God, what a miserable day it’s been here weather-wise in the Calder Valley. I don’t the rain’s stopped for more than a few minutes. The already saturated ground can’t hold anymore water, leaving to the roads turning into streams as the rain does its best to escape downhill to the river.

Thankfully, Dee’s making a recovery from her migraine so my nurses uniform consigned to the back of the wardrobe for a while, although the Chef’s hat will be getting quite a bit of wear this week as I take over the cooking once more in order to allow Dawn to play catch-up with work. I’m swapping between that many costumes at the moment I feel like Mr Benn!

The weather’s been doubly disappointing as I’d hoped to be able to do a lot of work in the gardens, getting them tidied up in preparation for the winter. As it was the best I could manage was an hour out at the back, getting soaked whilst trimming back the wall-mounted planters and slipping all over the shop on the sodden leaves festooning the cobbles. The leaves have now been swept up into a soggy pile waiting for a drier day when I can bag ’em up for a trip to the recycling centre so at least a portion of what I’d been intending was ticked off the list. Plus, for me, gardening is therapy. It gets you away from the trials and tribulations of the human world to something far simpler but at the same time very satisfying. Plus, plants don’t bitch or argue, judge you or otherwise waste their time. I like that…

Come late afternoon and with the rain increasing in tempo there was nothing left for it but to retreat indoors and back up to the office, to take refuge in picture editing. I’m not a fan of sitting in front of a TV vegetating, I need to feel I’ve achieved something each day. So, whilst Dawn’s pinched my chef’s hat to cook home-made apple crumble (the smells wafting up from the kitchen are mouth-watering) I’ve cleared the deck of edited pictures from last weeks conference and started on another project.

I’ve a folder full of scanned slides that are too scratched or otherwise damaged to be added to my Zenfolio picture website without a substantial amount of retouching and repair in Photoshop. Today’s picture is one of them. This sot was taken in Kandy, Sri Lanka in February 1992.

This is W2 Class No 711 preparing to leave with a passenger train for the Hill Railway. The W2 class were 1440hp B-B type diesel-hydraulic locomotives. Built by LEW Henningsdorf, East Germany, Numbered 703 to 716, 14 of them were built in 1969 with the prototype (numbered 729). following in 1972. None remain in service, having been withdrawn from the 1990s onwards due to the difficulty in getting spare parts. One (715) was rebuilt in 2015 with a Paxman V12 engine, but this too has been withdrawn.

If you want to see more images of Sri Lankan railways. Click on this link.

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