Although the early months of the year are often bitterly cold, there is beauty to be found provided you know where to look. Some birds, like robins, still sit in the trees and sing. And there are some plants, called evergreens, that do not lose their leaves in the colder months. In fact, there are some who prefer winter to summer, with the cold weather suiting them better.
One morning, Salty was doing the sea shift. He was merrily moving trucks back and forth from the sidings to the dockside, dropping off vans and plank wagons wherever they were needed. It was work he enjoyed very much, as it had a regular rhythm and reminded him of the sea.
Unfortunately, not everybody approved. "It's all this noise!" complained a woman overlooking the town. "Not to mention they produce all of those fumes! It's far too noisy for my liking!"
Posey looked over to them. "It's only for a few hours each day," she said. "I'm hardly the biggest fan myself, but even they have the right to work and do what they want to do. Besides, it does bring in a lot of tourist money."
This was probably the first reasonable thing Posey had said in quite a while. The other woman wasn't having it. "Well, they should do it somewhere else!" And walked off.
Posey glanced down. True, her asthma was sometimes triggered by this sort of thing. But at the same time, she owed them her life. She glanced over as a woman with reddish skin and hair stopped nearby. "Hey Windy."
"You dealing with Mrs Carthorse again?" Windy asked. "She's a real NIMBY."
"NIMBY?" Posey asked.
"Not in My Backyard," Windy answered, temporarily putting her shopping down. "You look down."
"Was I really like that a year ago?" Posey asked. "If so, I'm amazed I wasn't kicked out of town."
Windy put her arm around her. "You did have valid concerns which the authorities addressed. Besides, you've done a lot of good here."
Posey smiled. "Thanks Windy."
Down in the yard, there was a commotion going on. "Does Salty's cheerfulness get on anybody's nerves?" Charles asked.
"No," Porter replied.
"Because if they don't that's surprising," Charles said. "How does he know all these sea shanties anyway?"
"He worked on a dockyard for years?" Zipp suggested. "Working with sailors is a common way of learning sea shanties."
"That makes sense," Charles replied. "But does he have to sing all the time?"
"It's only for a few hours, matey," Salty said, as he drew up alongside the shed. "That means for most of the day I'm not singing. Besides, it keeps the trucks in line- as Rebecca can testify."
Rebecca smiled. "It's remarkable what an old song about a Mexican general can do to keep them in line."
Just then, the foreman arrived with some instructions. "Salty?" he said. "I have a new work order for you. A new request for transport has been added into the system. You are to head up to Haven yard and collect the order, then bring it back to Falmouth."
Sunny nodded. "On our way!" With the roar of an engine the duo were off to Penmere.
Charles looked over. "And there's another thing..."
Salty pulled up at the siding a few minutes later. Lord Haven was waiting for him. "Ah! Salty!" he said. "Just the engine I was looking for."
"What's the task, sir?" Salty asked.
"The latest shipment of family cheese has arrived from the creamery, by road for some reason," Lord Haven replied. "I need you to take it down to Falmouth to be marshalled into a larger train to go to shops far away."
"The Flying Cheesecake?" Salty ventured.
"Cheesecake is normally made using cream cheese rather than harder cheeses," Sunny explained. "If made using harder cheeses it would taste very strange indeed. Sure thing, sir!"
Salty was soon coupled to the vans. Lord Haven checked the load to ensure it was secured and tied down, and then waved them off. "Good luck!"
Salty pulled away, and soon coughed. "I'm not an expert on cheese, but that cheese is very smelly!"
"It's probably a soft cheese then. I'll ask Hitch when we get back."
Salty made his way back down the line, rolling along with the trucks and brake van in front of him. "Not often we did trip freights back in the day!" he said.
"I thought you spent most of your time in the yard," Sunny answered.
"Pottering up and down the yards, usually in the spaces where the E2s and S100s had previously worked," Salty replied. "Sometimes goods needed moving up to Southampton station to be loaded onto parcels trains heading for Waterloo, so we often got used for those tasks as it made no sense to send a Class 73 down into the docks."
"That makes sense, actually," Sunny said.
Before long, they were back in the yard, and moved the vans into the sidings before heading back to the shed.
"What was that?" Bellerophon asked. "That van is seriously smelly!"
"It's full of cheese," Sunny explained. "It's from the Haven estate. Turns out making cheese is one of Lord Haven's hobbies he indulges in when not helping Lady Haven run the Duchy."
"If the amount of paper sitting on her desk is anything to go by it's a very demanding job," Misty added.
"You're telling me!" Pipp said. "Sometimes mom gets so engrossed in it she forgets to eat!"
Just then, they saw Porter moving the vans... to the wrong siding and the wrong train. "Stop!" Salty shouted. "Those don't go there!"
But it was too late. The vans were put into a train filled with heavy machine parts. And with a roar Charles set off with the load for Truro.
"We have to get after him!" Sunny said, and moved Salty back to access the main. Once the signal had cleared, they set off for Truro themselves.
Charles soon noticed something was off. "Can you smell a smell?" he asked.
Zipp shook her head. "I can't smell a smell. It might be manure." She put her head out of the window- and immediately pulled it back in. "Yuck! That's awful!" She grabbed the radio. "Control, this is 33021, requesting permission to make an out of schedule stop at Penrhyn. Issue with cargo. Over?"
"33021, this is control. Permission granted. Out."
Once they pulled into Penrhyn Zipp quickly identified the problem. "It's coming from the vans behind you directly," she said. "But what could be in them to be producing such a stink?"
"Wait!" called a voice, and Salty rattled into the other platform. "The vans are wrong!"
"What's wrong?" Charles asked.
Once Salty was safely stopped, Sunny got out and crossed to the other platform via the foot crossing at the south end of the station. "Those vans weren't meant to be in this train. They haven't got machine tools. They're full of cheese!"
"Cheese?" Zipp asked. "As in the cheese dad makes?"
"The very same, as I picked it up earlier today," Sunny explained. "It got put into this formation by mistake."
Zipp held her nose and opened the door to reveal a scene of disaster. Cheese was floating all over the place, and had largely escaped from its packaging. It was all pooling on the floor in a large, sticky puddle.
"That stuff is not safe for human consumption," Zipp said, as she shut the doors the again. "Reminds of the scene of carnage Cloudpuff made when he ate Pipp's bath bombs."
"What can we do?" Sunny asked. "Your dad's gonna be so cross with us!"
Lord Haven wasn't cross. In fact, he was quite understanding. "It's my fault for not putting them in a refridgerated van," he said to Zipp and Sunny. "No wonder it became so runny so quickly. I happen to have another batch ready for delivery if you can get some XP rated vans."
"XP?" Sunny asked. "As in the operating system?"
"Means the van has refridgeration," Zipp helpfully clarified. "Let's go!"
Thankfully, the yard in Falmouth had some XP rated vans, so Salty brought them up to the estate. The cheese was loaded and soon cooled down, so it wouldn't spoil on its way to its customers. Salty brought the load down and ensured that it was put into the correct train.
That evening, the team were putting the engines away for the night. "Well, that was certainly a pungent day," Sunny said. "I won't be forgetting this one in a hurry."
"Neither will any of us, I reckon," Hitch added. "Who knew cheese could be so smelly?"
"Cheese makers?" Ray suggested. "They would know a lot about cheese, in fact..."
The others tuned him out as he began to ramble. "But still," Porter said, "cheese is very useful."
"And I made something for us to have for dinner tonight!" Izzy said, and placed a bit pot on the table nearby. "Cheese pie at my house!"
And they all laughed, seeing the funny side of the situation.