I’m typing this from Bigland Towers, which is rather unfortunate as you should be receiving this missive from darkest Devon…

On Tuesday Dawn and I were due to drive down to North Devon in order to stay with some old friends who moved there from West Yorkshire a few years ago. It would have been the first chance we would have had to visit them as Covid got in the way before now. Then on Monday we received a message that the pair of them had gone down with a stomach bug so we provisionally knocked the trip back for 24 hours. On Tuesday we found out the bug wasn’t of the 24 hour variety so we reluctantly (but sensibly) decided to postpone our visit until next year due to hectic schedules between now and then. We were all gutted as our friends had planned some brilliant trips such as beach walks and (of course) railways.

Our ‘rain-check’ proved to be eminently sensible in more ways than one as the weather here in West Yorkshire and in North Devon was shocking – and in many points in between it seems. We’ve had torrential rain and gales so driving all that way on motorways would not have been fun at all – especially as we’d planned to do the 300 mile trip in a day. So, we’ve stayed at home, which has been frustrating as the climatic conditions have made it impossible to get much exercise in. I could have gone walking but even with full waterproofs it would’ve been a miserable experience. Instead I’ve been trying to stop the garden blowing away as my Gladioli and other plants have taken a battering. We’re now on day 3 and the weather’s finally changed. We nipped out for lunch with Dawn’s parents over at a garden centre near Holmfirth where I picked up some Pansies to replace some of the summer plants that are past their best. Late afternoon blue skies put in an appearance, the wind abated and the rain finally sodded off. So, tomorrow, rather than enjoying the hedonistic delights of Devon I’ll be at home, repairing the garden and putting up shelves. However, all’s not lost, we’re only stuck here until Saturday, then we head down to Surrey, where we’ll be based for a week – and the weather forecast is looking very promising indeed. I’m hoping I may be able to take the camera for a walk around this neck of the woods on Friday, but we’ll see how much gets done tomorrow…

I’ll leave you with a picture from one of the lines I should be back exploring next week. Here’s the old signalbox at Haselmere station, seen on the 5th July 2017.

The Portsmouth direct line is in the process of being renewed and resignalled. You can learn more about the project here.

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