Last Saturdays Steam Rally.

Shabbington is a pretty village situated on the rounded hill above the River Thame, which divides the two counties, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. A hundred years ago it was an outlying part of the Waterperry estate, but now consists of about eight separate farms.

In the 1920's, most of the men of the village would have worked on the land and with money being scarce, the women of the village thought nothing of walking the 3 1/2 miles into Thame to find work.

I visit Shabbington every year in August for the Steam rally.

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This year the skies looked very grey but the rain kept off for most of the day.

Now I have some good news and some bad news!

The good news is, that I have found out how to re-size my photos.

They are no longer over 1 Mb each, but just a mere 250Kb.

The bad news is, that I can post up loads more!

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Two real old characters,

haggling over the price of an equally old lawn mower.

Actually I was surprised to notice that us older generation out numbered the children by about 10 to 1. Perhaps real steam doesn't appeal to the younger generation as it did in my younger days.

Plenty of 'Off-the-Road' vehicles!

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Notice how they 'drive on the left'.

Instead of Sheep Dog Trials, I watched a Duck Dog demonstration!

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I actually felt sorry for the ducks.

They gave two demonstrations, one in the morning and another at about 3 o'clock.

They only had short legs and had to run up and around this field

for about twenty minutes at a time.

I bet they would have loved to cool off in here.

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A beautiful model, amazing detail. Even a dog on board.

My friend John putting a dirty coal covered hand on Cecil's lovely white roof!

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Lots of traction engines both small (1/3 full size as here) and full size.......

And of course vintage cars, old tractors and..........

the ubiquitous 'phut-phut' engines, or as Jan calls them, 'chuggers'.

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One field was half full of these stationary engines.

I have never really understood what the attraction is,

but they have quite a large and enthusiastic following.

Here's the most unusual use for one of the many driving water pumps!

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The engine on the right was driving the pump in the centre,

which provided water for a very cold shower.

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