People must think I like steam railways

These are three of my birthday and Father’s Day cards. All of them are or were real engines. The Pannier Tank, 3632 was built in 1939 and scrapped in 1962. The Class 93xx (No 9300 to 9319, I can’t tell which of those engines this is) was built in in 1932 and later modified between 1954 and 1959.

The final engine 45212, one of the very popular Stanier Black 5s, built in 1935 and was in charge of the last ever steam train in the UK on 4th August 1968. It’s run on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway as well as on the North York’s Moors line (which has been back on Channel 5 with a second series recently) and on the main line.

A packed programme. Finally sat down for a cup of tea at quarter to eight this evening. Completed the traditional mini triathlon at the gym to mark my birthday. A 1.6km swim, 10km bike ride and 5km run. I was very pleased with how I felt.

It was a late lunch, more of an early afternoon tea really. After that I assembled a table for the hall and having unplugged and disentangled all the plugs and wires for the router, phone and alarm system it took some time to reconnect and hide and tidy all the wires. Looks fairly neat now.

It was then out to the DIY store for some lengths of timber to construct a frame to tie up my tomatoes. I’m following Monty Don’s technique where he uses string. My first attempt was not really working but the frame is a whole lot better.