Today’s never really taken off for a whole host of reasons, one of which has been the weather. This time last week it was glorious, now it’s back to being cold, dismal and wet, with another storm (this one’s called ‘Freya’) on the way. We’d various chores planned and the hope was we’d get out for a walk afterwards, but the weather kyboshed that. Instead we sought refuge in our local pub for an hour and enjoyed a few laughs with some of the other locals. One (whom I won’t name) kept us all laughing with stories of his antics in his earlier years when he was still in the army (but on leave). Anyone who’s ever spent much time with ex-squaddies will have an inkling of what I mean! To say it’s not all ‘for Queen and country’ would be an understatement! For beer aficionado’s, here’s what was available at the Big 6 today.

Afterwards we drifted home and decided to have a relaxing afternoon that involved less activity and more care-free time. That said, Dawn’s been busy cooking and I’ve managed to get the slides I started scanning yesterday edited and on my Zenfolio website. You can find them via this link but here’s a taster. It’s another shot of London Kings Cross in 1996 in the very early days of privatisation, when the late, unlamented Railtrack was in charge of the network infrastructure.

Nowadays the station looks very different. Railtrack was abolished in 2002 and infrastructure became the remit of Network Rail. They spent several hundred million pounds on rebuilding the station, renewing the roof you see here and expanding facilities to the West. It’s a very different place now. Behind the clock (which has moved to the opposite side of the station) a new platform (0) has been installed where the old taxi rank once was. HSTs like this still visit, but they’ll begin to be replaced later this year by new Hitachi Azumas.

Now I’ve got the pictures scanned it’s time for a quiet night in front of the TV watching Netflix. We watch very little terrestrial TV nowadays as it’s mostly dozens of channels of rubbish.