Hi all,
On a more personal note, I have now completely retired from running my own electrical contracting business.
My wife retired at the end of February this year, so we are looking forward to spending more leisure time together, with lots of holidays planned.
We have recently returned from a nice break in Jersey, we are off to Switzerland on the 1st July for 8 days, lots of trains involved

, then later this year in October we are off to Japan for two weeks,
Bullitt Train journey involved, can you see a pattern forming here

Yesterday we booked a 24 day tour of Australia and New Zealand for the Nov/Dec 2023 (by land, rail, sea and air), which includes a 4 day trip from Perth to Adelaide, then on to Sidney on the Indian Pacific train.
In the mean time, I've just started treatment on my hands. I thought I had Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, but X-Rays revealed I had no cartilage left on both my lower thumb joints, which has been causing me increased discomfort over the last couple of years, probably due to 50 odd years of using hand and electric tools. Anyway, yesterday I had the first ultrasound guided injection into the joints, and it bloody hurt I don't mind admitting, and I think I've got a pretty good pain threshold. At the moment its still very sore, but should wear off in a day or two and I'll see if it has had the desired effect. Apparently the pain relief can last for a year or so or just weeks, if its the latter, I will consider surgery to remove the bone at the base of the thumbs, but hope it doesn't come to that as it has a long recovery period. Anyway, I'm looking forward to spending a bit more time on the layout, although her indoors has other ideas. But if I can combine trains with holidays, which seems to be going to plan at the moment, I think I will have a very happy retirement
Regards to you all
Alan