wow galloping horses sounds exciting - did it give you a love for them and riding and do you still ride?
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Thanks both. I found both stories interesting.
Pixie, R Mar made a few fake Faberge eggs as well. When my Dad retired, Mum learned to drive, learned to swim, learned to paint and do all sorts of craft, and went back to Oz three times where she was born. She even found the farm where she used to live and the farmhouse her Dad had built from mud and cement blocks.
I only ever had one employer from age 18 to 62, most unusual these days, but I loved it. There was much Tomfoolery, all of our own making. I was not given the nickname Fruitcake lightly. I also had other nicknames from members of other departments such as Wrecker and Firebug, but thatâs another story.
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I decided to leave the âpotbankâ by the canal for all sorts of reasons - no suitable girlfriend? 20kms there and back everyday in thick snow sometimes and I suppose selling sanitary wares to the world just didnât appeal ??The next job could not have been more different caring or guarding the insane ones in a lonely hospital in the countryside in Hants? all in with food ; lodging ; tennis courts ; girlfriends [did I mention them] cricket field ; soccer/rugby field and in town more pubs than in the whole of any other town in Hants - a teenagers dream!!
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I do love horses, gumbud, but its been quite a few years since I rode one so Iâm not sure if I could still manage to stay in the saddle at this point!
Haha! Are these stories fit for public reading, Fruitcake? They sound a bit wild 
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I used to test jet engines or parts thereof. Sometimes the tests didnât go as planned. I used to do a lot of the more arduous tests than most of my colleagues, so there were more failures under my watch than most of my colleagues experienced. It was just statistics. The more tests I was involved with, the more failures (and successes) that occurred.
Bits of engine whizzing round the test chamber that should have been whizzing round the inside the engine for example, and a number of fires.
One failure was so spectacular that the whole test house was gutted by fire. We had to leg it across a flat roof and down the outside escape ladder as the fire passed underneath us. The laundromat did a good trade on washing underwear that day.
That all pales into insignificance compared with the aerodrome fire brigade. It was before my time, but the company had a Vulcan Bomber with a fifth engine bolted underneath it that was undergoing development.
During a ground run, the fifth engine failed, the turbine tore its way out and sawed through the wings containing the fuel tanks. A river of burning fuel ran down the gentle slope straight towards the aerodrome fire brigadeâs brand new three day old fire engine, and gutted it.
The local (civilian) fire brigade had to come and assist.
Aircraft and fire engine were destroyed. Thankfully there were no serious injuries.
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Good grief!
I was going to make some lighthearted quip about boys and their toys when I first started reading this, but I am actually quite shocked at the drama of it all. That photoâŠ
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good you managed to marry a gentle cousin to quieten you down or sooth your trouble brow and apply the soothing balms??
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Gentle? She was a dental nurse and poked things in peopleâs mouths, (gently of course). It wouldnât be allowed nowadays for fear of a lawsuit, but the dentist once allowed her to bung in one of my fillings (gently) when it needed replacing.
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how very romantic! - where you are speaking terms at that point ; perhaps she had a yearning for your mouth?
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Oh yes, that was a real âbrown trouser jobâ. I canât claim credit for it though.
Much of the work was mundane, office based, or installing/removing equipment. Some of the tests were repetitive and lasted hundreds and hundreds of hours doing the same thing every day for months on end.
Some jobs took weeks to set up but only lasted a few minutes, and we only got one chance to do it.
A senior manager once referred to one of these as a simple job. He was ripped to shreds at the next meeting.
We made our own fun, much of which was taking the P out of each other.
I did a couple of jobs on pilotless drones. Remember that word. It had a certain unique ⊠physical feature. When asked what it was for I said, âThatâs where the pilot sitsâ. The person who asked the question wandered off quite happy with that answer.
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That made me laugh! 
Some people, honestly! 
Are you a fan of drones, Fruitcake? Do you have one of your own? Also addressed to @gumbud tooâŠI imagine living in the outback would be a perfect arena for flying one. 
note - when did Airplane, and Areoplane become the same thingâŠis this American spelling at work?
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I donât have a drone. The ones I worked on where large military jobbies for carrying weapons. One of my colleagues was lucky enough to follow the job to the Woomera Test Range in Australia.
If you are interested in some of the jobs I used to do, have a look for videos of jet engine blade-off tests. They are the most spectacular tests I ever got involved in. You will understand then what I meant about weeks of preparation for a test lasting only a few minutes.
Itâs always aeroplane in my world, not the American spelling. In addition, I always put an apostrophe in certain abbreviations even though the words have long been accepted as words in their own right, hence I write 'plane and 'phone because either is correct. I am also a fan of the Oxford comma.
Many moons ago an American wanted to improve literacy amongst the poor, so began to âsimplifyâ the English language, and published books and dictionaries with the new spellings to make them easier to understand by people less well off who couldnât afford a decent education. It was an admirable idea, and in all honesty I cannot say it was wrong in those particular circumstances.
For example, tire instead of tyre and color instead of colour to name but a few.
Whilst working in the States on an Anglo-American project, this did actually cause problems, and nearly caused an engine failure. Our American colleagues sometimes struggled with the English spelling, and even meanings of certain words. They asked if the technical documents could be re-written in American, but were politely reminded that the project language was English.
Despite being partners, both companies and governments had proprietary technology that neither wanted the other lot to know. My colleagues and I had a discussion about equipment passwords and decided we would use things like colour, tyre, and gauge.
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We were courting by then. I have always been the quiet on out of the two of us, so it wasnât like she wanted to shut me up.
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living in an asillieum was quite relaxing really and healthy apart from a few exciting moments and dangerous too! we had hard court and soft court tennis courts ; we even built a 9 hole golf course were once the ancient hampshire sheep once roamed!
we had a social club with obligatory dartboard and bar with occasional bands either local or homespun from the hospital ; a break off from the main hospital band which performed free of charge every week for the patients delight and for some the only time they were able to meet as male and female on the floor!
many romances sprung up between the staff and a few with the inmates. but almost all never survived they were not ships that past in the night but madness that passed in the night! then one year the great leap forward arrived - a rare and dangerous experiment - the all female nursing home was going to be made mixed - this was a rare and daring moment and the first recruitment of males [the females were already there remember] were carefully selected and handpicked by the CMN himself begorra and I was one of them but more of that next time just to whet the whistle and many a whistle was wetted begorra!
@PixieKnuckles - flying in a drone in aussie ? - never tried to get in one ? - I think I am a bit over-sized for them arenât I? mind you great way to fly around if possible lower altitudes??
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Oh I didnât mean a big one, I meant a little one, like the size of a model aeroplane that kids used to play with. You use the controls to make it fly around, and in some models, you can use your phone with it to record what you see from up high.
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Good evening, there is still stuff to be done.
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well hello sailor!!
I donât cut short, there is still a few days to go to mid July.
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@spitfire well I donât mind tellin ya lad there has been serious concerns! pixie knuckles has been right poorly over your disappearance and she has evens stopped makin her cable holder tables because of it! we all thought youâd gone in search of Jem? erhmm ? cough cough? how is the erhm sur on?
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