Broithe

Last Train To Charleville?

This is a good start? https://anticsonline.uk/Product/EFE-24107-Bedford-TK-Dropside-Crosville-NMB--176_N105208329

Would it be feasible/worthwhile/desirable to cut out a small amount of the backboard and place some sort of 'concave bush' there - or something similar?

A brief survey of the station, during the warm bit of the afternoon, revealed that the phone cabinet has been updated. Some details of the roof slates. I'm not sure I would advertise a lift as being 'non-stop'.

Is that mascara you're wearing? Or a black eye..?

In 1963, I was standing on the platform of Kingham station in Gloucestershire, with my father, who was off to Cyprus for three months. In those days, in the right circumstances, you could detect an approaching train much further away than is generally possible now. The bursts of smoke and steam as it passed under each bridge gave a good indication of its location and speed. Having spotted its approach, it seemed to me that it was unlikely to be able to stop at the station, but, there were many adults involved and I had to assume that they knew what they were doing. Eventually, it came into sight and hammered through the station at a good 60mph, in the violent manner that only an ageing steam train can, much to the surprise of everybody but me. When the smoke, steam, ash, smuts and other debris had cleared, we could see the stationmaster on the opposite platform, shouting "That was your train!" and pointing at where it had gone with his walking stick, as if we didn't know. It was pulled up in the next station and we went off and literally caught it by mean of the stationmaster's van.

When I meet a new person with a North American accent, I always ask them if they're Canadian. Canadians love it and US citizens are somewhat less happy - you can't lose.

Some very interesting shots around Abbeyleix here - https://www.facebook.com/LaoisHeritageSociety/posts/4021235487938102

Back in the old days, SPAD was a WW1-era aircraft manufacturer - SPAD had an interesting early history as an acronym - originally it signified Société de Production des Aéroplanes Deperdussin, but after some financial irregularities by Armand Deperdussin, resulting in his arrest for fraud and subsequent bankruptcy, the name was changed, upon the business being rescued, to Société pour l'Aviation et ses Dérivés, thus keeping the handy acronym and glossing over the unfortunate events.

Examination of the map led me to believe that I could investigate two further bridges on the Lisduff side of the station - 189 and 190, I think. They are on a side road of the type that you wouldn't use unless you were going there and, I presume, were originally accommodation crossings, possibly within living memory, although I can't remember and I definitely haven't been along there for over forty years. 189. The road between the two seems to have dual carriageway status - well, it has a central reservation... 190.

You have to 'sign up'. Once you're logged in, you can add to, or edit, entries. It is not an easy process, at least the first time, but it is possible. I've done a few corrections to things and additions where new events have occurred since an entry was created. Be prepared for some "issues", it can be a rather convoluted and frustrating process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing#:~:text=How do I edit a page%3F,-Main page%3A Wikipedia&text=To edit the whole page,special markup language called wikitext.

Hopefully, "we" don't have a container on here - https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2021/0324/1205754-suez-canal/ - or any of the other ships that are hanging about as a result.

I had a proper job for twenty years, until it became a matter of what colour uniform was going to take me away. We had another of our annual clearouts and they asked for volunteers - I realised that, if they had asked for volunteers to stay, then I would not have applied - so I took the plunge. It was actually much easier to 'get by' than I imagined it would be - having a regular job has its costs, being free to set your own agenda lets you work far more efficiently. I still had thirteen years left on the mortgage at that time, but I got by OK - if I needed more money to give people, then it was a matter of getting it, and that was generally possible. That was 1993 - I'm weeks away from when I should have been a pensioner, of sorts, but the posh boys have added a further year to wait. It's not for everybody, but it is doable. As for retiring in the more normal manner, there is no best before date - do it, as soon as you can! For the first few years after my escape, people would often ask "Do you miss it at all?" - to which my standard answer was "Yes. First thing every morning".

That's a terrible-,looking pitch. The slope is bad enough, but the surface is dog rough and the grass is half-dead. Shocking.

I refurbished a village flagpole for a Parish Council on the Big Island a while ago. When I had reassembled it, it didn't have access to their flag, so I had to use what I had to hand. I run my own National Holidays in my house - this being the only one that anybody else seems to join in with. Tonight, it may be a bottle of Nigerian Guinness, in honour of one of the two other countries that St Patrick keeps an eye on. Montserrat being the other, of course.

Talk of Chinese manufacturing elsewhere has reminded me of this. We had noticeboards all over the place and many spoofs would appear on those. A regular poster was quite a good cartoonist. One of his, which I may still have a copy of, appeared as digital watches were starting to become popular. We were still using relays for control systems and were probably about thirty years behind the rest of the world by then. He put up a drawing of "The GEC Digital Watch". This was a chap struggling along with a wooden pallet tied to his left arm. This pallet had 100 watt bulbs arranged in a grid, to form the numbers as they lit up, as an LED watch did back then. With his right arm, he was pulling a fully laden hand-truck behind him - on this trailer were a couple of dozen car batteries to drive the bulbs and a grandfather clock with a nest of wires coming from the face and hands to control which ones were illuminated at the time.

I once made a vegetable plot for someone who wasn't the most agile person. I suggested that we could make a watering arrangement for it that would only require her to turn a tap on and off now and then. The idea was to use one of the oscillating sprinklers that will cover a rectangular area, thus we wouldn't waste water. The area can be adjusted by blocking nozzles for two sides and by adjusting the drive linkage from the turbine-driven gearbox for the other two sides. Subject to it not being too windy and the water pressure being fairly reliable, then the area watered could be quite accurately controlled. In those far-off days they were generally about £30, if you were lucky, and not widely available. I suggested that we keep an eye out for 'the right one' and we didn't need it straight away. The next week, she announced that she had bought one that she'd seen in a garden centre - "How much?", I asked, hoping that she had got the right sort, as she hadn't seemed to understand what I had in mind - "£2.99" was the answer. I admonished her for buying the wrong sort, imagining that she had got a cheapo rotary sprinkler, but, no, she had purchased a "Chinese copy" that was 99% as good as the European item that i had in mind. I doubt that we could have sent the empty box back to China for what she paid for the whole thing, even if we had flattened it. Each nozzle was an individual brass fitting, pressed into the main tube - and there was an attached tool supplied to deal with any blockages.

Releasing this sort of information on the first of the month is just going to get people checking their calendars...