Saturday 11th August 2012 Here, There, and Everywhere!

  A good day was forecast  weatherwise and my day started  with a visit to Ashchurch to see what progress has been made at at recovering the bricks from the old Midland Stables.

Ashchurch

Bob Jones on scaffolding nearly as old as the stables!
Perfectly safe however!

Five Volunteers  were getting stuck into the reclamation of the bricks from the old stables  The bricks are soft reds, and are barely held together with lime mortar. Pulling them apart is therefore quite straight forward, but the downside is that the bricks can get easily damaged if care is not taken to stack them as we go.  The emphasis is on reclamation, not demolition!

Andy P had the task of rescuing the special blue
plinth bricks around the top of the building

David and Chris Helm are always in the thick of it when it comes to hard graft on these sort of jobs, and no less so at Ashchuch. I don't know what we would do without them!

And talking about not knowing what we would do with out them, Robin, the Wisley Master of brick recovery came along to lend a hand. He really is a glutton for punishment!











Back to Broadway

Saturdays would not be the same without at least a few hours at Broadway and this Saturday was no less so.  Here lunch in the sunshine, putting the world to rights. We had a welcome guest volunteer today - Remmo Statius Muller from the SSN Museum In Rotterdam. A colleague of Jo’s, visiting for Jo’s son's wedding and a very productive  pair of extra hands for the day.

Here Remmo and Roger lay some more slabs behind 1B. Their energy finally gave out at the end of the day with 10 slabs laid. Thanks Remmo - please come back soon!

Here another perspective on the slab laying on 1B.

When not helping  laying slabs, Clive continued with the painting of the lamp huts. I am beginning to worry that Clive is a closet LMS man with all that red paint going on!

Thanks to all of the 8 volunteers at Broadway today.












And then to Cheltenham

 The consignment of 20,000 blue bricks for Cheltenham Racecourse Platform 2 are due this week and a suitable place had to be found to stash them away until needed.

What was of far more interest adjacent to the planned platform was the arrival of the Firing and  Driving Experience train. The beautifully restored 2807 had a less salubrious Toad in tow. Everyone look as though they were enjoying themselves so why don't you sign up?! It must be a great day.

Having had a quick chat to our Chairman, who was waiting on his return train on the utterly superb 5542, I set off home.

Post Script

Jo Roesen has great difficulty in keeping away from his volunteering and here he was obviously torn on his son's wedding day! The wedding won the day.

Sorry this has been a bit of a fragmented post - a bit like my day yesterday - apologies to all my volunteering chums who were working so hard while I swanned in and out.