The Ranch

Billy's Ranch – Click Image to enlarge

The Ranch

I woke up one morning a while back (It's a thing I've always done...up to now) and thought "I'd like to build a Western Town". After next thinking 'I really do need to get out more'...I set about making such a thing. So I got out my hammer, nails, wood and my Bumper Book of Grown Up Swear Words for when my thumb came into contact with my hammer which it did with monotonous regularity, and I set about it.
I'm lucky because my Dad never threw anything away because, in his words..."It'll come in". Well, pretty much all of the stuff he never threw away never did 'come in' in his lifetime but cut to now and...it's come in! The first thing I didn't have to build because my Dad built them in 1969 was a couple of stables. They're not stables now, one of them is a Sheriffs Office and next door is a Jail. The rest of the stuff I had to build. Thanks to a kind reader of AudlemOnline who gave me his copper water tank, I now have a 'working' Moonshine Still. Ya gotta have one of them! It's thirsty work building a Western Town you know!. Just in case there's any Sheriff's or Revenue Men reading this...it's not real Moonshine....honest.

Next door to that is the Western Union Telegraph Office (or, as I wrote when I first made a sign for it 'Western Onion Telegraph Orifice'. (Probably had a bit too much Moonshine that day) Just over the road is the Bank (no money is kept in the Bank overnight...or ever for that matter) and down the street is a Livery and Blacksmith shop. To complete that area there is a Barber Shop. If anyone reading this knows me, don't go in there or you'll end up with a haircut like mine!!!

I decided any self respecting Western Town needs a Saloon so, that was next. It started out being a Saloon but as I was finishing it I had a re-think. I didn't want people thinking I had shelves full of Whiskey etc stored there so it became Jailhouse number 2. Next to that is the Corral where I don't keep my horses and that's just as well because I haven't got any.

I bought some waggon wheels a few years ago but I've ate them all now. Then I realised I should have bought wooden waggon wheels rather than the "they're not as big as they used to be" chocolate ones so I did and the result of that purchase is a Cannon I call Frank. (Our older readers will know why I've called it that)

Inside my house is the 1950's which it has been for years but now, outside is the 1850's!

I filmed a while back for a TV show that's nothing to do with The Ranch because when they filmed that particular show I hadn't thought of the Western Town idea but one of the producers for that show recommended my place to a producer of a new TV show called 'Outrageous Homes' with the very nice (but I didn't meet him because he didn't come here) Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen. That show has it's first episode on Channel 4 at 10pm this Thursday (the 20th) and The Ranch is a very, very small part of that show. I will have to finish by saying this;
If anyone has ever asked me if I'm on the TV and, if I am, I usually say "don't blink or you'll miss me". Well, due to the lovely folk at Channel 4 persuading me to film a particular scene which I initially refused 3 times, I'm now saying "blink and hopefully you'll miss me!" You'll know what I mean and which scene it is IF you watch it. ;-)

Right...I'm off to saddle up my horse which I haven't got and ride into the sunset which we don't seem have anymore.

Adios amigos.
Billy.