100 and still going!

No, not my age, although my body does appear to think it must be that age on occasions when I ache after completing a Mrs W 'must be done' task! This is my 100th post! I did my first post back in June 2020 and then did nothing more until the start of this year and since then I have averaged 10 posts a month. When I started this blog there was always a strong possibility that I would do a few posts and it would then get forgotten about in my characteristic way. However I have persevered and the blog is in effect my record of what I have done and will hopefully continue to do. It is interesting for me to look back through the posts sometimes just to get a sense of what I have done and when. I am not going to go into a deep statistical and philosophical roundup of  the various things done apart from summerising it as 'Could do better!' but then that is always the case.

Back to reality now and it has been a busy few days. 

Thursday saw me heading into Rutland for another day of volunteering at the Rocks By Rail Museum. The task in hand was to start cutting back vegetation close to the running line. The track is only 3/4 of a mile long but when you have to walk all the way down it, as we are starting at the furthest point and working back, and then back for lunch, and then do the whole journey again after lunch you begin to feel it on your legs. However it was a good excuse for a piece of cake at lunchtime without too much of a guilt trip about calories! It was just Richard, his dog Riley who likes to dig grass up and myself but it was a nice warm day and we had a great time. As the pictures show the vegetation has not been cut back for years and given that we managed about a 40 foot length of cutting back this is going to be a long project! 

At the start of the day....

At the end of the day...... There is a long way to go!

Mr Beecham came round on Friday. As a fellow modeler he always has something to show me from his continuingly growing collection of quality models that he builds. Stupidly I forgot to take some photos but he had a very nice 1/35 scale Chinese tank transporter and a stunning 1/48 scale Lancaster bomber. Interestingly he also had a Superquick 1/76 scale row of terrace houses with him which he casually knocked up over a few evenings recently. Yes! He can knock up an entire terrace of houses whilst in the same time I can just about fit the windows for one house! I think I need to up my game on production of models! 

We also went for a 16 mile bike ride which may not be far but given the strength of the headwind for the first 8 miles and the various hills that we climbed (Mr Motorlegs Beecham left me a distant second on those) it felt further. We did stop on the way round for a sausage cob and a drink which aided us by adding weight so that gravity could assist us even more on the downhill stretch of the journey home. That's my excuse anyway! Whilst eating our cobs I was quite taken by the Halloween tractor on display.

This sign also brought a smile to my face and yes, they are right and something that we should all remember.

Model wise not a lot to report apart from having fitted most of the windows to the Dapol General Store. Maybe I need to give my kits to Mr Beecham to build if I am to make some better progress over the next 100 posts!

WMD out and about!

Mrs Woody is off this week which gives me the opportunity to leave WMD HQ and go and visit a few places. Following the various restrictions and general desire to stay safe going out is still very much a novelty. It is strange to be in places where there are other people in large numbers and it is almost a case of reacclimatising yourself to those types of situations that we just did up until 18 months ago.

Monday was a trip to the coast not that the weather was inviting but never the less we saw the sea! Tuesday Mrs Woody went off to a spa day with a friend of hers whilst I took the opportunity to have a 27 mile bike ride with good friend, fellow modeler and artist Mr Beecham. Always a good ride with plenty of chat on a variety of topics and we even found this on our travels.

Many of the old K6 Classic Phone Boxes have been bought by Parish Councils and whilst many have become libraries or a place to house a defibrillator some have become used for some very novel purposes such as this with its flower display. Hmmm. Wonder if that would fit in the garden??? Certainly make an interesting model on a modern day model railway layout.

Near to home we stopped for a refreshment stop which was the £3.50 lunch at a local CoOp, other lunch deals are available! I thought I had done well with a BLT, Pepsi and a Wispa duo chocolate bar. Having made our purchases and no doubt swelled the days takings for the CoOp, we sat outside on the bench kindly provided by said purveyor of lunch deal. The bench was actually made out of plastic molded to look like wooden slats and sitting down you could tell the sun had warmed it well - lovely! As I tucked into my BLT from the comfort of my heated seating area, I placed my Wispa Duo beside me on the bench looking forward to that moment of chocolate indulgence. The BLT was great and reaching down for the Wispa I found this.

Yes! I should have really thought the storage arrangements for the Wispa through a bit more! Far from being the chocolate delight I had hoped for it had turned, in the heat of the sun and the radiant warmth of the bench slats, into a liquid flat pack! I did take it home and refrigerated it for several hours but to be honest it was not the same when I ate it and it had lost its duo status to become as one! For some reason Mr Beecham found it all very amusing!

Todays jaunt out was to the National Trust property Belton House in Lincolnshire. One of the flag ship properties (never sure how a house can be a flag ship but there you are) of the Natuonal Trust and very popular today. The house and surrounding properties are fantastic and the gardens and grounds wonderful. 

There is even something a little cheeky in the grounds!

A sandwich and hot sausage roll from the cafe took care of lunch and near to there were the gift shop and second hand book shop. There is something about a second hand book shop that I find difficult to resist so whilst Mrs Woody searches through the crime/mystery murder section (I still ask myself if I should be worried!) I take a look at the more technical sections especially on transport. Todays finds were these two for the princely sum of £6 for the two. 

 

I lived on Malta for several years at a time when the buses were painted multi colours (some photos in a YouTube video here) and were basically locally coach built bodies on lorry chassis which resulted in a fascinatingly unique transport system. From what I can gather when Malta joined the EU they had to upgrade the buses in 2011 and at one point had ex London Transport bendy buses. Many of the old buses were scrapped but there are a number still kept and now serve with a vintage bus tour company. I am always fascinated by the railways of Ireland so the book on the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway should be a good read.

In amongst all the above I have done some model making with the Zvezda K5350 Mustang truck. Not a great deal but it has the start of wheels which I guess is important for a truck to have! No doubt the 1/35th scale troops will think that getting their truck mobile will be 'wheely' great! Sorry! Couldn't resist that awful joke. However I had to have some laughter as at one stage I did have brake cylinders on the wrong way round but after a lot of head scratching, in-depth consultation with the plans, a further contribution to the swear jar and the consumption of a refrigerated former liquid flat pack Wispa Duo it all came right! This is what things are looking like now.

 Its getting there!

On the 009 gauge model railway layout front, I think I may have come up with a cunning way to realign the track without having to buy a new point but more on that another time.