Six pm 22nd May 2025 and the birdsong continues….we have a night crooner right outside our bedroom window, been at it for weeks and it has a right repertoire – we presume it’s a nightingale. The Chief Engineer is able to sleep through it, thoroughly exhausted after each day of railway construction, but Tracey is tuned into it, along with the frog chorus and the crickets and is having a few sleepless nights that often include grumpy-lady mumblings of “that soddin’ bird”. In contrast, I’ve spent about three hours today cooing over two little blue tits feeding each other – Lee reckons one must be the Mum but they’re both small & fluffy and just hopping around the platform under the bird feeder – it’s really special to have the time to just watch nature – seeing one of them pick up a seed or crumb and pop it into the other one’s open, eager mouth, wow – I don’t know if they are siblings taking care of each other but what a privilege to see. And we have the return of the nuthatches this year – they are so greedy at the fat balls and literally hammer into them with their beaks, sending chunks of fat and sunflower seeds everywhere, much to the delight of the blue tits, great tits and sparrows, quite lazily waiting below. The black redstarts are everywhere – they don’t come to the feeders but have nested under the platform eaves and we’ve enjoyed watching the uber-fat chicks fledge but we do not like all their bloomin’ poop droppings nor the parents dive bombing us if we get too close. What a commanding loud whistle they have. You can see one of them caught on the nature cam pics below, in flight, where you can see the red tail feathers fanned out. We’ve got cuckoos calling, pigeons cooing and woodpeckers yaffling through the valley and goldfinches that come right to our front door for some tiny little grass seeds that have blown in with the usual annual dousing of pine tree & plane tree pollen. Oh yes, the darned pollen dust – as usual at this time of the year, everything is yellow and if we’re not sweeping, we’re wiping or hosing or just having a good ole chunter about the troublesome, yet predictable, pollen dust in May. It’s a daily task for Lee, especially with guests now holidaying here, to clamber in the pool early morning with his broom and agitate the pollen that has gathered on the pool bottom to try & get it through the filters. Once out, he’s into his huge waterproof, fleece lined camping dressing gown to swish-swish-swish back up to the warehouse for his warming cup of tea. (It’s a mildly irritating noise that swishing waterproof, fleece lined, camping dressing gown, especially at 07h30 in the morning but very practical when you need warming up quickly) and talking of warming up, the pool is looking fabulous because of his hard work and has warmed up nicely under the glass cover to 26 degrees and rising, perfect.
Click in the gallery to see the entire picture & scroll through.
Note the vegetation difference between the frosty morning snap and the recent ones – it seems to turn from grey to lush green over night. It’s beautifully green everywhere right now and the boundary hedges and the star jasmine, that grows outside The Warehouse, are expanding upwards and outwards – the dreaded hedge trimming tasks will soon be on us. The jasmine is unbelievably sweet scented all day long and emits an even stronger scent come evening. We’ve got an abundance of ox-eye daisies on the bank that we cleared opposite the platform and hope to get more wild flowers than last year after scattering some seed bombs earlier this month. The deer were straight in there once we had scattered them but they’re supposed to be deterred by the chilli pepper that is combined with the seed bomb so “doigts croisés” for an explosion of colour in the future. There are some of the blue “love in mist” flowers on the bank but not sufficient quantity yet for the colour to show up amongst the daisies. I have something in my flower beds called Turkish sage and that has seeded itself everywhere this year – a very interesting plant architecturally when it’s in yellow flower and it dries well too. I hope my grandad is looking down and chuffed to see my enjoyment dabbling in a bit of horticulture – he was a nursery-man all his life, apart from the war years in the DLI, and he could grow anything – I remember geranium cuttings just about everywhere when I was growing up and his flower beds and hanging baskets were full of them – I think he shared them with all the residents of Finmere Road in Hall Green – every garden had neat lawns & neat hedges and lots of red geraniums. I haven’t been back to Hall Green in years – I expect those front gardens have a lot of cement driveways now. While I’m reminiscing of Birmingham, I’m going to dedicate this newsletter to a Great Aunt who has passed this month at the grand age of 98, smiling Auntie Beryl, from a place in Kings Heath that we called “The Pineapple”, a former Cadbury’s girl and my Nan’s sister, who spent many hours in that garden with us kids, amongst the geraniums and eating fondant fancies. RIP Auntie Beryl.
We’ve made a big effort to spend time with friends since Christmas to help pass the the slow winter months that can drag a bit in sleepy ole Sos and decided to celebrate all the British Saints days this year starting with St Davids Day with a Pen Deryn Whisky & Welsh Cake afternoon tea, followed by a grand feast in The Station for St. Patricks Day with a Guinness beef stew and a Baileys pud and our friends did a splendid sausage & mash lunch for St Georges Day – we had some great laughs and some great food. All Saints Day is a National holiday here, November 1st, so to be fair to all The Saints, we might try some deep fried Mars Bars – what would the French make of those I wonder?! We also had another trip to Montgaillard Duck Farm http://fermedelafitte.com/ for Easter Sunday and have had some excellent Vietnamese meals at the Perle d’Asie in Condom which we highly recommend to any guests who fancy some Asian grub https://maps.app.goo.gl/GD2Z8mgKCBXtaYs29 if the duck meals of SW France get a bit too much – friendly owner and some cracking lunch deals available. Our circle of european friends is expanding having recently met some Swiss folk and we often find ourselves wondering what happened to our lives when our heads are spinning this way & that in a multi-lingual conversation of Flemish, German & French.
St David’s Day Afternoon Tea at la gare – a gloriously sunny start to March
All the colours of the Irish Flag on St Patrick’s Day – how we ribbed our Belgian friends for not wearing any green! And the Guinness Cheddar was on sale at the cheese stall at the Mezin Sunday Market. Trying to explain the pronunciation of Sláinte took some doing.
I can’t remember what story Lee was telling in that photo – (Maybe the size of the dragon that St George slayed or our expanding waists) I hope Famille Weaver are reading and note the cereal packet bow ties – happy memories!
Easter Sunday at The Duck Farm – took us a day to recover after that one
A meal at Perle d’Asie in Condom and asian meal night in The Warehouse, homemade noodle soup, packed with julienned vegetables – all day chopping, half an hour of messy slurping.
We have welcomed Lee’s family to la gare for a holiday this Spring and were able to meet up with Tracey’s parents for the day who docked at Le Verdon near Bordeaux on The Sky Princess cruise ship, whilst on a weeks cruise from Southampton to Northern Spain and France. We took them to Soulac-sur-Mer, a lovely little seaside resort for lunch and a stroll along the promenade – usually a quiet, sleepy place until the Sky Princess docks, then about 3000 tourists arrive on one day – They have their own replica statue of Liberty along the sea front – a tribute to a French chap called LaFayette, who left Soulac on the ship “La Victoire” to participate in The American Revolutionary War – couldn’t help hoping that there are a few Lafayette’s left in the world. Before I learned a bit of French history “Lafayette” just meant Galeries Lafayette to me – the posh & expensive French department stores – an experience themselves if you ever get to visit one. Aside – There’s a spoof clip on youtube where a reporter asks random members of the American public what they think about Trump’s idea to send the real Statue of Liberty back to France or melt it down for money to help the US coffers – I hope he doesn’t see it! Anyway, we had a grand time seeing both sets of parents and Lee’s sister – we do miss family and savour every minute, every memory made, every meal shared. And the family love to spend time with little Daphne, who is still on her cancer journey but currently managing stoically with her one eye. She has several new lumps which are not aggressively developing at the moment but we’re not putting her through any more surgery or treatment and will just care for her & cuddle her for as long as we can.
Lee’s Lot…
Tracey’s Lot…
The main news, that all our railway readers are interested in, is Lee’s garden railway project and what progress he has made. I am in awe at his absolute commitment to putting on his PPE every day and heading off to heave sleepers around, drill huge bolts into rails and sleepers, pack stone, cut rail and…..well, let’s let him tell you about his project…yes, he’s put pen to paper and is recording his progress so in Lee’s words, here’s the story so far and the photos follow after –
The ongoing work to the development of the Chemin de Fer de Sos continues apace. The Diema Locomotive was completed over the winter months. This involved an in-depth service, electrical overhaul, window installation, brake overhaul and a paint job. No4, Bridget is now ready for service and joins the two passenger wagons rebuilt last year as the Railway Fleet for Sos.
The winter and spring has been drier than usual and hence a start could be made on the trackwork. Much work was done on the setting out and planning of the track installation. The final design being for four exits roads from the Engine Shed. The west end of the shed having one headshunt and siding, a west end loop from No2 road and joined up onto main line section running past the shed, picking up the connection from the Engine Shed East end connection and on to the S&C which will eventually, (2026) see the creation of the East end loop.
March saw the delivery of 120 tonnes of sub-base. This was positioned, levelled and rolled. The loop was installed with a mix of wooden sleeper and steel panels. The East end S@C and connection into the shed was completed with welded joints into the shed. The headshunt was laid off No1 road, rails cut, drilled and fishplates installed and two buffer stops fabricated, and now has the ballast wagon stabled. The link from the shed onto the loop was installed and is now ready for lifting and packing before the final ballast and boxing in is completed.
The three existing point levers have been refurbished and made ready for installation. We required one additional switch to complete the designed track layout. Tracey utilised her French Railway connections on Facebook and found an excellent resource. A fabulous narrow gauge Engineering Company, just outside Bordeaux. They specialise in the new build and refurbishment of narrow gauge locomotives and rolling stock and also manufacture new track layouts, including S&C. They also had several sets of S@C recovered after WWI but with zero use and almost as good as new. Following a visit to the company a RH turnout was selected and an agreement made for a new point lever to be fabricated as part of the purchase. This is now the critical piece of the puzzle required to have some track in place for train operations to commence.
Other activities on the railway have included the strip down and refurbishment of my lower quadrant Western Signal, sleeper and S&C timber bearer sizing and cutting, a level crossing deck being created to allow access into the loop for mowing. The build of the Glynn Valley Railway replica guards van has commenced but with limited progress because of time spent on the other activities. This will probably be a winter 2025 item.
As any Railway builder will know a Railway is never actually complete. There will always be another piece of rolling stock required, a new track connection, loop or extension, a signal to add a bridge to build, maybe even a tunnel when HS2 has finished with its tunnel boring machine Cecilia. The list goes on and will keep us busy for some time to come. Lee
Younger Lee and older Lee, still smiling at work, above. Below some other jobs completed too – our replica GWR bench refurbed and for anyone who didn’t see the facebook posts, his completed loco, with a picture of it in it’s former life on an Irish peat bog. Plus the crossing gate, in situ but still not in use – waiting for something to be welded I believe.
And here’s a few of the station prepped and ready for our 2025 guests and a couple of local pics. On that note, if you like what you see and fancy a railway station holiday in France or know someone who might be interested, please share our details – we have two summer weeks still available in August – 16th – 30th and could be flexible with arrival / departure days between those dates. We advertise in a railway staff publication called Rail News and a recent holidaymaker, a signalman, told us that he had kept the little holiday advert, cut out & stashed in his wallet for years until finally booking up and experiencing la gare de Sos with his family, what a lovely story of a bygone time of doing things. Some of the old railway advertising posters used to ask the public to write to the station master for further details of the destination, train times etc – ah, we do like that idea – I wonder if anybody ever did that? Well, time for me to leave Nostalgic Lane and head on up to bed to listen to
“that soddin’ bird” – Bonsoir!
ps – see those delicious cakes, sadly, Tracey was too inebriated to remember eating the tarte au citron – what a waste – what a fool – Lee said it was the best lemon tart he’s ever eaten – from the artisan bakers in Port Sainte Marie.
pps For further information about the garden railway project – Please write to Lee Green, Chief Engineer, Chemin de Fer de Sos, 262 route de la gare, Sainte Maure de Peyriac, 47170, France (!)