Instatnt gratification!

It is a Tuesday so it is a Rocks By Rail Museum day for me. Arriving on site this morning I found this, which I thought was fly tipping, in the car park. Someone, to my mind, had got instant gratification, by dumping their rubbish!

However, it was not fly tipping but someone who had dismantled their somewhat derelict garden shed donating it to the museum as kindling for the steam locos! Apparently the loco crew were most excited by its donation! There you go - one persons rubbish is another's gold as the saying goes and no doubt they still got gratification from the donation!

Back to the reality of the summer months with grass and hedges growing I was out as usual with lawn mower and again the cordless hedge trimmers. Amazing what you can do in a few hours. This was just part of todays vegetation butchery! 

Before....

 

After...

This is the view that always makes the day seem worthwhile when I can look up the carpark and see acres of cut grass - just waiting to grow again! 

That is the thing about grass cutting - it is instant gratification! For the projects in the restoration shed gratification can take months, years and even in some cases decades! John has been progressing quickly with the restoration of the Shark brake van but so far this is about two months work. It has come on a long way but it certainly is not instant gratification. Latest work has involved the replacement of the running boards and painting of the chassis.

Whilst taking the photos John was busy at the work bench and always being nosey of an inquiring nature I had to find out what he was doing. John is one of those guys who has so much experience of things that he always has a novel way of doing things and you always learn from him. Today he was cutting bolts from a length of threaded rod. 

All had to be the same length and when cutting threaded rod you also run the risk of damaging the thread. Johns solution - simply thread the bolts onto the rod at the required length and then cut to length. All the bolts will be the same length and the already threaded on nuts mean that they can be unscrewed from the rod clearing cut the cut thread which is a lot easier then trying to thread nuts onto the cut rod. Brilliant and in this case instant gratification in getting the bolts made! I like it!