Biggles87

Introducing Ursino, the latest member of the Biggles family.

He is 10 weeks old and has lots of toys, a paddling pool and a tunnel.

But his favourite is......

A large empty cardboard box!

Rosie says she doesn't see the attraction

Anyway it's not going to last very long

The thing that looks like a piece of rag is an unstuffed bunny which comes like that.

That's it for now, I'm sure you'll be seeing him again soon.

John

Hi everyone? I'm going to take a break from Britmodeller for a while for several reasons, including problems accessing the site. See you soon I hope;

Stay safe everyone.

John

We are off line for a few days as our internet provider is changing the system for 5G compatibility and we are waiting for a new antenna which should be Thursday. My mobile data is very limited so will be used only for essential things. 

See you on the other side.

John

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year from frosty France.

Went to see a friend this morning to drop something off and when I left he pointed me in the direction of this.

Apparently it made an emergency landing in this field yesterday, don't have any more details. There has been a Jodel around recently but I don't know if it's this one.

John

Feeling quite chuffed at the moment. i’ve Just finished my 4th build of the year ( F-51D in RFI ) even if two of them were started more than 15 years ago.  Now on to the Airfix Hunter.

John

Hi Keith,

I just saw on Ced’s Catalina thread that you’ve not been feeling too good recently, I hope it’s nothing serious and that you’re back to normal soon.

Stay safe.

John 

Wishing a Happy and Healthy New Year to all at 

Britmodeller.

Hi there,

I made a donation to BM on 2nd May via PayPal using the email address

[email protected]

The money left my bank on 9th May but I havn’t seen any sign on BM to indicate you received it.

Can you help.

Regards 

John Gleave

Biggles87

I have been debating with myself  whether to post this or not as it might be considered political, if so I will remove it.  However, I could not resist it!

This is what happens when you argue with a horse!

We've just had a fun weekend. One of our horses went badly lame on Saturday,and the other one did this to me on Sunday morning as I was giving him some hay in his stable. It's only the second time it has happened in 25 years but the last time I ended up in hospital with concussion. The damage was mostly done by my glasses being smashed into my face which also cut my eyebrow in couple of places and removed some hair. The glasses survived and the lame horse is getting better, so must n't grumble.

John 

Introducing the latest member of the Biggles87 family.

This is Blanche who we adopted about 10 days ago, when her previous owner had to move to an apartment and so did not have a garden for her. She's eight years old, is very affectionate and is getting on well with our other two girls, although she's not sure about the horses and thinks they should be barked at regularly. 

John

Hi Trevor, you're mention of Burtonwood on Ced's B-36 thread brought back a lot of memories, I was a gliding instructor there in the early '70s. I remember that the main runway was rippled in places because of the coal mine running underneath it, and when we heard that the motorway was going to be built over it, one of the other instructors who was a surveyor said that he didn't think it was a good idea. A few years after I left, after the motorway was built, I went back for a visit and while flying around I noticed that a couple of lanes were closed so I asked my pilot ( who was a traffic cop ) what was happening " oh " .he said " the motorway surface is rippled " 

John

PS is the airfield still recognisably and is the motorway still rippling?

Hi everyone,

I've not been very active on Britmodeller recently because we recently lost our oldest dog Flossie who had cancer in her liver and spleen which had developed very rapidly, and being nearly 14 years old, operating was not an option.  We finally made the decision to let her go last Tuesday, it was the last thing we could do for her.

John

Unexpectedly home. 

Had a bad day yesterday, everything hurt like hell and couldn’t walk far, and I was pretty depressed. I woke up in the middle of the night and realised that things felt better, then the doc came this morning and said I could go home if the physio was satisfied that I could manage OK., so here I am in the bosom of my family again ( well the dogs were pleased to see me anyway ). Now what can I do to keep myself occupied?

John

Learning to walk again.

I had my partial bionic knee fitted on Tuesday, and after a short hobble yesterday we got onto the serious stuff today.  They have to be sure that I can manage stairs before I can leave, so we went to the nearest stairwell ( about 25m ) and went down a short flight of eight steps and return. When we got back to the top I was absolutely knackered and light headed so they took pity on me and wheeled me back in a chair, how pathetic is that?

When everything is sorted I should be able to leap small buildings with a bit of a run-up.

John

It's been a busy but enjoyable Chrismas here, eight people to lunch on 25th ( with all the preparation which that entails ) but has been completely overshadowed by the present  from my dear wife. She gave me a piece of paper pulled from a cracker! I was a littles bemused, then I saw the words Spitfire and Duxford and realised that it was a voucher. Believe me I'm not often lost for words but that did it, and the huge lump in my throat would have made it difficult to speak anyway. I now have to practise my ' Spitfire Smile ' although I think it will probably come naturally on the day.

Please don't think that this is gloating but I just have to share the news.

I hope you've all had a great Christmas in Britmodeller land.

cheers

John

No more modelling for me now until after Christmas, we're having family to stay from Wednesday so we're in  'headless chicken' mode at the moment getting everything ready for them. I have a couple of pictures to post but will wait in the hope that Flickr will have sorted itself out by the time I return to the bench.

I'll still be looking in when I can and passing the odd comment.

 Cheers

John

The weather here is pretty atrocious today with strong winds and heavy rain so I turned on the TV as I sat down to eat my lunch and Bargain Hunt was on. It wasn't long before one of the teams got to a stand with some aircraft instruments and picked up a morse key, the type fitted to the starboard cockpit wall in the Spitfire, and decide to buy it for £30 ( it sold for £70 ), but what really caught my eye was a complete instrument panel in the background which I reckon came from a Meteor judging by the shape of the lower edge of the panel.The event was held at the Kent showground which I believe is on part of the old Detling airfield.

Good luck with the snow

John

Woke up to a Christmas card scene this morning after about 2cm of snow overnight and more forecast for today.

Our youngest dog loves it and wants to stay out all the time (-02C at the moment ) the other two just stay in their beds and give her the ' oh really! ' look.

Hope you're all keeping warm

John

Having a day to myself today as SWMBO is out with a friend. Having finished all my chores I sat in the kitchen and did some modelling ( no painting ) and listened to a particularly entertaining edition of  Broadcasting House featuring Marty Wilde and Roger Mcgough. Looking forward to listening uninterrupted  to Any Questions this afternoon and shouting at the radio. The  downside is that I will have to make my own lunch, having bacon and eggs, what could go wrong?

John

There is a line of huge storms passing about 10-15km west of us. I've just been outside listening to the thunder and it's continuous, I imagine it must be like listening to bombing or an artillery barrage. The power of nature is awesome.

Phew, what a scorcher!

I hear that it's a bit warm over there in Blighty, I hope you're all drinking lots of water and not spending too long in the sun.

This morning at 0600 the temperature here was 20C and at 1300 it was 38C in the sun, so we're hiding indoors this afternoon with all the shutters closed.

Yesterday a Canicule ( heat wave ) was declared which is due to last for a week.

Brings back memories of 1976.

John

I'm not usually a betting man, but when I saw a horse in the Derby named " Wings of Eagles " I couldn't resist so I put a couple of quid on it and it won!

£85 thank you very much.

Spending a few days at Isle-de-Re as an early birthday treat for SWMBO. Stopped at La Rochelle on the way where there used to be a rather good model shop, only to find that it is now just a toy shop. Rats!

Planning to resume my abandoned Battle of Britain GB Spitfire when we return, I knew I wouldn't be able to stay away from them for too long.

John