I wanted to quickly scribble something as I’ve blogs describing the last three day partially written but I’m not going to finish any of them before Sunday – which will be my last lockdown blog.

From Monday ‘non-essential’ shops will reopen and lockdown really ceases to exist for most people. I’ll still be describing my experiences, but not as a daily diary. There’s so many things to blog about at the moment that I simply haven’t had time to do. I’ve a big update on the HS2 rail project that I want to pen and I’ve also got a couple of commissioned articles I need to crack on with. Oh, and there’s still the absolute shambles that passes for a Government in this country – and we’re only 200 days from crashing out of the EU and all the treaties we’ve benefitted from – with nothing to replace them. Then there’s the events of today.

There are times when I despair of this country. 60,000 deaths from Covid, an economy that’s contracted by 20%, the Tories hell bent on a no-deal Brexit – yet many of you are distracted by fighting over statues FFS!

This means you can expect a lot of blogs – but with a slightly different focus. I’ve even got a couple of ‘down memory lane’ blogs in mind, and whatever happens, there’ll always be a picture of the day. Talking of which, here’s one from the batch of slides I was scanning this morning…

Picture of the day

Anyone who’s passed through Wigan by rail has probably caught a glimpse of this advert for the towns most famous export. Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls, which is painted on the side of a building next to Wallgate station but is easily visible from the West Coast Main Line. I’ve passed it since I was a kid although it’s still there today,  but back in 2002 (when this picture was taken) I manged to get a shot of it in ideal conditions when was exploring Wigan to collect pictures for a forthcoming Lonely Planet guide to England. I’ve just started scanning the album that contains these old slides. There’s a real mix of stuff so more will turn up as pictures of the day – just to give you a bit of variety!

Right, it’s Saturday night, it’s been a busy day – so I’m off to spend some time with my wife! See you tomorrow!

 

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us locked-down freelances need all the help that we can get…
Thank you!