Barleylands

In message , Nick H writes

'fraid not - a good show, but far too expensive at the gate for me. My brother Geoff and I used to go every year, but with the price it is today, plus the cost of the 120-mile round trip, we decided to cross it off our list. We may go to Haddenham if the weather's decent.

Andrew,

The weather WILL be decent as I am displaying there and after last years swamp it couldn't get any worse.

Watcha showing Martin?

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

My Lister A and a 2 1/2 in Tangye pump, the pump belongs to Dan Howden and I had both at Dorset last week so its still all in the van as it seems pointless to take it out and then put something else back. By the way this is my second week of hols hence still in van :-))

I guess a tenner is on the high side, OTOH we found it quite easy to spend a full day there and felt there was still more to see (hardly spent any time at the tractor pulling for instance).

NHH

It is getting expensive to go to almost any show these days, and as Andrew says, travelling expenses start to make it a major spend item by the time you have added food & drinks and those goodies that you always seem to find.

After a week up in Inverness and drive back on Friday (509miles) we decided that Saturday was going to be a rest day, and we had already bought advance tickets for the Land Rover show at Peterborough on the Sunday.

Pity we missed Haddenham as well, but with all three over the same weekend it is difficult to cover them all.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Rushden, UK snipped-for-privacy@prepair.co.uk

Had a pleasant day at Barleylands on Saturday, and then Haddenham on Sunday. We discussed entry prices on the way home on Sunday and decided that a tenner or less for a full days entertainment, meeting several friends, and the oppurtunity to search for and buy useful bits was a reasonable deal. In fact my mate picked up enough bits and bobs to make his 400 mile round trip from Hull to Barleylands worthwhile. Compare that to the cost of 90 mins entertainment at F1 or a Premiership Football match..?

Regards

Dan

Forgot to mention the rare sighting of Dan in SE England - one to get the twitchers out ;-) Glad you enjoyed the rally. There are no real jumble stalls in the market area but quite a bit along the engine lines. I bought a nice Bahco adjustable spanner and a handful of taps among which was an 8BA I thought I needed, but when I got home I found I actually want 1/8" Whit!

NHH

Small world Peter. I was in Scotland 5th - 8th, flying into and out of Inverness. We put on a "Viking Experience" at a castle for a number of wealthy Americans on a four day jolly!

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

We made our way to Leakeys secondhand bookshop in Church Street, had a look round but the prices seemed high for secondhand stuff, cheaper to go to Glasgow or Edinborough.

Rita bought a couple of books for £18, but I decided that there was nothing that I wanted to pay over the odds for.

One book that I did buy, although on Fleabay was 'Blind Man's Bluff', by Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew. £3.50 or so on ebay for a hardbacked copy, £12 or more everywhere else.

This is part fiction and part truth, but if you also buy 'The Silent War' by John Pina Craven, which is a good book in itself, based on fact and well worth the read, you get a good view of the submarine espionage that went on during the cold war.

To bring this a bit more 'on topic', 'SOE: The Scientific Secrets', is a good technical read, with mention of the little portable steam generators that have been mentioned here before, plus lots of little gadgets that they dreamed up for the operations in Europe.

Snippet from the book: The sateam genny charged at 4A with 40lb steam pressure, so to charge the batteries which were 40AH took a long time and a lot of fuelling.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Rushden, UK snipped-for-privacy@prepair.co.uk