britainswomble

Same as most days really.......................... totally crap internet service!! I don't know whether it's the telephone exchanges fault; talktalks fault, whether we have the wrong type of clouds and it's upsetting the satellite. The amount of dropout is phenomenal. I was told by Talktalk that I should get up to 15 meg of broadband. I'm lucky to get 2.5 on a good day with 146 kb of download. Up, down, bu**ered if I know! Talktalk want me to have fibre optic and say the service will be better................. it might if we had fibre optic in our area! Internet here is about as much use as **** (Boobies) on a tin horse !!!!!!!!

Leaving two drivers work for our tanker drivers, and finding out that a third had to be called in to help because they thought there was too much to do! Being asked to arrive at work tomorrow (My day off today!) to route and try to motivate two drivers to catch up on the work they haven't done! No doubt I will be on the road with them too to make sure it all gets done. We have two drivers who simply don't associate maps with finding their way around. Neither is capable of effective routing because in spite of one having lived in the area all his life and being in his sixties; he still has to have his routing done for him. Both are unable to work without the aid of sat navs to the point that one of them lost the signal on his sat nav and rang me to say he couldn't go anywhere because his sat nav was ******!!! I told him to use a map. The other says there is no point in him going out if his sat nav isn't working. I do use sat navs in towns I've never been to before. Maps are much better as there are often clues on the map as to where a place is even if it isn't shown. We have A-Z street maps for East and West Sussex. Sat navs can often be misleading or delay finding an address because you can be convinced the location it gives you is correct when it isn't. More annoying too is that my bosses are reluctant to employ experienced tanker drivers because they don't want "Militant" drivers who refuse to do things any other way than the way they are used to! At least they get through the work!!!!! They would rather we train them and find out later that they aren't capable of finding their a*** in the dark!!!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Two things.................. one being that I've now finished all my Christmas shopping.................. the other, that my wife's ex husband and his brother both had wins on the postcode lottery. One won £12,000, the other won £23,000.................. nice little windfall for Christmas!! Oh and P.S. I won £2:00 on the Euromillions last week! A few zeros missing I think!!

I've been at Shoreham harbour (Sussex) all day monitoring the unloading of a small ship load of Kerosene............ 500 tonnes of it! I had to meet a "Huffler" who arrives on the Pilots boat. His job is to ensure that the ship is correctly moored and positioned. I had to release our marine unloading arm and make sure the arm was correctly bolted to the ship. A sips surveyor has to meet the ship and check the paperwork and hold contents prior to unloading. He then takes samples for analysis. These samples are tested in our laboratory; and if they are up to spec, the ship is unloaded. We monitor the tank contents on our site and carry out safety checks during the process. Once the ship is unloaded; the surveyor checks the quantities delivered and makes sure the ship is actually empty, and we make sure the marine unloading arm is safely removed and stowed.. Our company now refuels a lot of boats. This is new to us and it seems really weird that we now have to carry life jackets on our road tankers!!

Today I learned a new skill!...................... Filleting Turbot!!! Recently our company has started refuelling Scallop dredgers for Scott Trawlers of Dumfries. Occasionally we get offered fish if they have plenty on board. They seem to get quite a lot of Turbot and Monkfish, although I think they sell the Monkfish. Hardly surprising really, as Monkfish tail sells for £20:00 a Kg in our local Tesco's.

What really pleased me today................ buying eighteen wine glasses. Six Champagne flutes, six white wine glasses and six red glasses for £2:99 from T.J. Hughes in Eastbourne. What a bargain!

Today I watched a TV program about the first World war about the real war horses. A very interesting and very sad account of the soldiers and their horses during the conflict. It started with the horses being taken from England and the ordeal they suffered initially in travelling to Europe. As they explained; few of the horses had ever seen the sea, and were terrified of being loaded on to boats. Many were put to work with very little training and entered battle fields; where they suffered from injuries and many died of exhaustion during their service. Many became so stuck in mud that after soldiers spent hours trying to save them; they had to be put out of their misery where they were. The main subject of the program was a horse called Warrior; who appeared to lead a charmed existence; avoiding injury and surviving to the end of the war. He was taken home by his keeper and lived to be thirty three years old before he died. It was sad to hear how soldiers were devoted to their horses and they were often inseparable. Many of the soldiers found comfort in their animals and lived with them twenty four hours of the day; telling them all their problems and seeking comfort from them. It must have been terrible for a soldier to have to shoot his horse. This act was considered to be above and beyond the call of duty and would have absolutely devastated its keeper. Sad too was the fact that the army had about seven hundred and fifty thousand horses in Europe and when the war ended they were only able to bring home about twenty five thousand of them. Some were sold to French farmers and the remainder became food for the starving French. A sad end for such a noble animal and especially after all they had gone through. Thank goodness that we will never see such terrible scenes as these ever again.

Just out of curiosity........ where did you get the Kidd Rotoflail from? Is it your scratch build or a Classic Combines model. (Flattering comment!) The tractor looks great with those wheels. Shame there isn't more in budget priced equipment to go with the 1/16th scale tractors. Some of it would be relatively easy to make ourselves if only we had the time. Time is a problem for me, although I did build a scale model of the Weeks 3 ton trailer out of cardboard as an experiment to see what it would look like on the tractor. The end result looked ok, but the big problem was where I could get suitable wheels from. That was as far as it got. I wish I'd started doing this years ago, like everything else. I need a second life.............. so many interests and so little time! .

I've been helping my wife tidy up. I had several bottles of Scotch laying around in our wine rack. Some of them didn't have a lot left in them, so I drank the bits left and put the bottles out for re cycling. Wasn't that good of me!! The wine rack looks a lot tidier now because I've filled it up with full bottles and they look much tidier than the nearly empty ones.

The Albion restoration is a bit of a sore point and a chicken and egg situation. My wife and I are always trying to get ahead financially so we can afford the time and money to do the enjoyable things in life. Hobbies and holidays are pretty high on the list. We are still heading slowly in the right direction and have several irons in the fire. This year we have targets and I'm seriously thinking about my future as an employed person so we can have the freedom I had when I had my own business. Times are hard and people don't spend money like they did ten years ago, so this year will be a trial period for some of our ideas. We hope to expand our cat breeding program this year. If all goes well that should give us a good financial boost too. Back to the item in question........ I've made four sides to the cab and started rebuilding the doors. The roof will be next, but as I have no workshop to work in; I have to rely on good weather and daylight. If things work out this year and I do go self employed again; I will probably try to rent a building on a nearby farm. That will be the answer to all that I hope to do. I don't want a lavish palace of a workshop, just space and a dry well lit place to work in. Like many more of us, I should have done all this thirty years ago. I'm sixty now and just need a second life and a lottery win to get it all done. (Hopefully a bit more than the six quid I last won!!)

We have five lovely fat fit and healthy Savannah kittens. This morning we took a few photo's of them and .advertised them on the internet. They are three and a half weeks old and will go to new homes in March. Being pedigrees; they can't leave us until they've been vaccinated and micro chipped.

Will and Karen Southgate would like to wish all Farm Toys forum members a very happy new year. We hope this year will be a year for moving forward, thinking positive and making things happen. We are all living in difficult times, but this is an opportunity for us all to scrabble our way up the pile and make the world a better place. May all your dreams come true, and may your year be full of happiness and good health. Take care!

We have a Savannah queen (Cat) in season, and apart from the diabolical noise she makes; she spotted one of our female Bengal cross cats (Disney) who looks identical to the stud male (Louis) she was mated with for her last litter. No matter how amorous she got with our Disney; nothing seemed to work. I'm not sure if cats have a memory for mating partners, but we are sure she thought Diz was Louis.

Finding out on arrival at work this morning; that one of our van drivers had taken his own life over the weekend. He was thirty seven. We knew he wasn't a happy person, but his problems were personal and he felt he was the one who had to deal with them. We just wish he had been prepared to unload on to one of us. As they say, "A problem shared, is a problem halved". My sympathy goes to his family and friends.

I seem to remember these also being used to cut hay. Some were used on the newer types of grass such as Italian Ryegrass; introduced in the late sixties and early seventies. The idea was to break open the stalks to help it dry quicker. Sort of an early idea of a mower conditioner. The flap half way up the chute re directed the grass back on to the ground. On the farm where I lived, we also used to cut the grass with a mower, leave it to wilt and then pick it up with the forager. Silaging kit consisted of a Ford 4000 on the forager, two Wheatley three ton trailers with silage sides, a Ford 3000 on the clamp with a Paterson Buckrake and two men on the clamp with forks!!!!!!! We did make some really good silage though. Your machine looks to be in fairly good condition for its age, but then Kidd equipment generally was well made. One of Kidd's less successful machines was the "Ultimow" It was a mower conditioner with two, three fingered cutters, like a skeleton drum with a spiked drum to lift and batter the outgoing grass. I never saw one work, so I don't know what the problem was with them.

A few years ago there was a similar accident in East Sussex. Sadly out of the thirty dairy cows on the truck; only one survived. It took most of the day for the cows to be rescued or destroyed at the scene. Ironically the farmer was selling off the last of his dairy herd and I believe they were being transported to Scotland. Unfortunately the truck went off the road on a surprisingly tight bend with a deep ditch starting where the tarmac ended, so the truck was virtually upside down. Naturally the farmer was devastated at having to sell off his dairy herd and then hearing of the sad loss of the cows he had cared for; he is rumoured to have kept the surviving cow himself. Every time I drive round that particular bend; all I can think of is the horror the poor cows and rescuers were faced with. The cattle in the video probably sustained serious if not life threatening injuries, but at least it looks like most were on their feet fairly quickly. I'm not too sure whether that was good or not. Possibly their being in an open truck may have saved them. The cows in the East Sussex accident were all on top of one another. A bad day for livestock transport!

Old bendy legs is just gagging to be restored. The veneer looks to be in good condition, and it would look beautiful properly restored. You seem to see this style of furniture in the Poirot series. A really elegant period! Oh, and the strong table was probably marketed under the model name of Sampson........... probably strong enough to withstand some reproductive action..................... er,,,,,, if you catch my drift....

I'm no expert cos I know diddly squat about most fings........... but the bandy leg item looks more sort of "Art Deco" to me. My parents had some utility furniture they bought when they got married. Utility furniture; I thought would have had the utility mark on it. If I remember correctly it was like two three quarter circles overlapping one another........(CC41) You can read up on it via a Google search. but then what do I know................

My favourite job was pasture topping. Tidying up scruffy looking fields after the cows had eaten all the good bits. Very rewarding, unlike fertiliser spreading. There wasn't anything to show for all your hard work. I'd like to have a go on a self propelled forager. I've driven them to and from demo's but never actually used one. I quite fancy the classics. Either the Claas Jaguar SF 80 with the V10 Deutz or the New Holland 1880 with the (3208?) Caterpillar V8. Great sounding engines, but you would be better off with ear plugs when they are working!

I used to love topping, tidying up a scruffy looking field after the cows had scoffed all the good grass. The most rewarding jobs are the ones that leave you with a sense of achievement. Fertiliser spreading was pretty boring. The field looked the same after you'd put all that time into it. A few weeks later you could see whether you had any "Misses" from the other side of the valley! I've never actually used a self propelled forager. I've driven them to and from demo's, but would love to actually use one. I rather like the idea of one of the classics. Either a Claas Jaguar SF80 or the early New Holland machine. The Claas had a V10 Deutz engine and the NH (1970's) had a V8 caterpillar engine. (3208?). Lovely noise!!

Offset or in line? I'd love to see some pictures. They were a very well made machine. On the farm where I lived we had an in line one powered by a Ford 4000. It had a "Slam hitch" on the back but we could never get on with it and it was always dragging the ground in ruts. We actually made silage with this machine. It was replaced by a JF side mounted forager, I just wish I could afford a Classic Combines one for my UH Major!

I was fairly confident that my Nuffield was a die cast metal one. Do you have any pictures of yours. If it is a Lipkin one then I'd be interested in some "All round" pictures. Many thanks!

Many thanks for your help in finding the information I needed. All I have to do is find one at a half sensible price.

I've just looked up a Vectis picture of the Pippin Toys Raphael Lipkin model of the Nuffield and it was definitely one of those. I remember the "Power Major" type wheel rims and the conventional hub arrangement on the rear hubs.