We’ve finally got ourselves some good weather today – so good in fact that my poor Daddy who is VERY fair skinned has a decidedly pink head tonight!
Because the weather has broken and we don’t know how long it’ll last, we’ve traipsed the folks around the place today, firstly on a long-ish walk from home to the top of Sharp Tor and back, then to the steam rally in Launceston.
I have to confess to a love of traction engines, that is rather well-cultivated for a girl – but then you know well that I’m a real ‘power tool lover’ so perhaps it’s not that big a leap really from a Black and Decker to a traction engine. It’s partly the memory of days gone by when we would be taken to traction engine shows with Mum and Dad, so the excitement of the steam, whistles and oil reminds me of my youth. Partly though, it’s the wonderful machinery, that’s so well made it’s still living after a century of use….well, some of them anyway. One of the ones at this rally had been carefully restored from a wreck by its current owners, who have taken eight years to restore it to its former glory and now are well and truly on the ‘home straight’, having only a canopy and some cladding left to do.
The traction engines will find their way into a little gallery later but for now, this wonderful old trike caught my eye and I love the sign so much, it’s made the grade despite being a petrol driven vehicle, rather than a steam driven one.
Don’t you think it’s an interesting combination of skills this chap has – I can see why rat catching and mole clearance get in the same repertoire but for goodness sake – would you want your boils lanced and sucked by someone whose ‘day job’ was catching rats? I’m not sure I would….though thankfully it’s a hypothetical question for me as I’ve never been inflicted with boils!
So, if you have a boil needing lancing, do feel free to try to find Peter Greengrow, though I suspect he may have moved on to lancing the boils of angels by now….actually that’s a point – do angels get boils?
Last year, I was glad to be home after an epic journey.
