The slaughterhouse is fading

No, this is not a post about my becoming a vegetarian.  It concerns the slaughterhouse at my model of St Petrock station.  

With a keen eye to boosting profits on their North Cornwall lines, the London & South Western Railway opened slaughterhouses at Halwill Junction, Holsworthy and Bude. The photo above, of the one at Halwill Junction, was taken in 1960.

It seemed only right that St Petrock should also have a slaughterhouse, so I built this one in 2014. At this time the rest of the station was far from complete, so I placed a piece of temporary backscene behind it.

Here it is, nine years later. I'd printed the brick and roof tile papers on my old HP printer and the intervening years have not been kind to them. The 'bricks' have lost their red colour and the roof has faded noticeably. Thankfully, those printed with my present HP Envy 4524 have fared better. 

According to the instructions that came with the ScaleScenes download, I should have sprayed the printed paper with matt varnish, so to halt the deterioration in the other older buildings at St Petrock I bought this...

... which promptly turned the roof tiles white!  Fortunately, hand-brushing on a coat of Ronseal clear matt varnish restored them to their former faded state, but I predict that a new slaughterhouse will soon be making its appearance.

In the mean time, if any of my loyal readers can suggest which spray-on varnish I should have used, I'd be very grateful. I must take steps to preserve the many other buildings at St Petrock and Bourdon Mill. 

Bluebird has been poorly

Bluebird in 2016. Brand new... but with the
same old bird to drive it.

Bluebird, my faithful Hyundai I10 is a little over 5 years old and has travelled 74,000 miles. Apart from routine servicing, she's cost me nothing to maintain; a far cry from the cars of my youth, which seemed to break down every fortnight. And oh how they used to rust in the salt sea air of Cornwall!  

However, a few weeks ago, whilst driving home from Gloucester and going at speed up a short hill, Bluebird's clutch began to slip. I released the throttle, gingerly accelerated again and continued home without further incident.

The following day, anxious to see whether it had been a fluke occurrence (did I accidentally touch the clutch pedal?) I deliberately performed an inelegant hill start with the engine revving rather too much... and Bluebird performed faultlessly.  "So it must have been me," I told myself.

A week later we made one of our frequent visits to Cornwall. After a short stop near Okehampton, it was my turn to drive. A few miles west of Launceston there's a long hill. As Bluebird's speed dropped, I changed down to 4th gear, and then to 3rd... and it happened again. The rev counter needle rose rapidly and my speed dropped still more.  I depressed the clutch pedal, released it, accelerated gently, and away we went with no further problems, but as soon as we returned home we booked Bluebell into the garage and braced ourselves for a big repair bill.

It turned out that engine oil had been leaking into the clutch housing, causing the clutch to slip. "It was a really oily mess," I was told.  I was actually rather pleased to be told this, for (contrary to the garageman's prediction) the problem had not been down to 'madam being rather too heavy on the clutch.'  Having to pay £850 for this information was less pleasurable, but I can't really complain at this, Bluebird's first big garage bill. 

My younger son wants me to think about trading in Bluebird for something newer, but I'm less than keen, not least because I reckon there's still a lot of life left in her. And what would I replace her with?  That's a complicated conundrum which may be the subject of another post. 

  

On the third day of Christmas...

 ... I caught Covid, drawing to a close a year in which I have not enjoyed the best of health, despite confirming my overall fitness by walking three more sections of Offa's Dyke and climbing Snowdon.  

The year started with a Covid infection which grounded me for ten days.  In July I developed an annoying cough and a croaky voice that refused to respond to a cupboard-full of lotions and potions. The doctors (I never saw the same one twice) initially diagnosed a viral infection, then attacked it with antibiotics, before finally concluding that it was down to acid reflux. A course of Omeprazole finally did the trick and by late October I was singing sweetly once more.  

Then the year contrived to end as it had begun, with Covid - little more than a runny nose for three or four days, but sufficient to cancel a visit by my adopted aunt Sarah.  This was a great pity as it has become a family tradition over the past 20 years or so to share a fondu meal with Aunt Sarah on New Year's Eve.  So, as we had been forced to do at the height of the Covid pandemic, we rescheduled New Year.  This time it will be held on February 4th.

Consequently, on this particular New Year's Eve, just the two of us sat down for our traditional fondu meal, during which we had little option but to consume a whole bottle of champagne without Aunt Sarah's help.  Happy New Year to you all!