big jim

ERTMS complete shutdown on the cambrian then! glad someone got it there though, i tried when i was with colas but never managed it

and finally for tonight, ive just ordered the kitchen units from wickes, so glad i held off from doing it earlier in the week as they are offering an extra 15% off until monday which took £70 off what was sat in my on line trolley, because of the saving i also ordered units for the utility room and extra wall units for either side of the projector screen, all told i got over £100 off and as i used topcashback website to link to wickes i will get a further £12 back through them too busy week in work next week though so not having them delivered until the week after when i can hopefully get them fitted (and arrange for the council to do the final sign off)

After all that worknit was only fair I had a play fitted the projector bracket to the rear wall nicked the eldest PS4, hooked it up and had a play of gran tourismo4 i can see this room being taken over though! the plan is to fit a wall cabinet on the internal wall next to the projector to house various consoles with a HDMI switching box to change between them, audio wise I’m going to run a jack lead from the projector audio output splitting to a phono lead, which will into my technics stereo and the other will run into the gaming chairs which have built in speakers Now clutter like bikes has moved to the shed and the room is actually ‘a room’ it’s feeling like something special, so close to being finished and ready to be filled with trains!

Productive morning in the garage this morning, electrical has been and signed his work off as well as doing a few other bits and bobs that were forgotten when he was round last time and I spent a few hours doing the floor

Just one from today, iport again

As it happens 735 (possible brush repaint is my loco tonight) My personal opinion is the yellownin the model of 66740 is too ‘lemony’

My eldest is almost 15 and every Christmas and birthday we get him a driving lesson with ‘young driver’, hes been doing them for 2 years now, he’s on lesson 4 of 6 so by the time he reaches 17 he will have had a few lessons before he goes out on a real road to learn they also do high speed training and motorway driving courses which I’m going to get him after the 6 starter lessons, those are done at the fire service training facility at moreton in marsh where they have a proper motorway set up

Oh he saw me, but gave me the ‘yeah, you got a problem with this’ look and carried on

Me included with my ‘modern mini’ certainly on my daily commute to and from Birmingham on the M6 going from a 5L LWB VW pheaton which is huge and built like a tank and filled with safety features and changing to a considerably smaller mini convertible with ‘basic’ safety equipment was somewhat of an eye opener!

I know it’s not a huge issue from normal viewing distances but 66751 has an incorrect cab interior, it’s a eurospec cab with a wrap around drivers desk as opposed to a pedestal in the centre

Just 2 from today, iport job same again tomorrow then a day off to get the last bit of flooring down in the garage conversion (hopefully)

Anyway, just got in from work and odin wasn’t acting suspicious at all! caught in the act

You don’t have to drive like a muppet to kill yourself there are plenty of other drivers out there willing to help!

its funny my eldest lad wants a 'traditional mini' as his first car and has been looking on ebay, autotrader etc and has found various 90s minis that he shows me and i find myself saying to him "but thats not a classic mini, its too new" tbh i wouldnt let him have a 90s one anyway as they are not exactly the safest of vehicles when it comes to crash worthyness, you are the crumple zone and they lack basic safety features such as airbags etc which lets face it a new driver these days needs no matter how confident they say they are, he's only aproaching 15 so he has a few years to go yet until he's mobile (and ive said if i keep the convertible he can use that)

Yes, that’s another couple of months away yet though, don’t want to stunt his growth by having it done too early

Odin update: he’s had his jabs now so is allowed outside and he loves it in the garden, he’s also teething so is constantly chewing and biting things, he has lost both of his top baby insisors this week so is a bit gummy! he is also a healthy 2kg now as well

Some from yesterday, mountsorrel again with 66729, took my DSLR with me with a ‘new’ 2nd hand lens, 85-300mm zoom still haven’t got the hang of it yet though humberstone rd And for the first time this year some from mountsorrel asbit wa slight enough for about 20 mins after shunting about iport today and tomorrow

thats known as retro in our house, me included!

24 to be exact, doesnt say how many are estates though https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/peugeot_405_executive_td

its old, just not 'vintage'

Cooper update! booked in for an MOT on Thursday this week, but at the same time the garage is going to fit new brakes all round (discs and pads) and while they have the car on the ramp with the wheels off they are going to fit a set of lowering springs and shocks I originally bought for the convertible, told them to keep hold of it and do it as and when they can fit it in between jobs as I’m in no huge rush to get it back this week other things I’ve done to it are de-chromed the beltline between the windows and bodyside with special gloss sticky tape, compared to the fully blinged up red one the cooper is going the other way and having as little chrome as possible beltline done black door handles fitted as you can see it has a single spotlight fitted, for that off a website called “wish” for £7, typical Chinese ‘knock off’ website, pictures show 2 lamps which is what I thought I was getting and after ordering I realised it was just a single lamp so ive ordered another which should be here his week (I will remove the single before the MOT anyway as it will fail if they are fitted and not working), tbh I ordered another twin set off eBay too so it should have 4 when I’m done with it, as I have a honeycomb grille they can be attached by simply running the bolt through the grille and securing from behind with a large washer. the only bits of chrome I’m going to keep are the headlight surrounds (you can get them black but I don’t think they look right) and the S scuttle vents, also priced up getting the wheels refurbed and powder coated back at around the £250 mark including refitting and balancing tyres etc, although I am watching a set of identical wheels on eBay but already in black, the cooper badge and mini logos will also be going black too

Funnily enough I looked last night and the 1000mm wide base unit is a lot more expensive than the Wickes one, £150 compared to £57 (including doors, hinges, handles)

not much to report over the last few weeks, today however i got the remaining flooring and im off thursday so if i get a chance i'll try and get that done, ive gone for the same wood throughout, i was going to put a threshold bar in and go for a darker wood in the main room but decided against it in the end and decided on a continuous run of the same stuff got some architrave that i'll see if i can use as skirting, however if it doesnt look right once in position ill use it around the door instead got some angled LED mounting track on the way for the very top of the wall that im going to mount the wifi/smartphone controlled multi couloured led strip lighting into, that will point down at 45 degree over the layout area all round once i get round to that bit electrician coming thursday to sign his bit of the job off and then council to sign the whole lot off also priced up kitchen units from wickes to fit along 2 walls of the main room, they come out at just under £450 for floor units, ive not looked at wall units as im hoping to have display cabinets along the long wall and the rear one needs space for the projector screen to fit (which is also on its way), i may put one or two up in the utility area though

my eldest lad dominic at 14 is a huge johnny cash fan, read his autobiography, studying his music in GCSE music clas, anyway he got up on the karaoke on holiday last week and performed "ive been everywhere" which he has been learning for a few weeks, hopefully if your not on twitter you can still see the video he also signs things like "convoy" by C W Mcall, "the devil went down to georgia" by the charlie daniels band not to be outdone his little brother who is only 9 got up and sang "mr blue sky" by ELO, "rubberband man" by the detroit spinners and best of all "immigrant song" by led zepplin!! then they got up and did a duet from the greatest showman, complete with acting and dancing! certainly have a wide range of music tastes between them!

Got my subs copy today, nice little surprise up in the class 67 article, I’d forgotten I’d been asked for a couple of prototype pics by Simon and they are in print this issue