Just to keep you informed -

[nickjones]

Hi everyone.
Hope you are all having a great summer, at least the members in the northern hemisphere anyway.
I wanted to keep you in the loop as to what is happening to my website.
ebay. in their 'wisdom' have decided to decommission the adverts on my site, not just my site but all sites using their 'editor kit' script which creates the adverts. From 1st july no ebay ads will display on my site, The ads took me close on to a year to install them all, I do have an alternative but it will take many months to change them all (2800+ pages each with 3 ebay ads). Now I don't know what is going to happen when they turn the ads off, hopefully an ebay search box will appear instead but even ebay can't tell me what is going to happen, The worst scenario the page will freeze up, But the site will eventually come back but it may take a while to restore full service.
I won't be posting on the forum much in the coming month, I am living on the boat at the marina and they have no internet connection although they have promised a good wi-fi connection very soon. This monday the grandkids arrive from Scotland for a 3 week stay on the boat so you can imagine I will be kept quite busy, The boat was launched on tuesday and is now moored in the marina and so far everything is going to plan. So if I seem to disappear along with my website - rest assured everything will return to normal, eventually!
Unless the boat has sunk with me on it that is...!

[motorman]

Just watch out for Ice Bergs Captain Jones!!!

Thanks for the update, rest asssured we all appreciate your hard work that goes on behind the scenes to maintain your site.

BTW how is the book coming on??

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Nick, I would think you have earned yourself a break from the collecting world for a while, don't worry too much about the forum, me and "Motorman" can screw it up without your assistance...

Enjoy the High Seas with the kids and we will look forward to seeing you back here in the not too distant future, with stories of how you fought off Pirates and sung sea shanties together.

Take care, Nick.

Ghosty.

[johnboy]

Hope you have a great time Nick. It's good to hear the progress on your boat and don't let the grandkids run you too ragged!

[nickjones]

BTW how is the book coming on??

Funny you should ask, Today I received the contract to write the book, I had already written the first chapter, The beginnings and the early Lesney toys, 4200 words, I also went over to Gary Galvins house and photographed his early Lesney collection.
The photographs were ok but not good enough to publish, my fault as I was in a hurry to get to my daughters place some 425 miles away.
I had also misread the first email I got from the publisher, I thought it said the book will be 95,000 words, it was 9500 words so chapter one will have to be rewritten as it is far to big.
I have some photos of Chimera afloat at her mooring in Tollesbury marina.

[motorman]

Boat looks great Nick....I assume you have a pair of speed'os in the same colour!!!!!

[nickjones]

LOL, No speedos for me, But the guy who had his speedboat parked next to my boat when it was ashore wore them whenever he came down, He was a really friendly guy but sometimes you did not know where to look.

[Brad Pittiful]

have fun...if you stumble onto atlantis make sure you declare it for the Queen!

[kwakers]

This sounds like a Well deserved and long awaited Vacation adventure Nick! Happy sailing with the 'shipmates'.
Would you consider sending the first draft of the early Lesney Chapter to the publisher 'As Is' to show him the amount of material to be covered? Perhaps he might then understand the subject a lot better, and approve a much larger project that we all know will be highly successful for both of you. kwakers

[nickjones]

This sounds like a Well deserved and long awaited Vacation adventure Nick! Happy sailing with the 'shipmates'.
Would you consider sending the first draft of the early Lesney Chapter to the publisher 'As Is' to show him the amount of material to be covered? Perhaps he might then understand the subject a lot better, and approve a much larger project that we all know will be highly successful for both of you. kwakers

I sent the first chapter, The publisher said it was satisfactory but it was too large for a 64 page book.
I will finish this book and then see if they would be interested in doing an in depth book on the 1-75's.