Evening everyone - second blog of the year!

Not a great deal has happened, but we need to keep the blog going... The Cardi-Bach Society met last Tuesday at Y Bont. Not A bad turnout for the time of year. Nine of us, and we had an entertaining evening of screened presentations, one on Login Station, and one on the bridges that crossed or were crossed by the Cardi Bach. Also our Webmaster gave us an up date on the progress of the new website.

The Society meets again next month on Tuesday February the 8th, again at Y Bont in Llanglydwen, when Colin is going to show his Fairground attractions, which have been a predominate feature here on the Chufferduffers, and Patrick will give an illustrated talk on the history of Cilgerran Station. And anything else that takes our fancy...

 

On to Chuffering. Colins Steam Yacht attraction is finally completed, and he brought it along to Pentrecagal when we met last night to show it to us.

Pictures speak louder than words:

 

 

 

The ubiquitous Bic is there to give some idea of the scale...

Patricks hand gives an even better view of the size we are dealing with.

There are even apprehensive punters sitting in the boats:

Come along to Y Bont on the 8th of February and see it in reality! (it doesn't work, but his next one might!)

Patrick is still in 3 millimeter mode (quiet shudder from Colin and myself - we thought that was behind us) and he found two very old white metal kits of 1940's vehicles. A post office van, and what is possibly a Ford saloon.

They required quite a bit of fettling, but the castings were really very good, considering the size.

Once again the Bic comes to the rescue. The windows were actually filled in with white metal, and Pat had to carefully cut and file to produce the apertures.

Lots more detail yet to be added, but the parts are very small and fiddly!

I'm embarrassed to say that the other two have put me in the shade - I have nothing at all to contribute to the modeling front for this post, although as I was hosting the Chufferduffers this week, I managed an authentic beef stroganoff...

 

 

Emyr, our Society Chairman, commented on the pictures that I put up concerning days gone by from my career in the oil industry, and wondered if I could show some more of what life was like in far flung countries.

It wasn't always hot and sunny... In 1973 I was part of a commissioning team bringing an oil refinery on-stream in Newfoundland.

This is the refinery:

The temperature was -15 centigrade when that picture was taken, on an old Kodak instamatic, and this was the trailer camp that we lived in...

Bit chilly!

We finish this post with a short video of Patricks 'Lord of the Isles' doing the rounds of the circuit that Pat and Mary had as part of their Christmas decorations (festive stuff all removed when this was taken)

Thanks for dropping in,

Shaun.