[FLYING BANANA]

.................................unsupervised.

11 years ago whilst my wife was in hospital I decided to redecorate our flat, well someone else done
the work I just paid the bills. I bought all new furniture and so on. I also bought a matching pair of lamps, one floor standing and the other being a table lamp. Never any problems with the table lamp other than changing the bulbs. But the floor standing lamp used to wobble, it never seemed to stand right. Permanently leaned.

When I first moved down here so the lamps came as well. In the rented house there was thick carpet and the floor standing lap still leaned but at least it didn’t wobble. Again when I moved here to my new home it came along. Now downstairs I have laminate flooring but upstairs thick carpet. So the lamp has mainly stayed upstairs and used there.

But today I decided to bring it down and use it in the lounge. Gave it a clean and it went back to wobbling and leaning. Then the light bulb in the brain switched on. Got the sockets out, laid the lamp across the sofa and I preceded to unscrew the base. It’s either made of lead or concrete but it is heavy. Once unscrewed I then set about getting the chrome cover off. Except it wouldn’t come off. No idea how it is held on. But I put the base on the floor to see why it wobbled, but it didn’t. Mmmm!!!!!

So I threaded it back onto the stem, and tightened it up with the socket. Stood it up, and now it doesn’t wobble or lean. So after all this time all it needed was to be tightened up. Another lay down in a darkened room was called for.

Our neighbour who suffered the heart attack has since passed away. Turns out he was nearly 90 so a good innings I suppose. I only met him the once when we had our social distancing VE Day celebration. He lived with his son. Not sure if the son will stay on in the house. It is has 5 bedrooms, 2 were added when the extension was built.

It has never bothered me about the lockdown until now. Starting to get a bit fed up with it all. But I have started building model cars again, takes my mind off of things. On eBay there was a “Wills Finecast” 1928 Bentley 4/12 litre for sale in kit form. Starting price was £25, so I put a bid in. Then another came to light and I bid on that as well. Some of these kits sell for over £90, so I knew the bids would rise. I was prepared to go to £90. So you can imagine my surprise when I got one for £48. Well pleased, but totally forgot about the second one I had bid on. And I won that as well for £31.

So that’s a pair of white metal kits to build once I have finished building a resin and white metal Ford Escort van. Poor fittings has lead me to make some alterations to get the floor pan to fit the body. And am also converting a standard “Vanguards” MG ZT into a wide arch model. I look for the damaged models, they are always cheap. This ZT cost me £10, missing its mirrors and no box.

Which leads me to another pair of bargains bought off of the bay. Both 1/18th scale but two different manufacturers. TSM and Autocult. Bentley Exp 8 Le Mans cars. The TSM one had it’s original packing plus box but had a snapped off rear wing and both mirrors missing. The Autocult one had no box, nor any chassis. But it had a complete rear wing plus mirrors. I paid a combined price of £80 for the two. If you look on eBay the TSM ones can sell for up to £250. So I now have one complete plus spare body, wheels and a few other bits.

I had a clear out of model spares, bits I have had years and never used. There was over 100 odd wheels and tyres, suspension parts, interiors plus other odd bits that I would never use. So I packed them all up and contacted Mininuts aka Paul Townson on here. He builds model Mini’s, does conversions and rescues to odd damaged one’s. And so the package went off to Paul.
Another rescue of mine is a 1/24th Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II convertible, paid a fiver for it. No Flying Lady and three snapped off wheels. All fixed other than the Flying Lady.

Thanks for reading. Hope to catch up at some point with some of you in the New Year.

Keep safe.