Airfix in the Dales

 Whilst holidaying on the Yorkshire Dales this weekend I invested in this boxed Airfix German Half Track from 1975. 

Is it a kit you know?

There's lots there with parts still on bags.

The main body has been built. 

The box contained lots of hard plastic soldiers including Rommel.

There were instructions and transfers too.

A nice find as was seeing the neat open rear Dales bus in lovely Reeth.

What a great looking vehicle. Have you open top buses where you are?

Humber Land

 The big river running to our coast is the Humber.

One of Britain's biggest, its a vast dark vein of water, bristling with turbines, draining Yorkshire into the cold forbidding North Sea, which separates old Blighty from the European Continent.

I love the Humber and enjoy time spent on it.

Here are a few snaps.

Looking across to Lincolnshire

A passer-by

The mysterious spit of land called Spurn Point, here, it's rounded end.

Spurn's lifeboat jetty and lighthouse

In our wake.

Have you a favourite river readers? 

Star Wars Memorabilia to go on show in Beverley

Star Wars toys in Yorkshire! 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0l2pp6l67jo 

Time for a Cuppa Day! Yorkshire Tea Model Cars

Hi Woodsy

At an Auckland fair I spotted this Lledo model – a Yorkshire Tea van in a special box. Knowing how Woodsy loves his Yorkshire Tea, I just had to buy it.

The model is a standard 1950 Bedford 30 cwt Van, with Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea on the sides, and Family Tea Merchants Est. 1886 on the doors.

It is cream with black mudguards. The cab interior is black plastic, and clear windows are fitted.

The box is especially nice, and the front flap opens up like a book. This was a style Lledo used for a number of their models.

The box is illustrated with scenes of Yorkshire, and the back of the box even identifies the artist – Mick Ashpool. The bottom of the box carries a copyright date of 2000, and says Made in China.

Given that two vehicles are shown on the box top, I wondered if this was part of a set ? A little digging indeed turned up a companion piece, the 1953 Morris Z Van in Police markings.

This is dark blue, with Police markings on the sides, and North Riding Police Force on the doors in white. The wheel hubs are black plastic.

This has a slightly different box, with a link to the Heartbeat TV series, which was set in Yorkshire in the 1960s. The artwork being the same for both models.

It seems there was also an orange Morris Minor Van and an orange and white Volkswagen Camper Van in similar packaging. Some of these models having different copyright dates on the boxes.

In addition, Lledo produced other Yorkshire Tea models in regular Days Gone packaging. Plenty for the Yorkshire Tea fan to look out for.

Six photos, those of the Yorkshire Tea van are of my model, the Police Van models are from Worthpoint.

Anyone got any tea memorabilia?

Paul Adams from New Zealand

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Time for a Cuppa Day

promoting dementia awareness

Selby Saunter

 A stroll around Selby in North Yorkshire is always fun, specially a rummage in the CC charity Shops and a sausage sarnie in the Cafe.

Here's some of the stuff seen today.

Anything you like?

A bag of old die-cast for a tenner.

Inside were two Redlines. The bag came home.

A neat Matchbox lunch box. The yellow top is a flask. This came home too.

I wondered if these were the same as Lady Penelope's tea pots?

No idea what this small dolls suit is.

Ceramic Danish trolls!

Star Wars hand-held ship wigglers. There are two. Alas, no ships. The two came home.

Old plane guides.

Another bag of cars. This had a hole in the back. I reckon someone's been in!

I think this is a pipe stand. Or specs. Definitely not slippers. Did your Dad smoke a pipe?

Flying V ukuleles a la Wishbone Ash, who I'm going to see live again in September.

Greetings from Reeth

It's nearly New Year in Reeth.

In Swaledale

In the Yorkshire Dale's

Where you can walk on water

In God's Own County! 

Happy New Year's Eve readers! 

Tractor Been

I used to own one of these beautiful tinplate tractors and trailers. 

Gorgeously made and with working gears, it really was a clockwork wonder.

This week I saw this set with a box online. The box is new to me, my toy was loose. I'm unsure if it's country of origin. You?

I bought mine in a lovely vintage toy shop in the 1990's in the back streets of Scarborough in the Yorkshire coast. I had my Father in Law with me at the time.

Alas, like most things, I sold it years ago to pay for more ..... Vintage toys! 

Skipton Bits

 A few things caught my eye on a recent mooch in the Charity shops of Skipton

This unusual picture could well have been a depiction of my fave song by Canadian rockers Rush, By Tor and The Snow Dog. It's an epic guitar battle between good and evil and even introduced me a new word as a young teenager, Tobes as in the Tobes of Hades. I still don't know what a tobe is! Ha ha.

Have you heard the song?

This implement took me back to my Mum's kitchen in the Sixties.  I showed it my older sister and she said it was a palette knife. So readers, myself being a useless cook, what do you do with it?

Another blast from my parents home, we had a group of these Masai paintings on the walls.  Very stylised and of their time, I'm not sure they'll fly now.

In Oxfam books I clocked the original novel, which I inspired a brilliant film I love, The Riddle of the Sands.

Starring the late Matthew McCorkindale and Michael York, it's the story of duck hunting in the Friesian Isles at the turn of the Century. Sounds boring but it isn't. Those ducks are packin'!

These caught my eye.

I've seen something odd-looking before like the Vaderesque troops on the Cataclysm cover, this little pot astronaut and helmeted spaceman in Kitaharia's fantastic Yesterday's Toys.

I was thinking of another duck-faced ceramic astronaut too, but which book is it in? To follow.

Another amazing Vargo Staten cover, that spaceship could almost be the Project SWORD Task Force 2!

Anything here you like readers?

Settle This!

 Taking a retirees country break, the Missus and me are enjoying time in the gorgeous Yorkshire Dales town of Settle to recharge our batteries.

On the way here I was lucky to bag three annuals at Thorpe Arch car boot: the neat Baby Boomer dolls, Topper Book 1970 for my Grandson and Toby Twirl Adventures - more on that later.

Settle is famous for it's massive Ribblehead railway viaduct, an engineering moorland marvel.

It's also a great place for hill rambles, which is what we did today and here are a few Autumnal snaps of the Victoria Cave circular walk.

The sheer length of the countless dry stone walls was staggering and they must in sum be, like the Pyramids or similar, one of the greatest building projects ever!

We had to look twice but the black shape is actually a cave!

Seeing the scree slopes below the crags reminded me of past daft antics: scree running as a young teenager, in the Lakes, running down the rock slides and feeling them shift as you ran. Crazy! Do you have scree?

This cast iron plate recalled the monolith in 2001! I very nearly started bashing it with a sheep bone! Have you got any strange features locally?

This hilltop reminded me of a frog's head!

After all that fresh air, drizzle, sheep and rocks, it's a well-earned fish supper tonight with a cup of Yorkshire tea.

Tomorrow, Settle's charity shops!