If there was ever finesse or grace in my writings here, today they will not be present. A series of events past and to come mean we have little chance to charge this phone. With the blogging tool running out of juice, I have time only to write, without proof reading or checking that the thing flows well, which normally takes some time. So apologies in advanced for that. This evening we're in Montdidier, having broken our record again and covered 142km today. But Calais is further away then we'd previously calculated, 192km to be approximately exact. And our train home leaves at six pm on Friday, so now the race is on to get to the coast in time. To make things worse, the map shows a lot of steep terrain to come, and the wind is no better then it's been lately. Today was a not too hilly or windy, but both were occasionally present in extreme quantities. As always, you'll know how we get on. There were a few highlights today, but whilst I may have the energy to list them all, the phone has the energy for about two. The first was the approach to the town we're camped in now, which is famous for its churches. It sits on an enormous flat plain, so that it is visible on the horizon from the approaching road, its church spires and wind turbines rising high up and breaking up the land sky divide. It's beautiful, especially when approached in the evening. The surrounding fields are home to millions of agricultural crop plants though. They need watering and fertilizing, and here, just as in many places in France we've been, they do this by use of some of the biggest machines i've ever seen. They consist of a scaffold around one meter wide and one hundred long, supported a few meters off the ground by usually four rugged pair of wheels at 25m intervals, upon which a thick high pressure hose is slung with a series of spray valves along its length. This huge contraption then rolls very slowly across the landscape, spraying thousands of square meters effortlessly. It's pretty ominous looking though, especially when there's one rolling along beside the road you're on, distributing many hundreds of litres of fertilized water a minute, most of which is being caught in a strong wind and sprayed in a thick wall across the road you're on, unavoidable and wet. Taking the go-through-as-fast-as-possible approach, I got very wet and lightly fertilized, which I might comment smelt of popcorn. As my mother only ever uses organic ingredients in her cooking, I fear that she will refuse me entrance when we return home.. Damn this wind |-( The second comment focuses on the photo, which upon close inspection speaks for itself. It's a cafe in town, with three parking spaces outside. One for able bodied and one for disabled. All's well, but it's the third that caught my eye. At lunchtime, only a police car may park there, apparently. Policing the town is hungry work, so the local council has ensured that noone will get in the way of the police munincipal and their bread, coffee and two sugars si vous plais. Nice ^.^

‘Flowlines – News about Blakeborough valves & valves from stock’ was the company’s in-house newsletter. Flowlines was issued monthly in A4 size, printed two colours and usually 4 pages. The front page of the December 1983 issue is pictured above. Flowlines would have been available to personnel at Blakeboroughs and distributed to suppliers and customers as well. Anyone know when Flowlines commenced and the date of its final issue? . Contents (December 1983 issue): • Enclosures to foil vandals – constructed of 14-guage mild steel and fibreglass they were supplied to the Southern Water Authority Brighton Area for use with their Golden Anderson valves. • Variducer – new brandname for Blakeborough’s variable pressure reducing valves. • By-pass arrangements – by-pass attachments for swing check-valves (80 – 120mm). • Blakebrough Screens – half-page advert. • Sundry Developments – improvements within their foundry in the use of automatic high-pressure mouldings. • David Illand – a fitter in Blakeborough’s Medium Valves Department who has a talent for drawing especially character illustrations. Includes a picture of the company Christmas 1983 card cover depicting a collage of Blakeborough executive directors as drawn by David. • Beating our Drum – supplying the largest screen manufactured by Blakeboroughs and supplied to the Heysham B Nuclear Power Station. The drum screen are designed to screen debris from cooling seawater up to a capacity of 12,500 litres per second. . Thank you for reading. Stuart.