Broithe

That situation also exists on some early uPVC frames. You can get bolt-pins which will stop the door coming out with the hinge pin removed - and interlocking hinges that have the same function.

Talk of security matters reminds me of an almost accidental feature which has turned out to be very useful. When we drew up the plans for the house here, there was a bathroom and an adjacent shower room, both had toilets in and, with my father being an obsessive gardener, I suggested that the shower room could have a door to the outside as well. This would avoid him dragging mud all through the every all day. This proved to be a good idea, but he developed a wish to keep the door locked, as the garden was quite large and the door wouldn't always be under surveillance, especially after the shed was built. This meant that he started carrying a key, which, if dropped, would disappear for ever. I picked up a push-button combination lock and fitted that, so a physical key was no longer necessary. It has actually become apparent that it is an even better idea than I thought. If I'm leaving the premises without the car or an intention to lock the bike somewhere, than I have no need to take any keys at all, and have no likelihood of losing them... The code can even be entered in the dark, as long as you can remember it and the button layout. It also means that, should I be away, I have a simple means of giving someone the means to get in on my behalf. I did fit a few key-boxes for people over the years. They would almost always want their birthday as the code. I would point out that, if they wanted other people to get in, neighbours, etc., then expecting people to remember that had an element of risk. Most of these boxes are ten-figure panels and I would suggest they actually used a 'shape' - 1560 (the corners), 1267(the top four), etc. this makes it much easier for different people to enter the code, and it can be done in the pitch dark, if you can find the box.

I was once asked to get into a shed, after the owner had clicked the padlock with the keys still inside. I suggested that he go and put the kettle on, whilst I pondered the matter - when he came out with the tea, I handed him the keys - he searched for the 'damage that I might have done', in order to get in, but could find none. I had just unscrewed the hinges, opened the door, using the lock side as the hinge, retrieved the keys and put the hinge screws back in. He was a bit 'security conscious' and was horrified by the ease of this method. I went back later and put a bolt through the hinges, with lock-nuts on the inside, after I persuaded him to get a second key. This made him happy again, so I didn't point out all the other ways I could have got in - the windows, for example, were fitted from the outside and just held in with a few panel pins, etc...

I had a clockwork Super-8 cine camera. Is that what the youths use to make these "Tik-Tok videos"..?

Sunday walking excursions have been curtailed by atmospheric conditions lately, but a quick walk was squeezed in today. Going a bit further south along the old railway. Things get a bit moister as you proceed along the track, but it's still passable, even after a wet year... At one point, at the southern end, where the track is on a ten foot embankment, I spotted a glimpse of stonework through the vegetation. Further investigation revealed it to be an immaculate twin-arched bridge - in the middle of nowhere, but as good as the day it was built. It seems a rather elaborate thing to place in the middle of a bog. I presume that it was there for the purposes of the De Vesci estate.

Nostalgia used to be a lot better years ago. I don't think there's much point in it now.

Toast done with a toasting fork + butter and local honey. This is from the time of using the shed to isolate during the early days of the Great Plague. I also did cheese on toast, but the cheese bit was done under the grill on the gas cooker.

Stanley Waterford 104 Mk II.

I have a vague idea that there was a layout in a carriage at Crewe 10/15 years ago. This could be 'real life or is it just fantasy'? I will ask the person who was there with me, he's (fairly) reliable...

Until late last year, the shed was not considered to be part of her responsibilities, but, with the door open all day in the warmer weather, it was decided to check the internal area as well. Before that point, she would just sit on the doorstep, protecting the open entrance from unauthorised incursions. So far, she has proved to be well-behaved - probably better than me. Occasionally, other cats do venture into the garden, but they are not treated as colleagues, or even welcomed as visitors. As for the smell issue, she seems able to put up with me...

Well, I got the rest of it yesterday and was able to remove a bogie and transfer it to the tender. My assumption that the carriage bogies would be identical was wrong - although they would fit, the connector arms are longer there. It would work, but be a little unsightly. The redundant arm could always be cut off on the final bogie on the train, of course, so we can use either to refit the caboose. The loco action was binding in a few places, but it's reasonably free now - it would have been an issue with the light weight and the tender-driven layout. The pony truck was not retained, so it fee off whenever the loco was lifted - it has a wire clip holding the pivot-end in place now. It's all rather fragile, partly because of the age, I suspect - and I have little faith in it surviving long in service. We shall see... This is all largely about indoctrinating his four-year-old lad and infecting him with the bug.

Seeing @Gabhal Luimnigh's shed progressing so nicely elsewhere, it occurred to me that security can be an issue in some locations. I'm lucky enough to the services of a self-appointed Security Officer, who has controlled rodent activities very successfully. Indeed, so successful has she been at her chosen profession that she has felt able, this winter, to take on additional duties as Fire Warden. It is only recently, after three years, that I have found out her postal address, when I called to a household where she was dining, and discovered that they believe that they 'own' her. With everybody out in the daytime most days, they've had no idea of what extracurricular activities she has taken on. However, I am no longer allowed on the furniture.

. This reminded me of one of many similar events when I had a 'proper job'. We made high-voltage circuit breakers and had many "events" which were caused by plated bolts having the plating scraped off as they were tightened. With vibration and the effects of the fairly intense electric field, the bits would often eventually line up and cause the insulation to fail, in quite a spectacular manner. The company had the policy of always buying the cheapest rubbish available and hoping for the best, but this was getting desperate, stuff was blowing up everywhere and a solution was wanted (in reality, they just wanted to be seen to be actively seeking a solution, whilst hoping that the problem would soon be overshadowed by something bigger). A meeting was called and I suggested that we might get a lot less debris if we used stainless steel fasteners. This would have involved spending a few pence more, but I might as well have suggested using platinum. A few years later, we were taken over by a French operation who made similar stuff, but to a much higher standard - and I remember a bloke actually laughing at the state of the bolts we used. We then went to S/S everywhere... Not only were the fasteners a bit flaky, in the true sense, but they were also very rough - to the point that they usually required a spanner to spin them in loose. This led to a near double fatality, when some bolts were removed from a pressure vessel which was still (unknowingly) pressurised. The tightness as they came out, still loaded up, seemed 'normal' to the chaps undoing them, until the last few let go and fired the whole 4 tonne thing up through the roof, derailing the travelling crane that was holding it, ready to be lifted off, and filling the sunken area they were working in with a dense, asphyxiant gas....

The white runs from the lead flashing is good.

Track Safety Coordinator..?

We'll need to check that weekly...

With only a very small amount of rearrangement along the back, at the wall, you would have the space for a reasonably substantial swear jar, which would help in reducing the financial shock of future projects.

Some of the gates do manage to keep their heads down. And some get extended - twice. Three times, if you count the additional side gate. We're not going to keep everything, and sometimes people just aren't interested in some things to any great extent. There were many magnificent things in the past, typewriters, mechanical calculators, even VRCs, that aren't of much interest to 'modern people', beyond the transient curio value. As long as a representative selection survives, that is probably enough.

Was the Killarney motor museum the Lucey one? That was originally in Port Laoise whilst he was still practicing as a vet, before retiring and moving off south west. I called there once, in the hope of having a look round, but he was on holiday and the housekeeper thought I didn't look trustworthy enough to be let in. Understandable. really... It's not all black and white on the 'old stuff' front. I realised, during the lockdown, whilst I was trying to cycle every road as the radius went up, just how many roadside pumps were left. I initially expected there to be about a dozen, but I'm heading for three figures now. In the same size area in England, I know of four. There is a similar higher Irish survival rate for things like wrought-iron field gates, milk stands, lime kilns, etc. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1IgMK3uJ3xIxafN0Y9ScYVvMhA5ZF7nvO&usp=sharing https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzK7xj

Whatever next? A microwave crematorium?

Any dusky pics need to be of maidens.

Not dazzle, per se, but this is an interesting approach. This is Tirpitz, pretending to be a block of flats. It's towards the end of the fitting out, in Wilhelmshaven, 1940.

I was under pressure to 'do something' for this Valentine's Day scam last Wednesday, so I decided to make a proper go of it. I booked us a quiet table for two. I expected to be complimented on my thoughtfulness. However, it all turned into a total disaster. Apparently, I was supposed to know that she doesn't like snooker.

Other ghost trains may be available. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150723-why-britain-has-secret-ghost-trains