Menodust-re-all; engineering elegance

Thursday, a fortnight ago. East coast Bonny Land on the border with The Southern Country. Father's long-term workmate and all-round good pal, brothers-in-electrification as it were, TM, has spent his retirement rescuing tractors. What began as a small hobby became, in quick order, something of an obsession. I didn't actually count how many tractors were at his place, but let's just say 87, as that is such an elegant number. Not just tractors either. Water pumps; mowers and shifters; ploughs; balers; tattie howkers... a boat... That his family gave him this plaque several years back - a play on the surname - says something;

"There, there Leyla(nd), I'll run your engine soon!"

TM is a kind and loving restorer, often getting the carcasses of tractors long thought fit only for scrap. Sometimes they are, but will offer up, in their wastage, spare parts for those with more hope of resurrection. The tractors date from as early as the war years, up to about 1970's.  Anything younger is probably still active.

The small-holding sits high above the cliffs, with a commanding view of the North Sea. It's breezy up there.

We did see a few ships, but mostly the focus was on those sheds with all the engineery stuff going on.

The state of some of the engines on arrival is like seeing a tortured animal...

They get stripped back and lavished with love and attention -

The ride-on JD mower made my heart thump in memory of our legal-eagles, the Pencil-vane-ya boys, Frankie Furter and Ernest von Schnitzel... golly don't we miss seeing them out and about???

You can see a ribbon board at the back there; TM has taken his tractors to agri-shows and still does run them out on occasion. Mostly, though, it's just a hobby. 

Mac1 and TM discuss the merits of the British-made MF over that of the French version. 

...anyhoo... there will be more of the pretty shots next Tuesday; but apart from all this equipment, after a delightful lunch over the border in the Southern Country, TM drove us to the Chain Bridge Honey Farm where we learned a great deal about honey, bees and all things locally related. They also have a heap of engineery stuff and a kind of museum. The Chain Bridge itself, linking England with Scotland across the River Tweed, was the very first of its kind in Europe. Cars do still use it. Not ours.