Apologies for the lack of blogging recently but the end of last week was rather convivial, with some unexpected consequences. Dawn and I had planned to stay at her parents over in Huddersfield on Friday night as we were spending Saturday enjoying a festive meal with some of the past and present Honley Male Voice choir members as a guest of Tony, and old friend of John and Norah (my in-laws). A lovely meal was rounded off by the choir members carol-singing outside Tony’s neighbours. All was well until be got back to find Norah had fallen outside the house and badly gashed her right hand as well as scraping her arm. Sadly, 83 year old don’t bounce very well, so there was nothing for it but a trip to Huddersfield A&E department to get the would cleaned and possibly stitched. A&E is hardly the place you want to spend a Saturday evening but thankfully (although they were short-staffed) we were there early enough to miss the pubs chucking out rush. The lack of information was frustrating, but everyone sang the praises of the staff who looked after Norah. By the time we left there was no way Dawn and I were heading home, so a 2nd night at the in-laws was arranged in order for us to be there on Sunday morning if we were needed. Norah had been a real trooper on the Saturday but was obviously suffering more by Sunday as she had a restless night. I’ve told Norah that I’m buying her a ‘onesie’ lined with bubble-wrap for Xmas and it’s to be worn at all times when she’s out with us - from now on!

Dee and I returned home that afternoon and I started to pick up the threads of work but my heart wasn’t in it and I made a trip to my local pub and ended up having one to many beers with the boys. Not my most sensible decision…

So, today’s been a busy day where the only time I’ve moved out of the office is to go to the loo or the kitchen! Mind you, the weather’s defaulted back to ‘miserable’, so I’ve hardly missed anything. Most of the morning it felt like living in the twilight zone! Still, I’ve managed to get a fair bit done including sorting out a many old photos that were held in queue for editing. Today’s picture is one of them. It was taken 19 years ago, on the 24th November 2004 when we were busy building High Speed 1 and the new domestic stations at St Pancras as in those days we had a Government with a sense of ambition and purpose.

If you want to see many more pictures of High Speed 1 being built, follow this link.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, 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 that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312