New boots and panties...

Well, perhaps, new phone and house, anyway.
We have moved into our new home and have just been activated with 'phone and Internet.  Mine after the dongly thing and wire was returned to the machine, Chris's automatic and instant.  173 emails, mostly crap were sifted through and reduced to a minuscule total of worthies.  Is it all worth it?  Well, I didn't really miss it and indeed it was really quite pleasant developing a routine that did NOT include the nightly sit through the muck and bullets of ethereal communication.

I have been putting up shelves in the shed and emptying boxes marked "workshop", wondering what in Heaven is in them all.  One shelf fell down overnight as the screws were too small to force the Rawlplugs into the holes and down it all came.

Garden furniture scraped and repainted today and paper on the feature wall of the lounge.  The old showcase that my Grandfather made in the 20s is coming back to me after being with daughter, then son for years.  That'll need some serious burnishing and polishing!  But will hold, dust free, my most treasured models and items.

Well, that's us, then.  New neighbours  (actually our only previous neighbours were cows and sheep until the landlady's skanky daughter moved into a twin unit next door and played Bang crash repetitive noise through a disco level hi-fi for hours on end). It was our complaints about that which led to us being here, ultimately and we are very grateful!

Rocking horse poo, Hen's teeth, etc...

A longish time ago now, I made a contact with a Swiss gent, who I managed to persuade to commission me to make a pattern of an Invicta Low Chassis S Type as a potential slot racer.  I had always wanted a model of an Invicta, it being one of my favourite pre War cars.  And an old friend, Mike Hyatt had always wanted a model of an Invicta as he was brought up in an Invicta owning and racing family.
Well, the model was made and delivered. The client was delighted with it and then we waited....and waited.....  Nothing happened. I eventually made contact and the client pulled the oldest trick in the book..."Oh, an expert has looked at it and there is so much wrong with it that I shan't be making it now".   Ha!  What you mean, my friend, is you have run out of money and can't afford to make it, but haven't the balls to say so.  Been there, seen that, so many times.

So I told him to send the model back and I would put right any problems.  To my amazement, he did! And what did I find?  About half a millimetre discrepancy on the bracket that holds the front axle on the static version of the model.   But the model would only be needed for slot racing anyway! Nothing else was found.
Knowing I'd get nowhere with the client, I decided that I would get my copy after all and so, after waiting so long, would Mike....he deserved it.
This morning, a parcel from Steve Francis, resin caster extraordinaire, arrived and in it are 2 sets of Invicta mouldings and the original master.
So, Mike, who is now officially a very happy bunny and I, have a model so rare, that nobody else has a copy anywhere else in the world.
This could be a slot car I actually build!