Interlude

Yesterday Beautiful Wife and myself celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. Eleven years after we met in the UK, and many people reacted to our engagement with disbelief that two young people from the UK and Japan could ever see each other again, let alone organise a life together, we’ve three fantastic boys and a lot [...]

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Goodbyes

It’s cold: that special early morning you-should-be-in-bed cold that starts somewhere in the bone marrow and works its way out. Mum and Dad are sorting out passports and tickets, checking how much time they have to change trains in Paris, and sorting out luggage. I’m already starting to think about the day ahead: getting the [...]

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New Workbench

Our new flat has a loft. And not just a gap under the roof with oddly spaced planks with cheap plasterboard inbetween and a ladder leaning against the hatch either: a proper loft with wooden floor, a folding ladder on a spring loaded trapdoor, electricity and a roof like a marquee.
I’ve got space. I mean, [...]

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We are alive

It’s been a bit of a fight with the internet provider but it seems they have now agreed with me that as I’m paying them a monthly fee, they probably should get on with making a connection and providing me internet access, so they sent someone to find the plug or to whatever it is [...]

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So here’s why I’ve been quiet for a while…

We were suddenly told last week that an apartment was up for rent on a quiet road in the village, so we went along to have a look, more to eliminate it from the list than anything as we thought it would be way over our budget. This one had all the signs of [...]

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Desk Job 2

The sum total of my modelmaking has not quite managed the goals I set out in my earlier post. In fact, after the last progress report all I managed was a pair of driving desks for the cabs of the railcar. Not a lot but all I could fit in between celebrating Christmas with [...]

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The Dilemma

I really like making modern image narrow gauge models, and I’ve been talking a bit to John P. about container wagons for forty-foot containers, which I’d like to try in 5.5mm scale. I’m intending to make a layout for the railcar as soon as I can, although that’s not likely to be very soon: assuming [...]

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Travelling Eurostar

Well, it turns out that travelling across Europe by train was easier than we dared hope. The bus, tram and trains generally behaved themselves and worked reasonably to schedule, the station staff were friendly, we could carry food and water, go for walks along the train and see the view (except in the tunnel). it [...]

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Flu

This blog went a bit quiet for the last couple of weeks because I was snowed under with work, and then managed to catch the flu at the same time. Of course, having three small boys doesn’t allow a lot of rest. I’m not sure if it’s worse having flu with healthy kids who want [...]

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Interlude…

In what fortunately turned out to be a false alarm, our youngest (3 months) was ambulanced to an emergency room at about seven this morning after we found him under his blanket and he didn’t want to wake up. It turned out that he just had a virus and the blanket was no problem [...]

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