PhilJ W

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Still bone dry though we might get a thunderstorm or then we might not according to the seaweed twirlers, no wonder Arther Itis is confused. He's having a sulk at the moment and very quiet. Tony, is the village you mentioned Fobbing? It featured strongly in the Peasants Revolt as did a lot of other villages in the area. The term 'Peasants Revolt' is a bit of a misnomer, in fact medieval spin. The leaders, as were a lot of their followers were not peasants. Wat Tyler was a self employed builder/bricklayer (The word tyle, spelt with a y is an old word for brick.) and John Ball was literate when even most of the aristocracy were not. Iroically today Wat Tyler would be driving around in a white Transit and probably voting tory. Few if any revolutions do not come from the bottom but from the middle or even the top as in the American Revolution (The founding fathers were all millionares if their wealth was adjusted to modern rates.) Lenin was a minor aristocrat and the Castro brothers were scions of a wealthy family.

Congratulations, you have just come up with a new saying/expression. "Doing a Cummings." Meaning to ignore the lock-down rules. Lets see if we can make it spread by using it on social media and the media in general.

Goodnight all.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Arthur Itis is trying to tell me that rain is a-comin'. Problem is he has been no more reliable than the regular seaweed twirlers. No tell a lie, he's been even less reliable lately. Got to plough on through Farcebook, slipped behind recently so trying to catch up.

Quite so, and if you pull out in the proper manner, mirror-signal-manouver he could have been up to quarter of a mile behind you and/or out of sight around a bend when you checked your mirror.

And it still got away!

I wonder if his insurance company know its been tweaked? And if they don't his insurance will be invalid and the car could be sent to the crusher. Well he won't be driving for a few years and thats after a custodial sentence.

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Not done a lot today, I am just being lazy. I can't recall whether her ears go up or down at the moment, I'll have to look when lock down is over. Neither do those at exhibitions who don't use deodorants.

At least at home he doesn't end up wearing it.

Theres not many cars on the road capable of such speeds so the make/model shouldn't be difficult to discover. Last year on that same stretch of road someone undertook me doing 90-100mph using the hard shoulder.

My friend has a Norfolk or Norwich terrier, she barks/yaps at every visitor. Over the past few months he has been taking care of a chihuahua who naturally follows the 'boss'. However he stops barking as soon as you make a fuss of him.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. A bit of kerfuffle over a certain special advisor breaking lock-down rules in this mornings news. A fellow member of SEERS has pointed out that in Westminster special advisors are known as SPADS.

Goodnight all.

I found some ant nests in the garden this afternoon so I dug a couple out. As soon as I was out of site a robin and blackbird swooped onto them taking beakfulls of grubs.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. The wind was strong enough this afternoon to blow my garden wheelie bin over. Not surprising as its almost empty. An inspection of the garden revealed another four or five ant nests. I dug a couple of them out and left them to the blackbirds and robins who made good use of the opportunity. A friend came round to assess the shed and he reckons that enough can be rescued to build a smaller shed. It will only be needed to store gardening tools. My dad had built a workbench in the shed that I won't be needing so a smaller shed will not be a problem. Time to put the kettle on, be back later.

A pair of the sparrows evicted when the shrubs they were nesting in were hacked down by the local council didn't go far. In fact they went to an adjacent smaller shrub that wasn't hacked so badly and have produced a brood who have just fledged. All the more remarkable is that the nest can't be more than three or four feet above the ground.

How is life as a monk?

The nearest to a Mondeo would be the Yat Ming Jaguar X-type.

The GE 1500 class (B12) was a very successful engine. It was designed within the restrictions of the GER, notably the short turntables and weak bridges.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. A bit windy here but the predicted showers earlier this morning seem to have blown through though there was a dark and ominous cloud earlier. As for charities I support the local hospice and air ambulance and thats it. No doubt most of you receive those bags through the door asking for clothing donations. Apart from the fact that if we all filled every bag we'd all be walking around naked the charities have already received all that they are going to get. This is because they are distributed by private companies who pay the charities a pittance to use their name (and their charity registered number). This is paid up front so I'm quite happy with the free bin liners/rubbish bags. BoD, I hope things go well for you and your family though it must be very worrying.

Goodnight all.

A touch of the Crabtrees there . A lot of those wagons would have been built for the ROD and some even had brakemens hutches. They would also have had other continental features such as side chains and of course air brakes or at least through pipes.

I understood that they were originally designed/built for SAAB though the Dolomite preceded tha SAAB into production.

It was basically an AW 350hp jackshaft drive shunter with the rearmost drivers replaced by a four wheel bogie. I have an illustration somewhere that shows a similar locomotive but not proposed by AW, appologies for the confusion as I mixed the two up. This was also put forward to the GWR at the same time but differed in having a box body with a cab at each end.

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Not a lot done today, I had intended to transfer some more stuff from the shed to the garage. But this was thwarted by some coc*womble parking their car in front of the garage door! I left a note and not long after the car had gone. Anyway this weekend is predicted to be dry so I should be able to clear the shed. Two helicopters flew over my house at dusk yesterday, couldn't identify them as it was getting dark. I was surprised to learn that my grade in local government in military protocol meant that it was the equivalent 'rank' of major! This I discovered from a female colleague on the same grade who's husband who was a regular soldier but his rank was sergeant so protocol demanded that her 'rank' was sergeant too and not major. Officers and their ladies, NCO's and their wives, other ranks and their women. still applied back then and may still do.