One more week to go

Sunday night and I’m once again sat with the laptop trying to force some words out to remember this past week through; today it seems like this will be quite a difficult post to write as I’m tired (but when am I not at the moment) and the words are not flowing as freely as they often do. It has been a pretty brilliant week, however, so it is worth my while to put the effort in and see what comes out the other end. As it were.

House band, with blind drummer, gets going

Of course this post will not start with the Sunday as that has already been written about in the double header I treated you to last weekend, caused by the fact that packing Harrison was more of a pain than expected. So: Monday. Work was pretty standard and at the end of it I went home and we ate before going into Manchester to the jam night at our old local with John and, unexpectedly, his girlfriend. Jam night turned out to be slightly different to the Wednesday Reggae Night (I think I do prefer Reggae Night) but it was enjoyable and worth getting over there for. There were a couple of highlights the first of which was the house drummer was actually a blind man. We watched him with a lot of respect as he set his kit up using just his touch to work out where things should go. He was quite a solid drummer as well which obviously helped, though the band were no way as tight as the one for Reggae Night.

The next highlight involved a character that we know from the Reggae Night and who I have mentioned before. They are a lovely couple of come in on the bus, stop to play a couple of songs, and then head off and the guy has the BEST laugh I've ever heard; rich and loud and you can’t help but to join in. Until it is their time to play they sit together, he strumming his guitar with no chords (or timing, but that doesn't matter) and she leaning on his shoulder with her head next to his. This night it was Tom the Horn Player’s birthday (I've mentioned him before also I’m sure) and so for their songs they chose three and turned them into a “Happy Birthday” medley. I present rather a long video of this above and hope you will click through and listen to it all.

The next and final highlight I have for you from this evening was my mate John getting up and bashing out a couple of tunes for us. John was in my very first band with me many years ago and we wrote our first songs together and it was good to see that he at least has kept his music going (I am sadly not able to say the same for myself). He did a really good job on Johnny B Good and then followed it with Comfortably Numb which maybe was a little too long and difficult to do with a scratch band on a jam night. Either way it was brilliant. After he played myself and A finished our pints of Guinness and headed home; we were both exhausted from the weekend and while happy we had made the effort to get out to do this evening we were ready for our beds.

Taking the boards BACK off Harrison

We had planned to see my old boss MDickens on Tuesday however sadly he had to call off as he didn't have access to a car in the evening which was a shame. Our efforts to organise to see him before we’re off next week failed so I’ll just have to catch up with him when I get back, whenever that is. Our evening, instead, consisted of once again reorganising the van with Loz's uncomplaining help once more. I had, over the weekend, pulled things out of the way so that we could easily get to the planks and we very quickly got to work to remove them. This involved taking the sofa out and putting it by the van, removing the planks it had been sat on, and then moving the fridge into this void so we could get to the planks that had been underneath that. If you see what I mean? Between us (Loz passing them out and A helping me to carry them to the back room) it took no more than half an hour to complete all this and get everything squared away. Loz refused our offer of dinner as he had to go shopping and so when he has left we set to putting the least heavy black bin bagged kitchen units into Harrison and stacking everything else around.

Another (failed) attempt at loading

As we loaded I was jumping down very regularly to check the situation with the suspension and it was looking much better. We got everything in and secured very quickly; we really are getting expert at packing and unpacking the van and it was about 5.30 and no later when I snapped the picture above and shut it all down. As per usual my mind kept turning, however, and I went out again to check and was pretty unhappy with the suspension on one side. I made the decision then that none of the kitchen units could come with us and we would have to dig them out once more.

This was not a task for Tuesday however so after work Wednesday I shifted the few things I needed to allow my access to the kitchen units which had been slid down behind the three seater and, once they were all out, repacked it completely. I think I am now finally happy with how the suspension is sitting and hopefully there will not be any more need to take things out; we do have a few items still to pack and obviously our travelling stuff including water and fuel which is heavy so that may yet still change. I hope it doesn't! I’m bored of lifting and carrying for a bit and certainly A was really stating to flag by the end of Wednesday with all of the effort we had put in to getting this packing completed.

After we had sat down and rested for a bit I got it into my head that I really wanted to see all my locomotives so I pulled them out of their boxes and set them up on lengths of track in front of the fire. This did prompt a plaintive complaint from A that we had only just managed to tidy up the front room and now it was being filled with boxes once again but never mind. The Virgin Pendolino looks particularly good and I was also able, this week, to work out how to join the two carriages of the Class 150 together but I’m going to resist that until I get it to Bulgaria as I can’t see how to then disconnect them easily.

The Pond-ness Monsters

And so to Thursday and first of all vindication for A. For the last few days she has been convinced there was something living in our tiny pond; she called it “The Pond-ness Monster” and I just thought it was methane from the rotting vegetation however she was correct; during Thursday while she was looking out the back window she spotted seven frogs (or maybe toads) swimming around and basking in the sun and generally making themselves very comfortable. This picture was taken through the back window using my zoom lens and you can see no fewer than five frogs in it. There is a follow up to this saga which will appear in next week’s post so hold your breath if you care.

Happy Family

A came straight to collect me from work and we were off up north to Blackpool as Thursday was the date of the 8^th birthday meal for Rock Hard Studios. Every year we go for a meal with the staff and partners to celebrate surviving the previous one and this time we’d decided that a curry was in order. It was a really lovely evening, enjoyed by all, and full of laughter and fun. The food was pretty good particularly when compared to the disaster at the casino last year, and I found the beer going down rather better than anticipated so A ended up going onto soft drinks and driving us home. Fortunately it wasn't too late a night and we were in bed tucked up before midnight.

Scrubbing the tracks clean from rust

Friday was very much welcomed for its Work From Home status and I was up and happily ensconced on the sofa by about 8am. The internet was once again up and down terribly and it will be good for A’s state of mind to be back to reliable internet in Bulgaria I think. At lunch time I popped out to B and Q to get a sheet of hardboard on which to tack down the oval of track for running in my locomotives. I also picked up some wire brushes and a few other bits and pieces which I knew I would need for the task. The dirty curves I had selected cleaned up very well with the wirebrush and a bit of hot water with no need for any other agent so that was quite gratifying. What was less pleasing was finding that the curves I had picked didn't marry up to the straights. Now I knew that I had two different “finenesses” of track in my collection and I have planned around this however I was careless in not leaving the same type out for my oval. I knew I had one more lot of track coming and it would contain straights and curves so I would just have to wait for that before I could lay it out.

We had a nice restful Friday evening and then were up relatively early on Saturday morning. By about 9am we were in the car, after I had eaten a slice of toast to keep me going, and heading down south and east towards the Fens to go and stay with a couple of very friendly dragons. No, really. The drive was easy and we arrived about 12.30 to a lovely welcome from the dragons and their huge and lovely dogs, Freya and Loki. After a cup of tea and a chat it was time for lunch which was a really tasty tapas style feast with the homemade croquettes being my particular favourite item.

The remaining migratory swans

After lunch it was time to take the dogs for a walk and I went along as Mr Dragon took them along the top of the dyke that runs right past their lair. It was really blowy and quite cold but we were wrapped up warm and had a really nice stroll for half an hour or so. There are huge numbers of migratory swans which live on the water here over winter, I think he said upwards of 10,000 this year, however only a few were remaining and without my zoom lens it was hard to get a good picture of them. When we got back, thoroughly blown through and a little tired, we found that Mr Dragon had lit the fire which was most welcome. Dinner was a superb Mexican feast of Enchiladas and Chilli (given a BIG thumbs up by A who is most picky about her Chilli) and set us up for a wonderful evening of beer, wine, whisky and port. I headed to bed relatively early and left A and Mrs Dragon to kill off the rest of the port and I’m glad I did as I got some sleep before I struggled to sleep. It was rather nice to lay looking out of the window of our room at the stars so bright here where there is no light pollution, and then this morning as the sun came up I watched all the colours changing from night to day. I would much rather have been asleep though.

Me with Freya

Loki saying hello to A

I finally dragged myself out of bed when the need for a cuppa overcame the desire to lay in and found that our hosts were already up and had taken the dogs for their morning walk while we were still pretending to sleep. We sat around then had breakfast and it was a really good relaxing start to a Sunday. Breakfast was particularly fine with excellent sausages and eggs from their own chickens. Talking of chickens the Dragons had very kindly given us a chicken coop which will now be added to the weight of Harrison and hopefully won’t tip us over the edge again. We were both cuddled by both dogs repeatedly through the morning as the pictures above testify but with a final brew it was time to head off and say our sad farewells to our marvellous hosts. Mr Dragon walked out to open gates and things and I tooted Thomas as we drove away into the teeth of a gale.

I'm not the only one with this sense of humour

It was a pretty difficult drive what with being so tired and the weather being against us but we made it back safely without any problems; there was a quite bad accident on the M6 Toll going southbound that had obviously only just happened, with a car on its roof and the emergency services in attendance, which just went to show how treacherous the roads were however we stayed safe. We stopped for fuel near our guests at a garage called “Harrison Ford” which just had to be photographed. When we got home I left A in the car to drive herself to Tesco while I just about managed to drag myself upstairs to bed where I slept the sleep of the nearly-dead for an hour or so.

Since then it has been dinner (lovely spicy pork pasta) and a few brews, A had a bath while I was typing, and I also realised that the track I was waiting for to do the oval had already been delivered and I’d packed it into Harrison. I remembered exactly where it was so I’ve dragged it out and now this week I can do the soldering and set the oval up and run in my new locomotives in time to take them over next weekend.

Next weekend!! Can you believe it! This time next week we should be in Hungary, I hope. I’ll sign this off now and probably the next time you read an update it will be from our home, the Old School.