Apologies for absence but I’ve had little time to blog these past few days. After the CRN awards on Thursday night there was little rest for the wicked (despite the late finish) as we were off early the next morning, joining a special train laid on by East Midlands railway as part of the celebrations. Our destination was the Barrow Hill roundhouse near Chesterfield, traversing a line that normally only sees freight trains. About forty hardy souls took the trip to enjoy a guided tour around the site which is now a commercial and operational railway depot with a museum (the roundhouse) attached. We were lucky enough to be shown around by the museum’s founder Mervyn Allcock and get a sneak preview of Barrow Hill’s brand-new £6m research centre building.

Catching the special train back to Chesterfield Dawn and I headed home whilst the rest of the group were treated to a George Stephenson tour (he’s buried in Chesterfield). I needed to get back as my work wasn’t finished. I’d still a huge number of pictures from the awards to edit and prepare. In the digital age post editing is almost as big a job as actually taking the pictures. Gone are the days when you just handed over some rolls of film that you’d had developed!

Saturday saw us take a little time off and nip out to enjoy the sunshine and a meal at the Olive Branch near Marsden in the Colne valley, which made a nice break. Then it was back to the grindstone until today when I had the decks cleared of pictures and (just as importantly) invoices!

Now I’m sitting at home listening to the wind roaring around the cottage as the weather’s taken another turn for the worse with heavy rain and gales, which meant my daily constitutional was rather cut short this afternoon. I don’t mind walking in the wind, but when it’s whipping horizontal rain at you that’s a different matter! But, tomorrow’s another day, so lets see what it brings. Chaos, probably as that seems to be the prevailing mood thanks to the madman in the White House….

In the meantime, here’s a few images from the past few days.

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/

Cheers,

Paul