An Early Night!

Robbie often promises me an early night but for all sorts of reasons we don't get to bed until much later than planned. So earlier this week it was a nice change to find ourselves in bed reasonably early. Robbie went through his usual rituals including setting the alarm on his blackberry so that it would wake the alarm clock up. Then he reached across and picked up a yellow A4 folder containing early copies of Model Rail magazine, he proceeded to tell me about the history of the magazine, the variations in content over the years - he even listed the issues that were missing from his collection. I was wide awake when I went to bed, but it is surprising how quickly I fell asleep!

Scary Images

The Burgess legs have had their first outing of the summer, on Saturday morning Robbie appeared in the lounge wearing his very loud patterned shorts and a summer T-shirt. He was heading out to the garden to remove a small tree so that we can replace several of the fence panels. He wasn't out there for very long before he returned claiming that it was all done, I think the tree took one look at his shorts and surrendered!

Saturday morning was a rare luxury, it was nice not to have to get up and start rushing around at the crack of dawn. Robbie was tired after his adventures on Friday so when I woke up there was only the radio to keep me company, but I enjoyed the luxury of doing absolutely nothing. Eventually Robbie woke claiming that he needed a cup of coffee before he could face the day. Finally he returned to bed with his coffee and I had his undivided attention or so I thought. It didn't take long before his mind had wandered and he started talking about an interesting article in Model Rail magazine. I don't suppose I will ever change him, but it doesn't stop me trying! Having worked extra hard to get his full attention, I thought I was winning until he suddenly announced that there was a long article about CrossCountry in Modern Railways! I know when I'm beaten so I asked if I could read the article, he wasn't too keen on that because he hadn't finished reading it himself, but eventually he relented. I'm glad I read it, there were some very good pictures of CrossCountry trains and a truly scary photo of Andy Cooper MD of CrossCountry - he looked like a very angry bank manager. The article made a lot of sense and it made him sound considerably more human than his photo would suggest. I'm still a bit of a sceptic about some of the changes that CrossCountry are committed to, especially the removal of the shops on their trains, but I must admit that Andy Cooper puts forward a very convincing business argument for the changes. The whole article made a lot of sense, perhaps it is just my interpretation but I got the feeling the moderate language used to describe the abject failures of Network Rail was a little unnatural.

Over the years my children have got me involved in all sorts of tasks and I have acquired the strangest skills, I still remember struggling to make a lion costume at short notice because Sam insisted on dressing as Aslan for Book Day at school. Until yesterday I had never been called upon to paint a teapot! Emily returned from town with a teapot and explained that she needed to paint a design on the side for her friend's birthday. Apparently her friend wanted a teapot and Emily wanted it to be unique. Emily began the painting but before long I found myself in the hot seat and I spent a pleasant couple of hours painting a parrot on to the side of a teapot. The end result was surprisingly successful and I must admit that I enjoyed doing it, I really should allow more time for my crafts.

Horses by Rail 29.04.07

Guess what we were doing in bed this morning? It's OK Richard, this is quite safe to read. We were finding out about the history of horse transport by rail. I had stolen Robbie's Model Rail magazine, because there was a long article about horse boxes and horse transport by rail. I like Model Rail because you can learn loads that perhaps wouldn't get a mention elsewhere, but it matters to modellers because they want to be as accurate as possible. I was surprised to find that horseboxes were usually incorporated into passenger services rather than freight services, where they would be positioned at the head of the train next to the engine. If four or more horseboxes were required a special could be run with just horseboxes and a passenger brake.

I was quite surprised at the extent of horse traffic on the railways. I had thought of the Race traffic, but there was also military movements, hunt specials, theatrical specials and general traffic. My favourite film from the British Transport Film Collection is Farmer Moving South because I love the way the special train is made up, I could watch that film over and over again!

When 'Sleeping Beauty' woke up and realised he wasn't going to be able to wrestle his magazine from me until I had read it from cover to cover he decided to distract me with other book's. Out came a book of plans, it was A Pictorial Record of Great Western Coaches (part 2) to be precise. It was really interesting with line drawings showing the layout of the horseboxes, there was even a specially strengthened version for Elephants! In the end Robbie gave up and plodded of to make a cup of tea because I wouldn't relinquish the magazine and I had swiped the book as well.

It isn't often that Robbie is unable to answer a question, but when I asked him what a clerestory carriage was he just showed me some pictures. I had to search the internet to find that it is a passenger vehicle incorporating a raised central roof portion in order to enhance headroom, lighting and ventilation. On the subject of questions I was looking at Class 20's this morning; why are they so weird? Nose first it looks like an alien and cab end first it looks really scary. I certainly wouldn't want to meet that on a dark night!

On the subject of dark nights, I had the strangest dream about Robbie last night. In my dream he arrived in the cab of a train and jumped out and killed an alligator in Morrison's car park. Oddly enough they do have a bit of a drainage problem in the car park, but I have absolutely no idea why I should have been thinking about Alligators! Anyway Robbie would have run a mile, he is even scared of the guinea pig.