Tudedude - personal stuff

Tudedude

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on Flickr

Where do I Live

My wife and I live in Dorchester, Dorset, UK in a Victorian Terraced house, near to the water meadows of the River Frome (pronounced Frume).

We have lived in Dorchester for over 30 years, Its a nice Market Town, County Town of Dorset, there used to be Cattle and sheep Markets, but all gone now.

There is a large weekly Market on a Wednesday, every week.

We are about:

7 miles from Weymouth, a seaside resort, with Ferries to the Channel Islands.
17 miles to Bridport, a rural market town.
20 odd miles to Yeovil, A more Industrial Town, Westland Aerospace etc.
about 20 Miles to Poole , Working Harbour, Ferries to France, industry.

B&G Hobbies

The Model Shop

Employment Jobs etc

Presently unable to work, due to chronic migraines.

Some time as a Youth Worker in a specialist unit, dealing with those, young people, that others found trying, youngsters that were, disengaged, drug or alcohol abusers, self harmers, anger problems etc.
Member of the Prison Board of Visitors, now, Independent Monitoring Board.
Software developer, niche Agri Business and small business stuff.
Systems manager for a Technical Publications firm, dealing with Weapons Systems.

Model Shop Owner, model aircraft boats, engines, radio control, electronics.
Senior Engineer with a Mechanical/Electronic animations firm.
A long stint working for a Small Engineering firm that was leading the way in NC and CNC Lathes Mills and Drills.
Ranch hand at a Dude Ranch.
Systems analyst at a Numerical Control machine tool Company.

Systems Test Analyst, small to medium marine RADAR systems.
Maintenance Electrical Fitter for a Brewery.
Wine Waiter.
Apprentice Electro/mechanical engineer RNTF.
Surveyors lineman.

Hall Porter.
Tea boy for Irish Navies.
Labourer for Tree felling squad.
Trout Fishing Gillie.
General Labourer, painter, handyman.

The Woodlanders

Woodlanders

Folk and Country Duo, Andy Armstrong and myself played for some years as the Woodlanders.

We had a successful eight or nine years, and had a whole load of fun.

We used to play on Saturday nights, in Blackbeards Vaults, at the Moonfleet Manor Hotel near Chesil Beach, as well as many other local pubs, clubs and Hotels.

A couple of years, we played the main act, in the Main Beer Tent at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, an experience that had to be seen to be believed. I have never seen a traction engine being driven around, "inside a beer tent", before or since.

I played 12 string guitar, and Andy played 6 string, he had the better voice.

My Untidy Workshop

Workshop

I have a nice little workshop in the basement section of our house, where I produce all sorts of bits and pieces.

I mainly work with metal, as that's where the majority of my experience lies, I do quite a bit of hand fitting and finishing.

Had fun making a peanut crusher so that my wife can feed the birdies, that frequent our little garden. The greedy little beggars get through a surprising amount of crushed nuts.

Also make the occasional piece of jewelry for my wife.

You can follow my workshop antics elsewhere on the site.

Our Garden

We have a small garden, and we like it that way, we have a very low maintenance set up, and we do the work in fits and starts.

We do like to eat out in the garden in the balmy sunny evenings.

The Garden gets virtually no sun in the winter, so can be a cold spot for delicate plants.

Herbs are grown, in pots and planters, and seem to like the garden in the summer.

We have a dry light soil over a chalk sub-soil, so we tend to need lime tolerant plants.

We have a resident toad, also some field mice who live in and around the plants by the fence.

Our bird table is thriving with, goldfinches, collared doves, wood pigeons, black caps, blue tits, greenfinches, great tits, dunocks, starlings, sparrows.

This year 2010 we are planting a proper herb garden having taken up a couple of paving slabs to give the extra space. Fresh herbs are just so good that I'm prepared to do a bit of gardening to produce them.

So far it's Rosemary, lemon thyme, Common Thyme, Parsely, Mint, Sage and still more to come.

Camera Steady

The Great Dorset Steam Fair

Weymouth Inner Harbour

Photography

I love taking photographs, especially of mechanical and workshop items, what the "proper", photographers call "machine porn" .

Used to have a Dark Room with all the processing gear, all gone now, lost to the Digital Era.

My present Camera is a Canon 350D with a couple of lenses, a standard and a long zoom.

I have set up a camera holder which can be moved around different locations in the workshop.

The camera holder allows me to take slow shots at higher F numbers to get a good depth of field in poor lighting conditions.

I have built a sort of Multi Macro stand for very detailed macros and for using the camera as a photocopier.

The Macro Stand also has a provision for taking digital images from Slides, so that I can go back and show some of my slide collection, of which there are thousands.

I do take images other than the workshop, a favourite is harbours and boats, the Great Dorset Steam Fair, landscapes etc, etc.

A Somewhat Younger tudedude

A Rocker in the sixties no less.

I had a range of Motorbikes, from:

A LD Lambretta Scooter (not really Rocker transport) but very collectable now of course.

BSA Bantam.

LE Velocette Water cooled "Bobby" version.

Honda 90 Motorbike, not the scooter variant.

350 Matchless Single, which was converted to a 500 Single, then converted again to 500 Twin.

AJS 350 Single Jampot, I think I had 3 varaitions of this bike.

BSA M30 Girder Fork EX MOD.

Triumph Twin Sprung hub 500 Speedtwin.

Matchless 500 Twin.

Matchless 650 Twin.

Several other assorted AJS and Matchless twins and singles, with various frame and fork layouts.

The Great Dorset Cycle Ride 1980

I went round on my fold-up wobbly bike.

50 Miles around Dorset, on a beautiful sunny day. The "real cyclists" had a laugh, and I was very slow, but I finished, and not last by a long way.

The event still happens every year, it's great to see so many enjoy a day out.