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Indebted to our daughter for introducing her parents to Facebook and Twitter - and so much else of course.   My daily routine involves checking through the latest personalised news first thing.

To give a glimpse here are some pictures from today:

This is Settle practice nurse Lesley Wilson - quite the most skilled blood-taker in town - with her son Tim.  Tim look at all familiar to long-time followers of this Blog?  Soldier Tim was the hard working apprentice builder during the main works on the tower.  I shall find a picture of Tim at that time and re-post it here. What a change since then.   Not sure who is prouder of whom in the picture.

And here is Tim in that previous life:

Then there was this super picture of Flower Pot Man POTUS driving our little tractor as part of Settle's annual Flowerpot Festival.  I know it is recent because of the Klaxon horn just fitted.

And here's one of today's steam train - British India Line hauling The Dalesman.  Another steam train tomorrow too.

How lucky are we to have this sort of thing on our doorstep?

We are a Settle Treasure

A Settle tourist map has just been published which aims the visitor towards Settle's 'Treasures'.
And yes, the water tower is accorded a mention!

https://Settle Treasure map

Verily our cup runneth over.

Starlit Settle Station

This picture was taken by night sky specialist Pete Collins late on the evening of Tuesday 13th August 2019.  It is well worth clicking to enlarge it for the detail.   The bright star above Pen y Ghent is Capella - 43 million of light years away.  Carlisle is just 72 miles.  You can see the water tower on the right, just.

  

A Duff Jack from Pittsburgh

I am now the proud and grateful owner of a proper Model T jack.  Jacking up a rear wheel on a Model T is a frequent and tedious business.  Jacking up the back end when cold starting lessens transmission drag and makes success much more certain.  It is not easy though.   The back axle is high up by today's car jack standards.  I have used either a heavy and oil-leaky trolley jack, an extended screw jack or a Ford Transit van scissors type of jack but none has been ideal - or indeed absolutely safe as once the engine fires there is a tendency for the car to creep forwards via the rear wheel which remains on the ground, energised slightly by the drag in the thick and cold differential oil.

Should the jack topple over and both rear wheels are on the ground the driver-less car will shoot forwards of course.

A Pittsburgh firm with the nowadays problematic name of Duff made a range of 'automobile' jacks back in the day with the Model T firmly in mind.   They worked with a ratchet mechanism, levering the car up almost effortlessly with each stroke of a short wooden handle.  A small lever reversed the process for lowering.   Furthermore the top of the jack was curved to fit round axles.

The Duff Jack actually came to us via an occasional local resident Peter Yates - a teacher, indeed Principal of a school in Namibia.  Some commute that!  The jack had been in his family since forever and he was disposing of his late mother's effects.   He had wanted to see the jack put to good use and local enquiries led him our way, I having a bit of a reputation for appreciating old things. . . ..

These jacks are highly valued in the USA, where something from 1914 is truly ancient.   They fetch $$$ silly on E-bay.   Peter knew this for he had done his er, homework on it.  He had even tracked down a 1914 catalogue where the jack was listed:

Ours is the one in the middle.   They were made in the UK by a firm of Barretts under licence from Duff of Pittsburgh.  Duff's specialised in jacks for the railway industry and later, automobile jacks.

We jacked up the back of the car and it worked an absolute treat.  Gladys was in need of a road-test as it happened so Peter and his wife had a ride round Settle as part of a deal which was quickly done.

Cat's Pillow

Our cat Purrcy is a self willed creature.   He adapts to circumstances quite well though.  The ongoing building work provides plenty of opportunity for Purrcy to try new things and to explore new places.  Here he is fast asleep on the landing at the top of our annex - trying out a hammer to explore its possibilities as a pillow:

click to enlarge

Watching Butterflies Flutter By

The summer of 2019 is proving memorable, for reasons good and bad but one phenomenon that seems unquestionably good is the apparent dramatic increase in the number of butterflies.

Our garden appears to be planted just right for them.   This little lady (or is  it?) obliged me when it tired of dodging my advances and settled on a bush near the top of the knoll.  There it sat, wings folded defiantly until this:

First Phase of Steelwork Installed - Amidst Storms and Flooding

Hopley's have beavered away for the past day or two levelling up to the millimetre and fitting the last of the massive steel components of this phase, necessary to enable really accurate measurements to be taken so that final steels can be welded and galvanised (under way).

The extent and size of the new extension becomes clearer as the angle steels have now been secured to the tower and the existing annex.

Below is the L beam on the block-work wall of the existing annex.  The heavily insulated floor panels will rest on the horizontal flange and the top of the floor is level with the bottom of what was the external door mid way along:

Below, another L beam straddles the original tower entrance window:

The floor beams can be seen against the tower and existing annex in the shot below:

Floor panels and the remaining steels are next on the agenda.

The latest work has been done amidst torrential thunder storms which have caused localised but intense flooding in North Yorkshire.   Our Leeds-Settle-Carlisle railway line is closed because of a landslip between Blea Moor Tunnel and Arten Gill Viaduct at Shale Cutting - a known landslip risk location.   Work has gone on throughout last night, today and tonight in the hope of re-opening the line late tomorrow morning.

Below is a bridge at Grinton pictured by the Cave and Mountain Rescue team:

Pictures below are of the landslip at Shale Cutting, courtesy of Network Rail:

The picture above shows the up (London bound) line covered by the spoil, including large iron girders which had been securing the cutting side.   What has happened is that a culverted stream along the top of the banking has given way sending torrents of water down the slope to the railway lines, cutting a huge valley in just an hour or two - a process that usually takes centuries.

We could have used some of those girders!!