Our Phili-Pam

Happy Birthday to you Philip. From Les and Gill in Oz.

Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday dear Philip Happy Birthday to you. Sorry I'm a bit late hope you had a great day

You might as well take the chain off and freewheel the rest of the way Philip.

Hi and thank you all so much. I don't feel as old as I did twelve years ago, so something must be going right. I enjoy a sense of freedom where I, along with my Pam, can choose to please which is a position that is envied by many. I enjoy reliving my childhood memories of trainspotting, but nowadays do it in a more relaxed fashion in comfort. This is a pic of me when travelling with friends, where we were based in Bath. All doing the same thing. After a hearty breakfast at the Lansdown, waiting for the bus.

Hi again Our lovely council have decided to give me a new street light. "There we were, digging this hole, a hole in the ground, but right said Fred, we were getting nowhere & so time for a cuppa tea."

Hi Philip. Welcome to the 'Seniors' club. It's a great club, time's your own, you can do what you like, when you like and generally just enjoy life. xx

You certainly do not look worn out here Philip, a very youthful looking 65 if you ask me.

Hi all Without flannel, finding this site two years ago, has been a high point in recent years. Thank you all for your well wishes.

Can I be the first to congratulate our Philip on reaching the giddy heights of 999 posts on this Forum Well done, old pal, sit yerself down and have a sausage barm! Looking forward to no.1000 - and many many more Cheers Philip

Hi Philip, Congratulations. Your posts are always a joy to read. Also, the photos of your of trains, your interesting walks and your Pam are lovely to look at. PS. MR, we don't have barms in Coventry, we have the good old Coventry BATCH.

If that is the prize, then i will have to step up the anti. Cheers Philip

Well done Philip, I enjoy your posts also esp the railway related ones, keep up the good work

Well done, Philip, I have a long way to go to catch YOU up. Keep up all the good work and here's to another 1000. Let's have some more railway stuff.

Hi all It isn't so much the worry of the forum collapsing under my weight, it was more to do with whether I turned into a blob of jelly. Or, whether I should keep my eyes closed or covered, as demonstrated by Norman Clegg. That was always his big concern at frightening events. Best wishes to you all.

Hi all Just a soggy 'Phily blurp' Today is another wet and soggy Monday. I have just returned from Antics model shop in Trinity Street with a few more odds and ends for the model extension. I have never liked doing indoor stuff in the summer months as I like to be out and about, but I have run out of indoor jobs with the weather being so bad for weeks and weeks. Our gardens here resemble scrub and moorland. The stats for Coventry weather are that only one in three days have any rain, but for nine weeks it has been that only one in eight days that have remained dry. I am not easily drawn into arguments as to whether this has been the wettest summer period on record. In the late fifties, an aunt had been staying with us in Wyken, and her stay was lengthened by two days because she could not return home to her farm in Cornwall. Anyone travelling by road to the West Country, prior to the M5 era, might remember a 'bailey bridge' that army engineers had built on the Somerset-Devon border. The bailey bridge was in place for over a decade and was always a reminder to me of that very wet summer. My aunt's farm grain harvest was a total loss that year, along with high costs for combine and machinery recoveries, as it was for many farmers. The railways generally coped better than nowadays. The long gone mechanical systems of rod pointwork and signals, along with steam locomotives, could cope with a couple of feet of flood water, compared to just a couple of inches now. Once water gets into the electrics, they are finished.