Be fruitful.

Today I repaired the fruit cage after the snow damage. 

Before

After

And i also did some work on the Australian layout. The backdrop is a genuine Aussie sky. Also started making eucalyptus trees. 

Guttering.

I did manage to get the guttering and the ridge done on the wood shed. Now we wait for better weather so i can paint it all. 

 

What a week.

Monday was too wet for anything except paddling and, in some parts, swimming.  Tuesday was mainly about dentists, antibiotics and paracetemol.  Wednesday was a Pales day so I was up at Llandegley.  Thursday was partly about going down to the station to meet my adoring fans and do some scenery on the layout there.  But a small amount of work got done, stacking the logs in the wood shed.

Ash logs stacked

Oak logs stacked

The oak logs will take much longer to be ready for burning.  But tomorrow is Friday some some work might get done. If it doesn’t rain. 

The morning after.

From this.....

To this...

Tree felling.

Two trees down! First one. 

Second tree on the way down - Neville just moving out of the way. 

Then Neville’s wonderful log splitter made short work of splitting the logs.

So we now have ash logs and oak logs. 

And a lot of clearing up to do. But the shed is intact!

Gardening

It was warm enough today to do some clearing up of flowerbeds. Not very photogenic so here is a misty view instead. 

Neville is coming tomorrow to help me fell two trees from the hedge by the road. Both are dying and in danger of dropping branches on traffic! One has the Ash disorder and the other has Oak die-back  

A fan has sent me a copy of the article that appeared in the Times on Saturday. 

 

Catching up.

It has been a while.  We went North to Cumbria for Christmas to spend time with Arthur. Helen, Steve, Immie and Jack came too. 

We went to the pantomime.

Pub lunch.

Christmas Dinner.

Skyping to Australia

Then we came home, just in time for some snow. 

The Robertson Christmas party.

 

And then I became famous! Including my picture in the Times. The Biggest Little Railway hit the screens  

 

But apart from fighting off the autograph hunters things have been quite normal.  Repairing the fruit cage.

Clearing up after the stable re-build. 

And there is always firewood to chop. 

Tis’ the Season...

Tis’ the Season to be inside somewhere warm. The power went out for a few hours, the phone went out for a week and we hardly went out at all. There is still a little snow at the front of the house but generally it is just cold now. No outside work is getting done but some modelling has occurred. 

 

Christmas will be on us soon and the New Year will follow. We saw the first signs of snowdrops today so Spring will surely come.  Wonderful sunset this evening. 

 

Snow!

“Euston, we have a problem!” (Sorry, railway modellers joke) Snow! All around us. About 8”in parts of the garden. But, to catch up.  We went to the village Christmas dinner. 

We went to a Quaker lunch in Brecon.

We had a little bit of snow.

And then we had a lot of snow. On Sunday the power was off for four hours and we are still without our phone. 

 

And some progress on the Station Master’s house. 

Catching up.

It has been an odd few days. The weather has not been good but i have mainly been indoors. Lots of Quaker work going in at the moment.  But i did get some work done on the wood shed, covering the joints between panels and fitting a corrugated iron skirt to stop rabbits etc tunneling in. 

 

I have volunteered to help with a local Nativty activity which is taking place on Twelth Night. It is based at Capel Gosen which sits directly under the Cynghordy viaduct. 

And talking of railways. I have been working on the first building for the Aussie layout. This is the real building and the model so far.