in the car, I was back in the grandstand by 6, and here's that #35, with the Playstation boys at the wheel, Jann Mardenborough this time, having a pit-stop.

 

 

I then wandered up to the Dunlop Bridge. Here the drivers come over the crest under the bridge, and the rising sun is full in their face.

 

 

And then on to Tertre Rouge, where the cars turn right and on to the Mulsanne Straight. Here's the #20 Porsche, which Mark Webber was driving, though not necessarily here, just before 7 a.m..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Oldddudders]

54 cars started this year, two being "unavailable". Thus an empty pit box stood for the missing #22. Being an anorak, I was bound to be distracted by seeing this. It must have been in a parade or other entertainment before the start, but I wasn't around.

 

 

I knew it was the Scuderia Filipinetti Ferrari 512S that Herbert Muller and Mike Parkes drove in the 1970 race..... Those were certainly the days.

[The Lurker]

funny how you feel you have to describe yourself as an anorak re Le Mans, here on a railway modelling site!

[Jock67B]

Thanks for the lovely images Ian. TV just can't convey the atmosphere that you feel when actually there - even at a smaller meeting! I have to say the Eurosport coverage was good but nothing beats the smell and sound from trackside and yes I'm jealous but nonetheless very pleased that you enjoyed it despite the weather interruptions!

Kind regards,

Jock.

[Tony_S]

It has been drizzling here so I did the shopping and collection at Waitrose. Robbie is patiently waiting for his walk. 

At the weekend I had some trains running which was fun. I had to slightly adjust a couple of clearances (main reason for the running)for bridges on curves, but Britannia with a rake of blood and custard Mark 1s and a Fowler 7F with loads of wagons was quite nice. A sound equipped Black 5 making steamy noises on a siding added to the effect. 

Tony

[New Haven Neil]

Afternoon.  Getting through the morass of paperwork, but the way stuff has been done leaves me wondering what will happen after I leave next week.  The procedure notes remain unread. Why bother.  

 

Still el scorchio here, well 20c or so, counts as tropical.

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

Apologies for not trailing back through several days of whatever so commiserations or congratulations etc as appropriate - is there any new from South Africa yet of from the Gruffalo or ant more upcoming matrimonial events I need to know aboute?

 

And as you can tell we are returned - actually worked rather well having been taken ashore at 08.00 to the Newhaven Lifeboat pontoon, where the Coxswain was on duty so access available, then pre-booked taxi to Newhaven Town to entrain then a trip done entirely by knowledge of the network guesstimation changing at Lewes, Gatwick, Reading & Twyford and so beating the alternative of travelling via London.

 

More importantly we have just collected the lad from the RBH along with enough pills to last him for a couple of months - he seems to be in good spirits although the cause of thing hasn't been found as yet although it seems the myocarditis is almost certainly down to an infection and might be related to sinus troubles he's had recently.  Currently instructed to rest but should be back at work in a week or so.

 

I understand a friendly feline from a local station might have been keeping you in the picture regarding our adventures but a quick (??) synopsis is as follows

 

Wednesday: -   sailed from Harwich in the afternoon to anchor off Great Yarmouth overnight.

Thursday: -   Proceeded to the DR2 buoy which is virtually at the edge of UK navigational involvement to replace the buoy with a new one, thence to a faulty buoy we had detected enroute to rectify the radar transmitter.  Work done sailed at c.17.50 for the Varne light vessel, eta 08.00 Friday

Friday:  -  Work on Varne light vessel.  it lies more or less south of Dover - clearly a variation on the itinerary saying 'East Coast' but extremely interesting as we were now in a very busy part of the sea and having finished at 12.00 we sailed for Newhaven anchorage, arr c.18.50, to collect a technician from the Met Office and be ready for an early start to the Greenwich light vessel.

 

Saturday - the best laid plans and all that.  Ship instructed at 03.15 to urgently proceed to a buoy off Bullock Bank where the light had been reported out so we sailed at 04.00 and arrived at 08.30 finishing the job in a couple of hours.

Then departed for the Greenwich light vessel (so named as it lies almost on the Greenwich Meridan, approx 20 miles south of Newhaven.  However at about 1350, just as we were finishing lunch the ship made a sharp alteration of course answering a Mayday call to an incident on a dive boat, workboat away at 14.10 with a First Aid party and additional crew members as it was reported 2 persons were unconscious on the diveboat.  Subsequently an ASR helicopter arrived to land a paramedic on the dive boat and to evacuate casualties as necessary - to Eastbourne hospital.  One other diver had already surfaced safely at about the same time as the casualties but another 7 were still down and Patricia's workboat and a small fishing vessel kept an eye out for them while the helo went through its evolutions with the dive boat  (it required the boat to be proceeding at 15 knots to most easily winch people onto and off the boat); our ship remained on station, at the request of Dover Coast Guard until the final 2 divers surfaced and we left for Newhaven at c.15.00; we then returned to Newhaven.  (The two casualties were reported from the helicopter as 'no signs of life' and one of them sounds - from what the Patricia's 1st Mate said, to have been suffering from the bends - we don't know what had happened to cause the two deaths.

 

Some of the work boat cree were rather upset by what they saw so we, the passengers, being highly impressed by the professionalism with which the whole incident was handled decided to buy the crew a drink to help release some tension and oil along their football support; clearly the offer wasn't abused judging by our share of the bill for it.

 

Sunday We sailed at 07.00 for the Greenwich light vessel and work commenced but major problems were encountered with the light vessel's winch so Patricia had ti haul up the light vessel's anchor cable and then part of it was renewed - all very interesting plus some nice traffic including a  large barquentine in the distance, which was misidentified by a crew member as the Belgian ship 'Mercator' but which further research has revealed to most likely be this vessel (as it has four masts anda  similar rig)  

http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=four+masted+sailing+ship+Juan+Sebastian+de+Elcano&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=I_KeU9bED6PY8gffw4HQDA

 

Work finished by 18.30 after which we returned to Newhaven anchorage.  Great work by the 2nd Officer who was coping with various calls over the R/T to us while trying (and succeeding) with her proper job.

 

So holiday cut short and buoy work on the Royal Sovereign plus a passage from there to Harwich today missed although the final two nights will be spent off Harwich - unless there is yet another emergency call.  And it looks as if they might not have worked at Royal Sovereign.

 

Anyway most importantly the lad seems to be recovering and the assistance we had from the folk on Patricia in getting messages through and in getting us ashore (with the benefit of a spot of quayside assistance from the RNLI) is greatly appreciated and shows just what a great bunch they are on 'Patricia' and at Harwich.  Some pics will follow but certain of those I took near the dive boat - albeit at a distance without a telephoto lens - will not be included.   Now to plan the next trip and wait for the programme.

[Debs.]

Thank you for the thorough update and especially-reassuring for your dear-Son`s improving disposition, Mike...........although, terribly sad news to read of the dive party.

 

The Maritime Family that we sometimes call 'working at sea'; operates on skilled professionalism, goodwill and consideration for others..........what you saw during that sécurité/pan-pan and mayday call, was indeed that family-spirit in microcosm.

 

Looking forward to seeing those pictures of the less distressing parts of your voyage.

Edited June 16, 2014 by Debs.

[Ian Abel]

Being out-of-access for the weekend sure results in a LOT of catching up, read and digessted as much as I could, but rest assured I'm onboard with everyone and their various trials and excitements even if I can't comment on them all <sigh> just hoping for good outcomes for everyone.

 

Special considerations to the Stationmaster family, looks like a favourable outcome.

 

Love the Le Mans pics Ian - understand apparently there's no such place (Le Mans), or RACE according to our Sports section in OUR paper - what a bunch of provincial bufoons I suppose I should be fair and at least mentioning the fact they did provide the World cup SCORES at least - woo hoo!!

 

Weekend at the cabin was basically RAIN, RAIN and MORE RAIN, oh, except when it was ... RAINING!!!! From Friday evening at 7PM, until Sunday at about 11AM, with a 5 hour break late Saturday afternoon, we got about 3-4 inches of rain, mostly heavy and thunderstorms. One nice thing about the cabin is that you can just sit and watch it, whilst reading, chatting, napping etc. I did manage to get the mowing done in the 5 hour break. Also, this guest showed up around the same time...

 

 

 

Finally, got home Sunday afternoon in time to have a great meal with our son for Fathers Day. Managed to be allowed to watch the World Cup at the restaurant/sports bar. Either Argentina aren't as good as they are expected to be, OR Bosnia could surprise some folks. Either way was a good game to watch IMHO - and the icing on the cake was family gave me a "almost" blank check to get something "very nice" for the layout

 

Today is already 23, expecting 29 sunny and clear, BUT, surprise, surprise, we have rain and thunderstorms moving in tonight, so far apparently third wettest spring/early summer in recorded history here...

 

Have a good Monday, rest and recuperate those that need to

[PhilJ W]

Neil, I've no doubt you've done a load of outstanding work over the years. Make sure you leave a load of work outstanding now!     

I would have loved to have done that when I retired but I didn't want to lumber my colleagues.

[Tony_S]

Aditi had her meeting. The HR person wasn't prepared to remove her from the redundancy list. She just wanted her to sign a voluntary redundancy agreement for £21000 and go. HR say they can't accept that her (declared ) conditions of asthma and diabetes mean that she is slower to recover from infections and that she must provide evidence. She has made a GP appointment for Friday and is now contacting her union for legal advice. Interestingly the big union on site is also making the same case as Aditi that a simple totting up of absences over an 18 month period is insufficient grounds for redundancy. Aditi isn't in that union but she knows the rep well and will let him know what has happened in case it helps his members too.

Aditi did tell the HR person that there had never been any complaint about her work and no adverse reaction from any manager about any time she lost due to illness. The HR reply "they have to treat everyone equally" and cannot take into account how important or necessary her role is. Aditi said that on one hand she feels like taking the money, telling them "to get stuffed"(strong language from her!) and retire but she won't as that is what they want really.

[Sidecar Racer]

 My mate sat at home thinking he had indigestion , it was actually a heart attack .  

 

 Thanks for supportive votes , I probably should have added that this was 18 months ago ,

having had a stent fitted he returned to as good a health as we over 60's are likely to get .

[The Stationmaster]

Aditi had her meeting. The HR person wasn't prepared to remove her from the redundancy list. She just wanted her to sign a voluntary redundancy agreement for £21000 and go. HR say they can't accept that her (declared ) conditions of asthma and diabetes mean that she is slower to recover from infections and that she must provide evidence. She has made a GP appointment for Friday and is now contacting her union for legal advice. Interestingly the big union on site is also making the same case as Aditi that a simple totting up of absences over an 18 month period is insufficient grounds for redundancy. Aditi isn't in that union but she knows the rep well and will let him know what has happened in case it helps his members too.

Aditi did tell the HR person that there had never been any complaint about her work and no adverse reaction from any manager about any time she lost due to illness. The HR reply "they have to treat everyone equally" and cannot take into account how important or necessary her role is. Aditi said that on one hand she feels like taking the money, telling them "to get stuffed"(strong language from her!) and retire but she won't as that is what they want really.

I smell constructive dismissal - that is absolutely atrocious Tony and noway whatsoever to treat somebody in a senior position who has to put up with what Aditi has to.  If they want to make her redundant they should go about it in the proper manner and cut out her job.  Incidentally how many people are they trying to get rid of?