WHERE YA FLAMIN BEEN SPADGE??????

Yeah Yeah Yeah! I know I have been bleedin quiet for a while.

It isn't because of a lack of interest, just a lack of time doing many other things, most notably my work setting up an Australian division of the 'Railways and Industrial Heritage Society Phils Inc' and also building a new website called Philippine-Fleetlist, devoted to, hardly surprisingly, the rollingstock used in the Philippines.

Yes the bulk of my interest is aimed at the Philippines nowdays, but that is not to say I can't get a dribble up lineside over Aussie trains, or a full on foam when rooting through the archives in search of some railway tidbit or another.
The ol 'Semi-Retired Foamer' still likes nothing more than a day out bush and lineside with the mates, swapping smutty stories, telling stupid jokes and, well, I suppose watch some trains scream by with their endless array boring flat cabbed locos up front.
Indeed just the other day I was out around the Botany line with my good mate Chris Miller and that report forms my next post.
" Surely but Spadge - Philippine trains can't have kept you THAT busy for so many weeks!"

Yes you are right, they didn't.

SPADGE TURNED 40

Oh heck, it was that milestone very few of us wishes to achieve. It marks the exact moment we go from being alive, to just awaiting death.

Old mate Grim Reaper appears to be lurking around all corners, just waiting for us to make that wrong turn. You see mates who have made that wrong turn leave forever and now start to consider when will it be my time.
I have heard time and time and time again that "Life begins at 40".

BOLLOCKS

It it the pinnacle of a mountain and now it is time to come back down.
I look back on my life as a foamer and see so many times that have changed, railway things that were once daily and now spoken about like ancient history.
Once I used to admire people who had seen so many diesels that have long gone, been able to share photos of stuff I would have been able to get myself had I been a bit older. But now I am bleeding one of them myself.
So what has one got to show for all those years of time, effort and money collecting such a monumental collection?
Well the wife feels its the worlds largest collection of garbage, while many of the young railfans of today really don't give a hamsters butt hairs about it all.
Still while I am on this downward slope I shall continue to convey bollocks here within, for any of you who do care less about what the railways were like over the last couple of decades.
Welcome aboard - enjoy the ride.

If there is one positive side to your 40th birthday you get to spend it
with all your friends in the one place.
These three lovely ladies are dearest best friends whom most of the
'Semi-Retired Foamers' life is spent with nowdays.
L-R: My sister Maria, second wife Anabelle and third wife Gina.

Part of the railfan contingent at the party was my good mate James Chuang.
Seen here devouring some of the many Filipino dishes.

Steve Miller came fully prepared for any eventuality dressed
in his OH&S approved outfit.
The safety clothes were considered appropriate in case of any accidents that may see him accidentally crash into any drunken hornbags.

Also attending were gunzels Nathan Chapple, Alec, David Xuereb and the late David 'The Colonel' Phillips.
Sadly the vast majority of my foamer mates never showed, many didn't
even reply to the invitation.

More birthday bollocks at MANILA DOWNUNDER!