Thanks to TOCO

The other cold one arrived Friday week ago (my how time flies) and was so enthusiastic to get on with some projects that we were out in the garage doing a couple of Jobs on the Suzuki that same evening....

As ever there were 100 jobs to chose from and if we were going to get anything acheived we had to narrow it done to a couple of projects. The 2 we chose were to continue work on the David Brown and to get underway with building new doors for the middle barn (One openings never had doors and the others, flimsy as they were had been blown to bits by the wind).

Saturday morning and half the afternoon dissapeared, as it has a tendancy to do, without any real construction being completed. We did however manage to get to the shops on time to buy the neccesary materials. The Landy proving it's worth as ever as it was loaded up with over 150Ms of planks.



For periods of the weekend we had another couple of pairs of helping hands. I am also grateful for the help from the neighbours sons, especially handy with heavy jobs like trial fitting and painting...





TOCO was very keen and by the end of Sunday we had 4 doors painted on one side. On monday we took another trip in the Landy to fetch replacment door posts, the old ones were rotten, and TOCO got on with drilling holes for hinges whilst I started grindnig the valves in on the David Browns' head.



One week on, and I am ashamed to say the doors are not yet hanging. There has been progress though, the new door posts are completly drilled, chisseled and painted, just got to screw them in place now. The inward folding doors are painted on both sides just needing one more coat and they're ready to go up.

It's not the first time I've been in debt to a member of the family for fixing/building barn/garage doors. The blogs forth post back in july 2005 reported our father repairing the middle garage door, which I am pleased to report is still just as solid over 2 years on. I'm also confident for the longevity of TOCO's doors.

A Load off the mind...

After being told that I wasn't even to consider acquiring a plough and a harrow (part of my mechanised farming plans which may well be blogged seperately) before I'd thrown out some of the junk that's been in the top of the barn since we moved in over 2 years ago and other assorted rubbish, I made the effort Saturday before last to do a tip run.

As you can see, the ever useful Landrover was suitably full and I even brought myself to throw out some things which one could quite possibly have considered useful.

I can almost certainly fill another similar load and as we need to move everything out the basment to do the insulating work down there soon I probably will do so...

They're Out...

And not before time....

What a battle it's been, but the posibility of Haugtuft becoming a "2 tractor farm" has taken a huge step forward. After literally years of trying, I've finally unstuck and removed the pistons from the David Brown.





If I can get the bits in time, Myself and "the other cold one" will be building engines this coming weekend....

Sert Day 9

What a Museum.

Ingelheim-am-Rhein - Sinsheim - Breitungen

Distance: 256 Miles.

Back in the car and straight on to the Autobahn, heading south and east towards "Sinsheim Auto-Tecknik Museum" . After many days overdosing on historical buildings, vinyards and so on, I needed something more techinical, and as the Nurburgrings opening times didn't fit at all this seemed like the perfect thing!

What can I say, an incredible collection, 5 or more aricraft on the roof, all of which you could go in and including, as you can see over, not only Concord but also the Russian attempt, the Tupolov TU-144, "Concordski" which first flew on the 31st of December 1968, two months before Concord. It was the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2, and the fastest commercial airliner ever (Source of information Wikipedia, so it should be correct!!!!).

In addition to the aircraft there is a huge collection of war machines, cars, bikes, farming equipment and rather bizarly cinema and theatre organs. Sorry about the poor photo quality below, I had the camera on the wrong setting and most of the things I wanted to show you didn't come out. There was a very smart Triumph TR6, btw.

Anyway, well worth a visit. If I get the chance I want to go back. Maybe next time we visit the vets in Ingelheim, I can sneak off for the day..... We had a good 4-5 hours at the museum, but between the energy sapping heat and the enormity of the museum there was plenty we didn't get to see.

Just 40Km from Sinsheim is the sister musuem "Speyer Tecknik Museum", where they have no less than a Jumbo Jet on the roof. That's also now high on my list of places to visit....

Leaving Sinsheim marked the turning point, now we were more or less on our way home, heading Northwards through Germany, ultimately towards the ferry in Kiel, although we still had a short diversion a 100 or so miles into Denmark planned to visit "the wedding helpers" (Mrs VL's Bridemaid, Husband and their recent addition, a 1 month old boy).

The car performed faultlessly in the blistering heat on the way up through what used to be the East German countryside. We desided to stop early evening, and after a little to-ing and fro-ing found a pleasent and cheap hotel in Breitungen.

After a large portion of traditional fair and a couple of local beers we took a walk around the village before retiring, with a long drive ahead of us the next day.