Another year has passed for me and Mrs. Woody thought that this cycling top was the perfect way to celebrate it as she thought the picture was actually of me! Cheek, however it is great, I love the picture and slogan and I did wear it today on my birthday bike ride!
She also got me this one for when things don't go right and I will be taking that advice!
Time now for a nice piece of cake and wait for it all to happen again next year - just don't underestimate me and my bike whwn I say that!
Things are progressing with my platform, but not as quickly as I thought they might! Finding time to do everything is an issue! The photo below shows my method of joining the two parts, well actually three, of the platform surface. Because of the girder like construction of the base there is no room for a thick piece of card under the platform surface otherwise there would be a hump in the surface! Not having the time to carve chunks out of the base to make room I needed something else. My solution - paper! Just a small piece glued to overlap the two parts and with some glue also applied to the card joint. It wont be strong but as long as it holds until I finish the slabs and then the surface and base are glued together that is all I need.
Part of why progress is not as quick as I would like is that these lighter evenings and good weather (well better weather!) see me cycling a bit more (1400 miles this year so far) and catching up with a mess of a garden. However there are always things that delight like this young blackbird that I took a photo of having had a fill of apple!
Tomorrow wont see much time for model making either. A day of shunting at the Rocks By Rail Museum at the Quarry Day Event and then I need to go and change the banners for the next event a week today which I only just found the time to alter from last years date! That will be a long day then! When will I find the time to do Mrs. Woody's job list!
Having woken up seemingly an hour earlier then normal due to the clocks going forward I peered out of the window into the greyness of the mist that enveloped WMD HQ. However I did not put me off going for a bike ride which brought my total for hi year up to 946 miles. Not brilliant but better than last year at this time. There was a glimmer of sunshine so I thought that it might brighten up for an afternoon ride but no! More greyness of clouds and drizzle! Well that is the delight of the Easter break. You never know what weather you might get and it is certainly better than two years ago today when I looked out of the window to be greeted by this as I blogged about - click here.
Out in the murkiness of the garden I cut the necessary strips using a fine bladed saw - always best for cutting plywood.
With the strips cut they were then cut to the required lengths which I had actually managed to measure before starting this work!
Once sanded they were then painted with, what else, but grey paint!
Even Milly the cat has seemed a bit grey in her basket. I think though she has the best idea on a day like this - just relax inside! Tomorrows not looking any brighter and I am the Rocks By Rail Museum tomorrow working outside on the Easter Monday Quarry Day! Could be another grey day!
Mrs. Woody persuaded me to have a look at the new craft department that had been opened in a nearby garden centre. I didn't really need persuading so off we went. I'm not sure what I was expecting but given that both Hobbycraft and The Range here in the UK already have well stocked shelves full of a wide range of hobby items I thought that anyone competing with those types of retailer would at least have an extensive range of items. Not so though! However there were a few things that did catch my eye and give me that 'Well I never' moment. It is interesting to note the divergence of Hornby Hobbies into other spheres of products with these jigsaws! Well I never!
A visit with Mrs. Woody today to the garden centre to buy 2 bags of compost turned into 5 bags, some plants and this......
Mrs. W showed an interest in this and I thought that's good and bought it for her. It will either be made soon or Mrs. W has the beginnings of a stash of kits waiting to be built just like mine! I will report on progress - so dont hold your breaths!
Yesterday I spoke about a day of frustration and this related to the gear cable on one of my bikes which broke a couple of weeks ago. Luckily I was only half a mile from home so being condemned to top gear was not too much of a strain to my worn out legs! What should have been about a 15 minute job turned into something a bit more major as I found that the lever itself had broken. Thirty years or so ago derailleur gears were hanged by levers usually mounted on the downtube of the frame or on the handlebars. Changing a cable was relatively simple. However with new technology comes added complications. The new technology was that the gear lever was incorporated into the brake lever making life so much simpler as you can brake and change down gear without taking your hands off the handlebars. I have been using this type of lever for 25 years now and like them and never had a problem with them until now! The added complication is that the brake/gear lever becomes a lot more complex and if you read the forums trying to repair them, even if they are repairable, requires levels of calmness and perseverance that I just don't have! To that end I had to order a pair of new levers - you can't buy one on its own very easily. List price £240! That nearly made me reconsider my levels of calmness and perseverance but luckily I am still using old technology! With the advent of hydraulically operated disc brakes, cable operated levers have become outdated and so I was lucky to find a brand new pair of levers for £70! Now whilst still a lot of money it is a lot less, even by my calculation, than £240!
With new levers delivered I decided to just change the broken one.
It was going to be tested today but the rain prevented that! Later this week though I will find out if I have been successful or whether I should take up building model greenhouses!
My clear out continues and I had to send to the unbelieving Mrs. Woody the photo below of the back of my car to prove I was on my way to the tip! Really! and for another really moment read to the end of this post!
I have about 25 foot of bookshelf space in my Man Cave which is all full, or was all full, plus a few boxes of magazines. My plan is to try to reduce that by half! So far I have emptied about 8 feet and two boxes so still some way to go!
Fear of a Pot Noel Christmas Dinner for not being good, as described in my post on Christmas Eve, was fortunately unfounded as I got a full on dinner! Mrs. Woody did a magnificent job (its best I don't get involved in such edible masterpieces!) and there was stuffing and Yorkshire Puddings on a separate plate.
I had worked up a bit of an apatite for my dinner by having a morning bike ride and whilst out I spotted this rainbow. Then it rained on me! Oh well it was only a short shower!
The apatite was further enhanced as before my meal I liberating some of the logs left behind from the clearance of a fallen tree near to WMD HQ that fell due to the wind. I was amazed, the guys turned up at 7pm Christmas Eve and had the road clear by 9pm. The logs will be ready for the log burner in a couple of years.
I was also very fortunate to get a couple of great presents from Mrs. W. First off is this AFV Club Churchill bridge layer kit in 1/35th scale.
I was also very lucky in getting this Hornby Lion presentation set.
Having eaten that received these and eaten that delicious dinner it was a great Christmas but lot not a lot else happened apart from falling asleep on the sofa! I'll have to be good more often!
Well that title should at least make you think that Woody may have lost it but I will clarify as we go along.
A fair amount of progress today. I had much of the day in the Man Cave - just don't tell Mrs. Woody. It was a wet, cold day so I was not inclined to do much outdoors although I did take advantage of a small break in the rain to go on a bike ride. It was a small break in the rain and the bike ride was cut short after 8 miles as I was getting soaked from the rain which had come back with vengeance. Bad weather appears to be the story of my cycling this year. Last year at this time I had well over 500 miles done whereas this year its 3684 miles. Never mind, November and December could be good!
Anyway, back in the dryness of the WMD HQ Man Cave I was able to review the morning's ballasting operations which had been assisted in drying by Mrs. W's hair drier which had been reliberated from her dressing table!
It was then time to think about getting some greenery on the bare hills. Most people would reach for static grass or flock powders but I wanted a more wild unkempt look so I naturally turned to hanging basket liner! Not what you would think of to model grass but its use has been described before in the model rail press and I have used it before too. Both hills had full strength PVA brushed on them to which pieces of hanging basket liner were pressed into.
It was taken inside to dry and then transported back into the cold Man Cave where Woody took to his haircutting skills! A suede shoe brush was used to tease the fibers up.
It was then down to scissors and hair trimmer to bring about some uniformity yet unkemptness! I certainly would not make a barber and I don't think Mrs. W will ever let me loose on her hair! However as the before and after pictures show of both hills I managed something close to what I wanted!
Just like the barbers there was a fair amount of sweeping up to do afterwards!
I also took the opportunity to add some green to between the tracks. Still more to add but this is a good base.
Putting everything in place temporarily it is looking very much as I hoped for!
