There’s a rug on the roof

Or to put it correctly, we’ve now got a mat for our cabin top.

Let me start with an apology for the previous post was written yesterday and should have been posted yesterday, but we went out with my daughter and son-in-law and my two grand daughters last night and I forgot to post it before I went. So I haven’t gone mad doing two blogs in one day, just catching up so to speak.

It does not matter how careful you are when using a cabin shaft properly, for closing bottom mitre gates when going downhill, knocks, bumps and scratches are inevitable on the cabin top as the shaft is put back. Back in the early 1970’s when Charlie Atkins Jnr was working the tug Bittle for BWB and living at the top of the Old Thirteen in Brum, he made two ‘mats’ to place on the cabin top for the cabin shaft hook to sit on. Clive and Pat Stevens who used to run Battersea and Barnes still have theirs, unfortunately I let mine go with Bingley when I sold her. I have never had another as I did not know how to make them, but I do now. I was browsing the net and came across a site for dolls houses and there, as a door mat was an identical mat to the one Charlie had made me. It was called an ‘ocean plait’ and the article went on to explain how to make a miniature one for a dolls house out of white cotton string, but it went on to say that by using larger diameter rope a full sized one could be made. After spending most of Sunday in the garden moving soil and weeding, I came in at tea time and proceeded to make a mat for Minnow using about 20 foot of 6mm white polypropylene ( yes I know it should be cotton line and scrubbed but this will do for a starter)

The rest of the evening was spent painting a swag of roses and daises on the flywheel guard which has already been painted the same colour as the engine, (Mid Brunswick Green)

Can’t wait until the week end so that I can fit the guard to the engine. There’s just the day tank that I want to decorate with a few roses and then that’s it, no more embellishments. I promise, that it so long as nobody Bangs ‘em about

Blossom.