Broithe

No, not mine. I just noticed the marker for the van when looking to preview some possible* routes and saw his pictures as a result. I still have four bikes, but all tarmac jobs, and I haven't been on one for years now... * I use the word 'possible' in a very tight literal sense. Google Maps is very handy, but the fine detail can be important and hard to be confident of - a route we may do may have us needing to traverse a ford on foot, which will be a variable obstacle that could cause issues. We went for a 'short one' in the Slieve Blooms a couple of weeks ago and a 'short cut' turned out to be an hour and a half to go 800 metres, whilst trying not to end up on the news...

Reconnoitring a route for our next near-death experience, I noticed this relic, north of Lismore. Definitely past its best days. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Old+CIE+Boxcar/@52.2141443,-7.9788022,175m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x484347588ca437d5:0x3ad3cf52347377bb!8m2!3d52.214156!4d-7.978891!16s%2Fg%2F11sjkq7z_m?entry=ttu.

Today, I was caught at the southern level crossing in Mullinavat and was able to catch a blurry 074 going past.

In a better picture you can see Triang on the bonnet.;

The basic layout is still there and, if you know what was there, you can still 'see' it in your mind's eye. The track layout, turntable, shed, signal cabin, ground frames, sidings, cattle dock, various canopies, telegraph poles, original footbridge, etc. are all gone, but the place hasn't been flattened for a concrete and glass edifice.

Another thing that my few years of exile in Cyprus brought to my notice. When we left England, in the late 60s, almost all the flushing cisterns were high-level devices, operated by pull-chains. When we returned a few years later, 90% of them were now low-level, handle-operated cisterns. None of the people who had remained in the country for that period seemed to have noticed the transition occurring. I wondered if the conversions had been done at night, by tooth fairies made redundant by the (then) expansion of NHS dentistry.

I spent my teenage years dealing with both imperial and metric at school, and the old Ottoman system out in the real world... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_units_of_measurement

The National Library has many views of Ballybrophy, back when it was the Centre of the Universe. E.g., https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000304509

A Radio 4 programme where Alexei Sayle takes a train journey and talks to random passengers. This episode is on the Belfast-Derry train. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021wx0

I intend to make a small workshop in the house and picked up a couple of small drawer units in Lidl a few weeks ago - €14 for the pair, not bad. I put them out of harms way for now. It would appear that the security officer has felt the need to inspect them for useful stuff, contraband or uninvited trespassers.

Combining brand names isn't always a good idea, it's why the Cunard / Aer Lingus merger was called off.

Some Transit routes involve arriving at Southend.

This remains a classic.

I did offer to mount the head on a small plaque, but that seems to be the best bit...

'My' cat has returned to having her main meals nextdoor, after ten days of having to rely on me, although I am still heavily supervised. I knew they were going away, but had forgotten quite when - I returned from a Lidl run to find her sitting on the doorstep with a bag of food. They returned last Sunday and a retraining programme was instituted immediately - the last bowl of biscuits here has been retained for emergency use only, although she still expects a few of the shed biscuits daily. I was presented with a special item for breakfast this morning, although I had already organised myself and had to refuse it. This was seen as a poor decision, as it was very fresh and clearly a free-range product. So, she had it herself - the bones seemed to add to the crunchy appeal... She has noticed that there is a potential route for unauthorised intruders, as the conservatory doors are open, to the outside and into the house. A convenient elevated observation point has been established on the settee in there.

I could do the sewage works effect - no trouble...

The rail crash at Hixon, which killed eleven people when the train hit a transformer/transporter combination that weighed around 160 tons, resulted in the level crossing being replaced by a bridge. It took 34 years for the bridge to be built...

On a train from Heuston to Ballybrophy around the turn of the century, I heard the following station announcement, as we drifted down the platform to a stop in Port Laoise. "That's the Cork train coming in now".

We talked elsewhere recently about landslides causing a temporary dams and the consequences of the dam then collapsing. This happened in Canada a few days ago and a very large 'reservoir' has built up already. The dam will fail at some point in the near future and a large-scale evacuation has been necessary. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/chilcotin-river-landslide-aug-1-1.7282210 It is all a matter of the rate that the dam opens up at, which is a difficult thing to predict accurately.

You could knit some costumes for them?

Got any buffalo to roam..?

For the sake of (potential) interest, I can report that the Lidl ones are 65mm lower, but I can bodge up a spacer at some point, before I need four at the same height. Mmm, I could even match the Stanley slots in the spacer... The central slot, so handy for gripping the aluminium angle for the greenhouse mods, is also not there on the Lidl ones, but the 'red button' does flip up as a side-stop. The bottom hinge does seem a bit 'freer' than the Stanley one, so they may not have that issue. I would say that they are almost worth buying for the leaflet that comes with them. Whoever wrote it is clearly petrified of the potential consequences of misuse. One of the headings is "Life-Threatening Hazard". He's also very concerned about the similarity in the style of the mouldings to many larger toys around these days - he's one step away from telling you to tie any children within 200 metres to a suitable post... They also currently have some reasonable multi-drawer wall cabinets at two for €14.

I saw one in that state at Holyhead. It looked like it had had a coat of Halford primer and just the wiper arc masks peeled off at the front.

E.g., Ballybrophy.

Barry's issue was with a control cabinet, when he put his head onto the mains.