Newsletter 5, End of 2024 and into 2025
Newsletter 5, time has gone by, with Christmas and New Year now a distance memory we look forward to a full season with our 3 engines, Victoria, Albert and Francois.
We look back through to the end of 2024, and at the end of November with most of the events at Amberley now finish and just their Christmas events through December it was time to bring Victoria and her living van home. We loaded back home at the end of November, and both were put back on the drive ready for the winter. Francois our little Foden also made his way back home to Hampshire.
In the middle of December there was a Christmas tractor run coming through our village, so we thought it was a good excuse to steam Francois and take him along to watch the tractor run. We had an afternoon of running round the village with him and then in the evening found a space to sit and watch the tractor run from the back of Francois. The run was great, all the tractors were decorated with colourful lights all over them, some had inflatables of Father Christmas and reindeers, a lot of effort from our local farmers, and we blow our whistle a few times to join in.
Albert was still at Amberley so we could go and steam him up and do trailer ride at one of their Santa weekends. We spent a chilly Sunday in the middle of the month giving trailer rides to those who had come along to the museum to visit Santa, a great event with many children enjoying the museum. Albert and his crew did many trips around the museum.
Albert then went off to our friends’ yard on the 19th December where he will be having his 10 year test. We started the process in January but before that we needed to take all his lagging sheets and lagging off, which we did over Christmas.
The last weekend before Christmas we were back at Amberley helping Nick and Hannah with their roller, (Wallis Advance) Wally, doing the duty of trailer rides for more Santa visitors. It was a very busy day and a bit chilly too, but a great way to finish our year at the museum.
We then had Christmas which was a great day, or few days, but Lloyd and Jack soon wanted to get back to the engines and it was over to Albert to start getting him ready for his 10 year test, more about that in a bit.
Last day of 2024 and what do you do, I know we’ll steam up Francois and take him to our local town of Petersfield in Hampshire for a good road run of about 15 miles, 6 miles each way and then a few trips around the town and to see family! He went well and was very well received in the town, everyone wants to know about him and chat to us, one of the unusual things is that when they see him, they think we sale roasted chestnuts! What is that all about?! Anyway, we had an excellent trip and it was a great way to spend the last day of the year.
As we roll into 2025 what do we have planned? Our first job is to get Albert through his 10 year test and do a few repairs to him, we also want to fit quad tracks back on his rear wheels, as you probably know he lost his tyres off his rear wheels in July and we would like to replace them so he is a little more comfortable to take out on the road, both for him and his crew.
At the moment all the engines are drained of water and under their covers, some with heaters on, others with duvets wrapped around them so they are nice and warm in the freezing weather we have been having, although this last few days it has been pretty wet and windy.
We are starting to think about our events for 2025, and are hoping to do a couple of different events this year as well as all our usual ones. We will be at Amberley for their Large Steam Show in July and Balls Cross in West Sussex at the end of August. We will keep you updated with events through our website and social media pages so please keep an eye out for these updates if you would like to come along and say hi to us, we always like to meet you all.
Thank you to everyone who purchased books from us over the Christmas period and throughout 2024, we hope you are enjoying them and looking forward to more stories, Wendy is hoping to publish her 6th book soon and is working hard on book as we speak. We will, of course let you know as soon as we have any news on the new book. Please in the meantime tell all your friends about our wonderful storybooks.
www.victoriastortontales.uk
www.facebook.com/victoriastortontales
www.sewardsofpetersfield.co.uk
www.facebook.com/sewardsofpetersfield
Happy Steaming.
