Half Term begins....

And probably ends again very quickly.... with tons of plans that are very unlikely to be executed... but enough of that... so far i've done some shopping, ensured that my son spends at least some time with his mother, built a snowman, had the most enjoyable snowball fight of my life, built some more bits of a model railway, (a small n-gauge, built from leftovers for a friend's son... not brilliant, but serviceable) listened to the BBC recordings of Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, listened to Sad Les and Chess about three times each, watched Return of the Jedi, and planned for next week... and all since Thursday... and that doesn't include working on Friday, when we had to do two days worth of deliveries to make up for Thursday..... Our trip to Wales has been postponed to Easter, so I now have saturday free next week... but I'm sure that won't be the case for long..... But I am looking forward to next week.... a trip to Leicester to spend my son's birthday and Yule money.. (that is, he's spending it, not me...) a disco at Scouts on Tuesday, at which i will be dressed fancy, and on Wednesday I have been invited to dinner by a very attractive young lady of my aquaintance... I shall, of course be providing dessert... I would tell you more, but as she reads this blog occasionally (and for all I know is the only person to do so... no, I know shellie's had a look..) I will keep my wisely bearded mouth tightly closed..... suffice to say, if it doesn't work out, it'll be a sachet of Birds Custard and a packet of Digestives.... Next weekend, if I remember correctly sees a Model Railway show at Sileby... one of my regular venues.... along with the Soar Valley show at Garendon School, and the DEMU event at Burton....so gusess where I'll be spending a few hours on Sat or Sun??!!??...... By now, you'll probably have realised that I quite like trains.... my favourites being (steam) Stanier's "Black 5", and the Fowler 3F "Jinty"..... and (diesels) Classes 60 and 66... I'm also a great fan of multiple units, especially 158/159s, 170s and Meridians..... but my absolute favourite must be the absolutely gorgeous Model 62..... liking diesels and multiples at one time would have made me something of a pariah amongst railway modellers, but luckily nowadays a lot of the snobbery seems to be leaving the hobby.... I think we've all finally realised that one of the biggest spurs to railway modelling is nostalgia, and as someone who was born after the last steam loco left the rails, I get more nostalgic about seeing 37s, 47s and 25s pulling coal out of our local pits than I could about the steam I've never seen except at preserved lines... and eventually, I think the emphasis will change... already we have a younger generation of modellers who make steam layouts because they've never seen steam "for real..." then theres people like me, who like the modern era because its what we see all day.... my son will probably be nostalgic when he sees a class 158 at some preserved line in the future.... remember, steam finished oin 1968.... by 2068, there will be very few people left alive who ever saw a steam train on a real railway.... but I digress... I think what I'm trying to say today is that life is change, and those of us who don't accept this ar always going to be poorer than those of us who do... language changes, customs change, even people change... and so do our railways.... until all our plans are realised, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!