Tag Archives: Lockdown

Lockdown. Day 50 (Tuesday)

13 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Harvil Rd Hs2 protest, Hs2, Lockdown, Musings

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Today the pair of us were back at work in our various offices and neither of us minded being at home in the least. The weather had taken on a distinctly chilly feel with cloudy skies and a biting wind so being cooped up indoors was the least of our concerns. We were warm, safe and busy. One lighter moment was recording a short video to add to a collection of lockdown birthday wishes for our friend Mervyn Allcock (of Barrow Hill roundhouse fame). Merv and his partner Alexa are in lockdown in Truro, so it was an inspired idea for a group of his friends to send him greetings.

Job done, the two of us cracked on. I’ve been remiss in scanning slides over the past few days, so I wanted to have a good solid day scanning, which I did. By the end of the day I’d managed to get nearly 60 either scanned and/or edited and onto my Zenfolio website, which I felt pretty chuffed about as it meant the end’s in sight with yet another album.

Whilst I was busy scanning I kept an ear to the ground listening to the antics of the Extinction Rebellion anti Hs2 protesters at Harvil Rd. HS2’s bailiffs had started evicting three of the protesters camps earlier this morning and it really wasn’t going well for the protesters. Despite the fact they’d had ages to prepare for this moment it was pretty much a walkover. Two of their encampments were very quickly cleared, whilst the third (an old garage) was also rolled up after a forced entry which only took an hour or so, leaving a handful of protesters inside who’d secured themselves to the building in a futile attempt to drag things out. It was pitiful to listen to as there was lots of screaming and shouting from the protesters and wild accusations of brutality – all to no avail. Quite how this rag-bag group is meant to stop Hs2 when they can’t even stop themselves being arrested is a mystery! Their only armament is weapons-grade hypocrisy and fake news –  as this tweet and picture demonstrates.

whistle

By the time this claim appeared the three camps were firmly in the possession of the bailiffs, not the protesters! Oh, and there was no High Court injunction either – that never happened. What did happen is the protesters scored a classic own-goal with this picture. The young protester isn’t wearing a mask, but she is blowing a whistle. If she was a Covid carrier she would be spreading it far and wide in the air with droplets from her whistle – yet these people constantly whine about HS2 workers not social distancing (ignoring the fact different guidelines apply to construction workers, bailiffs and the police). As for the person strumming a guitar in the background, well – that’ll really stop Hs2! What a pantomime…

I kept scanning until 16:00 when I finally had the opportunity to nip out for a long walk to the Supermarket to pick up some supplies for later, as our group had arranged to have a conference video call with Merv and toast his birthday. Our celebration was pretty far flung as it included people from Halifax, Warrington, Lichfield, Grantham, Norwich and London – as well as Truro of course. A few beers were sunk and stories swapped, along with some pithy comments about the new Covid strategy – as you might expect from a group of people who work on the railways or in the rail media. Even so, it was a fun hour – although all of us can’t wait for it to be safe (and possible) to celebrate properly, face to face in a Pub!

Celebration over, I joined Dawn for her evening perambulation around the woods and parks where we live so that we had some quality time together whilst getting our daily exercise. At least that’s going to be easier from tomorrow as we’re no longer officially limited to one stroll per day.

On our return and despite the coolness of the weather we both tucked into a home made fresh Tuna steak and tinned Octopus salad, which brought back fond memories of a trip to Portugal a decade ago now. Oh, to be sat at a table in a lovely little taverna there right now!

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Lockdown. Day 49 (Monday).

11 Monday May 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Lockdown, Musings

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*I know this blog’s a few days, late as it’s not appeared until Wednesday – I’m trying frantically to catch up, honest! *

The pair of us threw the rule book out of the window this morning and decided to indulge in the nearest thing to a ‘duvet day’ we’ve had through the entire lockdown! Both of us slept through until 08:30. Even when we woke up and made a drink we went straight back to bed to browse social media and gauge the reaction to the PM’s awful interview last night. Did it seem as bad to others as it did to us? The answer came through as a pretty clear yes. Cabinet Ministers and Tory backbenchers were getting savaged on national TV with both Dominic Raab and Andrew Bridgen having car-crash interviews. Let’s face it, if they didn’t understand what the new advice was – what chance did anyone else stand? Other commentators were just as unkind. Both of us felt uneasy about the Governments new strategy. Having been around the political block a few times I was even more scathing of it than Dawn as I saw it as an attempt by the Government to absolve themselves of responsibility by passing the buck to ordinary people. Now, if you contracted Covid it would be your fault for not being ‘alert’ enough. Needless to say, social media soon went into overdrive to parody the new slogan and design. This one pretty much sums up my take on the new advice.

govt

Dawn and I had a long discussion about what we thought we should be doing and the pair of us agreed that we’d be sticking to the old advice for now – along with the Scots and the Welsh! We’ve a responsibility not just to ourselves but also Dawn’s parents, who we shop for. Relaxing lockdown now when the Governments so unprepared is only going to lead to another spike in the infection rate, and we don’t want to be part of that. I hope we’re wrong, but we’ll find out the truth in the next couple of weeks…

We finally got our arses in gear not long after midday when we moved down into the living room where Dawn had her massage bed set up in order to give me a Reiki session. Dee’s recently trained in Reiki, which she’s really taken to. My treatment lasted for an hour, which really surprised me as it seemed like no time at all, but then it’s a lovely experience.

Suitably refreshed, relaxed and appreciative I scooted into my office for a short spell of slide scanning in order to make some progress before the two of us took our daily constitutional, although it wasn’t far enough for me to get my normal level of exercise as we had to be home in time for the Platt family Zoom call.  Needless to say, Johnson’s (recorded) speech to the nation was discussed and critiqued before we moved on to lighter matters. The internet’s (and Zoom) has proved its worth in keeping us all together, but it will never be a substitute for the real thing – human contact.

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Lockdown. Day 47 (Saturday).

10 Sunday May 2020

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*Warning, blog under construction*

There wasn’t much chance of a lie-in today as Dawn was up with the larks as part of her ‘virtual retreat’ course. She was up before 06:00 in order to get ready for a yoga and meditation session that started at 06:30 so I seized the day and started working in the office, preparing the next batch of slides for editing and scanning and also catching up on some blogging. But my main focus of the day was going to be other than work. I’ve been trying to up my fitness levels by increasing the distance I’ve been walking and today provided me with the ideal opportunity as it was a mix of DIY, shopping and photography.

One job I’ve been meaning to finish for quite some time (no, not the bathroom – another job!) has been repainting the back of the cottage. As we’ve had such fantastic weather (and today was the hottest so far) it made sense to concentrate on that, so I was out quite early but not so early that my activities might piss-off the neighbours! A few hours of vigorous sanding, cleaning and undercoating later and the pipework and guttering looked pretty good. The glossing would have to wait for a day but as I needed to buy some white spirit to clean the brushes that wasn’t a problem.

My next task was to wander down into Sowerby Bridge in search of said liquid, plus some food supplies. It was a gorgeous day for a stroll so I took the camera with me in order to be able to get a couple of  shots that would help tell the story of the impact Covid-19 is having on the railways. Walking down the hill into town I was struck by just how busy it was traffic-wise. There were far more cars on the road than I’ve seen since lockdown started and I’ve no idea what they were doing that caused them to be there. ‘Essential’ journey’s? I don’t think so – not for many of them anyway. Still, I’m not going to preach. If someone’s self-isolating in a motor vehicle and breaking the monotony of being stuck at home by going for a drive without putting anyone else at risk…

As Sowerby’s only DIY shop is shut for the durations my first port of call was a shop I never use – B&M bargains. The queue to get in was tiny and it only took 5 minutes to get in but my time was wasted as they’d sold out of white spirit. What are people doing with the stuff, or is it folks like me who’re using lockdown to catch-up on some DIY? My next port of call was going to be Tescos but time was tight as there was a train due that I really wanted to try and get shot of so I ended up at a deserted railway station and realised there were other topical shots to get too. Here’s one.

DG342099crop

A pair of Northern Class 195s pull out of Sowerby Bridge station on their way from Manchester to Leeds. There were less than half a dozen people aboard. The station car park is deserted. Before the Covid Pandemic empty car parking spaces here were as rare as rocking horse shit. Now?…

Meanwhile, this is what I was after. The Calder valley’s gained a regular Trans-Pennine express service – although it’s non-stop! Here’s 185130 powering through Sowerby bridge whilst working 1P73, the 11:10 Manchester Airport to Redcar Central. There are now two trips each way on this route.

DG342103. 185130. Sowerby Bridge. 9.5.20crop

Having got the pictures in the can I nipped over to Tescos to pick up the shopping I needed. The queue was only a couple of dozen long so it didn’t impinge on my day. Suitably stocked up on non-alcoholic fizz for Dawn I wended my way home up the hill, which certainly gave me a bit of exercise. In fact, it made me keen to stretch myself further. As I hadn’t been able to get any white spirit I decided to throw caution to the wind and head into Halifax for the first time since lockdown started. Having seen just how busy Sowerby Bridge was I was concerned about what I might find in the town centre. I needn’t have worried. In fact, it was far quieter!

 

 

 

 

 

Lockdown. Day 46 (Friday)

08 Friday May 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Down memory lane, Lockdown, Photography, Politics, Railways

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Christ, if this is what life’s like when we’re meant to have loads of time on our hands due to lockdown, can I have my old one back, please?

My best intentions of getting up early went out of the window this morning and for the first time in ages I didn’t get out of bed before 08:00 which was a bit of a surprise as I distincly remember being awake at 06:00 and thinking ‘I’ll just have another half an hour’. Damn those snooze buttons! I wouldn’t mind but it’s not even mine as Dawn has control of the alarm clock/radio.

Once the day started it was a busy,- if slightly different one. Dawn’s on her ‘virtual retreat’ for the next few days, so I’m doing everything I can so facilitate and support her doing it but it does mean we’re living rather separate lives for the next few days. Dee printed out her schedule activities and stuck it on the fridge in the kitchen so that I know what she’s up to and when so that I don’t disturb her at a crucial moment, like meditation. This means that the living room is very much ‘her space’ and I’m relegated to using the back door to come in and out, not that it’s a problem.

Yet again we’ve had another beautiful day, weather wise. I shadowed Dawn on her morning walk, which meant that I got a lot of steps in early which makes a change. Recently I’ve taken to getting in an evening stroll to boost my exercise. Whilst it’s technically breaking the guidelines it’s not a problem here as our road is deserted at that time of day. I can walk for half an hour and not bump into another soul or even see a car as everyone’s stuck indoors. Why wouldn’t they be – there’s nowhere else to go!

Back at home I disappeared into the office to spend several hours scanning more old slides, The job’s no less tedious but at least I’m slowly making progress, although it is rather frustrating being stuck inside when the weather’s so good! I’d love to be out and about with the camera, but discipline’s required right now and it means I’m getting something positive out of lockdown.

Once immersed in scanning the day soon flew by. I’ve both laptops on the go at the moment so that whilst I’m scanning with one I can be watching Netflix or the BBCiPlayer with half an eye on the other. Sometimes the distraction’s provided by birds visiting the feeder hung outside the office window as it sees a constant stream of Tits who come to plunder the sunflower seeds I keep it filled with. I avoided the VE celebrations on TV, preferring to remember those who fought and lost their lives in my own way rather then join in what was starting to feel like a jingoistic celebration rather than a reflection on events. No doubt many would disagree with my interpretation, but then there does seem to be a coercive element to these things nowadays, rather like the ritualistic clapping for the NHS on Thursdays. When people are shamed on social media for not taking part, you know that things have gone too far. This pressure is also being used to stifle criticism of the way the Government’s handling the Covid pandemic, with some claiming that it’s somehow unpatriotic to criticise as it’s a national emergency and we should all be ‘pulling together’ (whatever that’s meant to mean in this context). This authoritarianism and herd mentality worries me. It’s too close to the right-wing media and political parties tactics of labelling people ‘traitors’ for opposing Brexit. We seem to be sailing far too close to an Orwellian totalitarianism nowadays, and it’s disturbing how easily some people embrace it.

I knocked off slightly earlier than usual as it is Friday after all. I migrated to the bench in the front garden and sat with a beer, enjoying soaking up the glorious sunshine for a while until 6, when it was time to join the gang from the ‘Big 6’ for our weekly quiz session held on Zoom. Eight of us played this week, many of the gang joining from their respective gardens as they’d got the same idea as me. After weeks of lockdown and barely talking to a soul other than Dawn it’s great to have a semblance of normality restored by joining in the laughter and brain-teasers in the quiz, although I’m looking forward to the day we can restart this where we should be – in the pub!

The rest of the evening passed off quietly at home with the pair of us keeping occupied in different ways. I managed to upload more of my haul of edited pictures to my website, so felt the week ended well. Here’s a couple as an illustration. It’s a tale of two London stations…

3120. 47350. London Kings Cross. 02.02.1993crop

Here’s London Kings Cross on the 2nd February 1993. As it used to look before the recent refurbishment and when Mail trains still ran. It was far dirtier and more cluttered than nowadays, with lots of rubbish deposited on the oil-stained tracks. Railfreight distribution No 47350 stands at the head of a rake of vans carrying mail to the North. Class 47/3s didn’t normally operate these services as the locomotives had no train heating, so I’m assuming the booked engine had failed.

03137. 47853. 43072. Class 47 ex Nottingham. Class 43 is 16.00 to Sheffield. London St Pancras. 09.03.1993crop

Here’s London St Pancras on the 19th March 1993, with a Class 47 which had arrived on a service from Nottingham standing next to an HST set which is waiting to depart as the 16:00 to Sheffield. It’s safe to say that the station doesn’t look like this anymore! This area is now home to Eurostars!

If you want to have a look at any of the other pictures I’ve added to my Zenfolio picture website just follow this link.

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Thank you!

 

 

Lockdown. Day 44 (Wednesday).

06 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Lockdown, Musings, Railways, Uncategorized

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Despite the routine of life at the moment, it still manages to throw you enough curved balls and surprises to make it interesting…

This morning Dawn was first out of bed as I’d had a less than perfect night’s sleep due to our moggie (Jet) deciding that what’s ours is his. He waits until you’re almost asleep then jumps on the bed to wedge himself between us. He’s such an old boy now (eighteen and a half) that most of the time we don’t have the heart to kick him off – but he doesn’t half take up a lot of room. So, despite the fact I’d had a relatively early night I hadn’t had a good one. Dawn bounded out of bed to do her exercise regime in the living room but the most active I got was to make coffee and retreat back to bed with the laptop and catch up with world events before a shower and my ‘commute’ to the office. It was a crying shame to be stuck indoors as the weather was stunning. There may have been a morning chill in the air first thing but that was because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! Here’s the view from the road above our house (looking across Sowerby Bridge and the Calder Valley) as I walked up the hill to combine getting some of the food shopping for Dawn’s parents and daily exercise.

I’d have loved to have enjoyed a day outdoors, soaking up the sun on such a fabulous day but I had too much to do. I’ve not had chance to edit them and put the results on my website yet but I’ve scanned another forty old slides which include November 1992 to January 1993. It was a period when my life changed completely, so it’s quite strange looking back at them now and remembering. 

Part of the reason I’ve not got them edited today was that other things kept side-tracking me – but in a positive way. A picture request from a magazine saw me scurrying through the archives to dig out what they wanted, then I had a Zoom conference call scheduled to talk about the Community Rail Network awards. Oh, the joys of online meetings! Yes, they’re ideal for when needs must but the idea that these will render travel redundant in future is fanciful to say the least. There’s too many distractions or glitches and body language is next to impossible to read. I lost the call for a few minutes as we suffered a power cut – the second time that’s happened in a week. It was back in an instant but it took several for the internet to reboot.

Finally, I got chance to break away from staring at a screen and retreated into the garden with a good old paper copy of RAIL magazine to catch up on the latest industry news in the sun! The ‘dead tree’ media still has some advantages. You need no batteries or sockets, you don’t need to worry about flare on a screen and you don’t have to fret about a wifi connection. Oh, and you can also use the mag as a sunshade!

The clear skies and sunshine lasted right through to the bitter end when they were overtaken by planet’s rotation and replaced by a glorious dark night and a full moon. If I hadn’t so many things to do I’d have been tempted to set up my camera on a tripod up on the promenade and try some long-exposure shots. Sadly, with the length of exposure that I’d need for what I have in mind the local constabulary may be less than sympathetic in these coronavirus times.

Instead of star-gazing, here’s a look back at the past and the archive pictures I’ve been scanning today. This is Tilbury Riverside station in Essex, just a few days before it closed on the 30th November 1992. Oddly, despite the fact I’d lived in London since 1986, this was the only time I ever visited. I don’t know why, other than it obviously wasn’t a priority at the time, despite the fact I lived just a stones throw from the London, Tilbury & Southend railway in East London. Now, how I wish I had as Tilbury Riverside would have made a fascinating picture study. 

03062. 313787. In the last week before closure. Tilbury Riverside. November.1992 crop

This is how I remember much of the railways from my youth. Decrepit and decaying. Forget the rose-tinted spectacles, the one thing money wasn’t spent on was stations. How many were stripped back to bare platforms and had decent facilities demolished and replaced by bus shelters to save a few quid on maintenance and wages?

Tilbury Riverside is no more but the site is still rail connected as it’s now used by freight trains from the docks. When I’ve had chance to edit the other pictures I’ll add a couple more. Right now it’s time for bed as we’ve a busy shopping day ahead of us…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lockdown. Day 43 (Tuesday).

05 Tuesday May 2020

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Despite getting up before 07:00 I still didn’t get everything done that I’d hoped and planned to. So much for all this time we’re meant to have on our hands due to lockdown! On the bright side, I did achieve a lot. Having left Dawn in bed with our moggie keeping guard over her I made some coffee before heading to the office. It’s not exactly an onerous commute from the kitchen, one flight of stairs and I’m there! The first assignment of the day was to get a the next batch of slides scanned and edited whilst setting up another batch ready to join the queue. Whilst they’re scanning I normally have time to peruse the web and catch up on the days world and financial news in between. The media isn’t making as depressing and perturbing reading as it did a few weeks ago due to the fact so many countries are slowly feeling their way out of lockdown and making plans for the future. Quite how long this process will last before normality returns is anyone’s guess as this would depend on countries having a vaccine against Covid-19.

With this in mind I’m prepared to be in complete lockdown for another week or two yet. I’ve plenty to keep me occupied, so the only real negative impact on me is financial. I’m one of the lucky ones in that I’ve been able to adapt to lockdown without too much mental stress, as has Dawn. I’m not saying it’s been all plain sailing, but at least we’re both going to come out of this still married!

Dawn was back at work today and straight into conference calls, catching up with her colleagues and what’s going on in the world of Community Rail – a sector that’s not had it easy as many of the volunteer groups rely on people who fit into various ‘at risk’ categories.

It was during one of Dawn’s conference calls that the Dell engineer arrived to take another look at my laptop. To maintain social distancing he worked in the kitchen like he did last time. The machine’s now running sweetly (I’m typing this on it new) and I’m hoping the glitches have finally been sorted out and I’ve a machine I can rely on. I’m keeping my old one up to date as a precaution  and basing everything in the Cloud so if anything does go wrong I can rapidly switch between machines. In fact it’s quite useful having both running at times as I can use one for slide scanning and picture editing and the other machine for emails and paperwork. Who says men can’t multi-task!

Once the Dell engineer had left I took a break from staring at screens to get my daily constitutional. The weather was ideal as it was sunny but not too hot so slogging up through the woods to the promenade didn’t leave me in a sweaty mess. After being in lockdown for so long and missing the levels of exercise I used to get I’m trying to ramp things up by increasing my target from the daily minimum of 12,500 steps to 17,000 which means I then surpass all my targets. Thankfully we live in an area where I can do this without putting anyone at risk I’d be buggered if I still lived in North London as 7 miles around a 30 foot garden would be stretching things a bit!

Sadly, with Dawn still working I had to walk solo. Once back at home I settled back down in front of the computers and managed to get 60 old pictures done today. You can find them on my Zenfolio website in this gallery.

I’m moving on through the years now and passed a significant (well, to me anyway) landmark. I’ve finished the years 1989 -1991. 1991 was important to me because in the October of that year I packed in my job as a Housing Officer in Tower Hamlets, paid a years rent on my shared flat and headed off to South-East Asia for a year. By the time I returned in October 1992 I’d visited India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia. I’d also travelled all the way overland through the Indonesian islands from Sumatra to West Timor and even got as far as Darwin in Australia before running out of time and money! One day I’ll write up my experiences of those days, when backpacking was very different to today…

The trip means that there’s a year-long gap in my UK rail archive, just at a time when the railways were going through another phase of replacing loco-hauled passenger services with yet more multiple units. This meant I was kept busy before I left documenting how things were before they changed forever. Of course, what I didn’t know at the time was that rail privatisation was looming. There wasn’t going to be a general election until 1992 and John Major’s Tories looked unlikely to win…

Here’s a sample picture that shows how much has changed.

03035. 87001. 13.12 to Liverpool Lime St. 87021. 09.10 from Liverpool Lime St. London St Pancras. 12.10.1991 crop

On the 12th October 1991 a pair of Class 87s stand at the buffers at St Pancras station London. No, this isn’t a mistake! Due to weekend engineering work Services from Liverpool were diverted away from Euston and into St Pancras. The trains were diesel hauled from Nuneaton across to the Midland Main Line and then down to Bedford where the Class 87s could run ‘under the wires’ to St Pancras. 87001 (on the left) waits to work the 13.12 to Liverpool Limes St whilst I’d arrived from Liverpool behind 87021 on the right which had worked the 09.10 from Lime St. I’d been back to Southport for the weekend to say my goodbye’s to my family. A few days later I flew out on a single ticket to Delhi, India, where the adventure began…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lockdown. Day 42 (Monday)

04 Monday May 2020

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Another day that didn’t quite go according to plan…

That’s partially because I got up later than expected. Today was Dawn’s last day on holiday and as she was having a lie in I ended up lying in for a bit. Mind you, the fact our moggie had pulled a fast one and dived on the bed during the night didn’t help. Much as we love him, he’s a bugger for pinching the middle of the bed!

Getting up late meant the working day was cut short by a couple of hours, so I spent longer scanning old slides to meet my target and less doing other stuff. Even so, It was a productive day. I hate ones where I feel I’ve not achieved anything. One thing I didn’t manage to sort out was getting my new laptop working again. It’s been faulty since last week. Despite spending over half an hour on the phone to the Dell helpdesk there was nothing to be done, so another of their engineers will be paying me a visit tomorrow. Hopefully, this time the repair will be permanent. The old machine I’m using at the moment is fine for office work but as the battery is fried it can’t move far.

Away from work the day went well. Dee kept herself busy with her exercise regime and then got stuck into the decorating jobs she’s occupied herself with these past few days. Yesterday she did an excellent job of prepping the porch for painting. Today the task was painting the living room window cills and surrounding plasterwork. I love her enthusiasm for getting hands-on with tasks like this as it’s very different from her day job.

The weather’s defaulted back to a mixture of sunshine and cloud, with only the slightest smattering of rain, which was great as it meant that when I finally went cross-eyed through staring at a screen all day I could go for a stroll without getting soaked. I didn’t go far but stuck to the usual woods/promenade/park circuit with a slight deviation to the supermarket. I was surprised how quite everywhere was. I didn’t even have to queue to get into Tesco’s. There’s been a few signs recently that more people are pushing the lockdown envelope at weekends, but there was little sign of that today.

Hopefully, we can start to see the lockdown begin to be relaxed. Although it’s early days yet there are positive signs that the number of cases and death toll is heading in the right direction. I just wish it was possible to have greater faith in the Governments statistics. Quite what the gradual relaxing will look like is open for debate. Right now, I’m not making any plans. besides, I’ve more than enough things to keep me occupied.

Whilst the majority of us are respecting the lockdown and social distancing I saw that the faux ‘Eco-warriors’ from ‘Extinction rebellion’ who’re protesting against building HS2, the new high-speed railway, were displaying their usual weapons-grade hypocrisy by pulling various stunts and protests along the route. Using banners carrying the slogan ‘NHSnotHS2’ they blocked an HS2 site entrance at Euston long enough to get a media photo call. Meanwhile, they had a few useless protesters up trees outside Euston station. All Londoners, of course. Oh, wait a minute…

One of the people up the trees was a certain Larch Maxey. The very same Larch Maxey who (until a couple of days ago) was at the Crackley Woods camp in Warwickshire. It seems the lockdown rules and social distancing don’t apply to these hypocrites. The very same rules they rant and rave about HS2 workers, police and bailiffs not obeying…

Here’s a picture of Maxey taken from one of the protesters Facebook pages.

Maxey

I wonder where the hypocrite will turn up next?

Needless to say, the protests didn’t stop a thing. They attracted some media attention but that was it. Work on Hs2 continued on sites from London to Birmingham with minimal disruption. This is the stupidity and futility of it all, the protests aren’t even a pin-prick to such a vast project which is gaining momentum all the time now that the main contractors are gearing up for what will be the largest construction project in Europe. You might as well attack a Rhino with a pea-shooter!

This evening has been more relaxed. Last night I’d cooked a tofu and tempeh veggie stir-fry, so I added some extra veggies to that to reinvent it for a second night as a quick and easy meal. Afterwards we spent time on a Zoom call with Dawn’s Brother and his family down in Farnham and her parents over in Huddersfield which makes the Covid lockdown more bearable and the distances between us shrink.

Tomorrow Dawn’s back at work and I’ll be kept occupied with scanning and paperwork. I’m hoping to catch up with some writing too (including the blogs I’d been determined to catch up with today!), so it’s goodnight from me with the intent of an earlier start tomorrow.

Lockdown. Day 41 (Sunday).

03 Sunday May 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Food and drink, Lockdown, Musings

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Wow! I’m way behind with these blogs and desperately trying to find the time to catch up. So much for the idea that there’s nothing to do because we’re stuck at home. It feels like I could do with another month of this just to catch up with all the stuff I’ve been hoping to get done.

It may officially have been the ‘day of rest’ today, but it felt like anything but for me. Whilst Dawn had a bit of a lie-in this morning I was up not long after 07:30 in order to sort out another batch of old slides to scan. I’ve moved on to another album of old railway pictures, this time from 1991. Unlike some of the later albums there’s very few duplicates in it so I have 500 different pictures to scan. As I’m lucky to get 40 done in a day there’s the best part of two weeks solid scanning to get through it. Will the lockdown last long enough for me to get all my old rail slides done? Who knows, so I’m making the most of the time I’ve got.

In between scanning there was the daily chores and everyday life to organise. I was on coffee duty this morning but Dawn made us brunch, which was something very different from our normal fare. Dee made the both of us fresh, home-made pancakes in what turned out to be a bit of a production line. We ate them straight out of the pan with freshly squeezed lemon and blueberry’s and they were gorgeous – although I may have made a bit of a pig of myself by eating six!

The pancake production line with the stove and two frying pans on the go just out of shot to the left. Cook and scoff! 

After brunch we divided our time between different jobs. Whilst I worked in the office scanning more old slides Dawn got stuck into some DIY and a project she’s been wanting to do for a while. The porch to the cottage has been overdue for a repaint for a few years now and with the improving weather it’s an ideal time to tackle the job – which Dee did with gusto! I could hear the furious wire-brushing and sanding from my office upstairs – along with the occasional shouts for advice or plea for supplies of refreshments.

And so the day passed – although I’ve no idea how it did it so quickly. Once the porch was prepared and Dee was occupied clearing up I pinched the ladders to clean all the back windows to the cottage. Well, if we’re going to be stuck indoors we might as well have clean windows to gaze (whistfully) out of!

I’d offered to cook a stir-fry this evening, using some of the Tofu we’d bought from the Moorcock shop, plus some Tempeh I’d spotted in our local Tesco’s. I marinaded both for a few hours in a mix of soy sauces, herbs and spices to give them a flavour boost before cooking them with some of the Moorcock’s organic veg and a load of rice noodles. The result was delicious, although I’m hoping none of the neighbours had any windows open as the mix of chili’s and spices certainly caught the back of the throat as they cooked!

Having eaten I worked off some of the calories by going for an evening constitutional up and down our road as it was too dark to stray through the woods to venture further. Evening time’s ideal to do this as it’s so quiet here. I spent 30 minutes to-ing and fro-ing without seeing a single car on the road. Bliss! Despite the enormous disruption the lockdown has caused to everyone’s lives there’s things I’m going to miss when things return to normal. The absence of road traffic being one. It’s been lovely to have the roads so free of vehicles.

The slides I’d scanned earlier are now on my Zenfolio website. I’ve started where I left off a few weeks ago with a previous album, which contained pictures of the open day at London’s Old Oak Common locomotive depot taken in August 1991. Here’s a sample.

02935. D400. D7018. D821. Old Oak Common open day. 18.08.1991 crop

A line-up of (mostly) preserved locomotives, including a trio of old Western region diesel-hydraulics that were once synonymous with Old Oak Common. At the time, who would have thought this depot would disappear? The whole area was razed a few years ago to make way for stabling sidings for the Crossrail train fleet. Now it’s not just the locomotives that are a memory…

You can find the rest of the pictures from the open day in this gallery. I’ve still a few more to add, which should get done in the next day or two. I’m looking forward to another busy week at home with plenty to keep me occupied, including catching up on a bit of blogging as I’ve been a bit tardy this weekend. Watch this space…

Lockdown. Day 37 (Wednesday).

30 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Lockdown, Musings

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Another day dawned with crappy weather but one that was enjoyable anyway as we were stepping off the lockdown treadmill – and it felt quite anarchic! How easily we’re pleased in these strange times!

Our often mundane and routine weekly schedule was being interrupted because we’d some extra shopping to do for Dawn’s parents, which meant – wo hoo! – we had a legimate excuse for a trip out in the car! The mission (which we’d chosen to accept) was to shop for a humoungous amount of meat from the excellent Bolster Moor farm shop which is high above Slaithwaite in the Colne Valley. John and Norah had sent us over their shopping list so we knew exactly what we were shopping for – which would restock their freezer for quite some time.

The trip over was a bit of a doddle as it’s cross-country on back roads. Although there seemed to be more people out and about recently traffic seemed to have died down again which was reassuring as the edges of lockdown have felt like they’re starting to fray. The Farm Shop was certainly taking social distancing seriously. No couples were allowed – only individuals, so Dawn went in and I stayed in the car and filled my time by blogging via my phone. Neither Dee nor I are big red meat eaters, but we do occaisionally indulge so Dawn picked up a selection for us which included minced beef, minced pork, chicken livers and bacon. Another bonus was being able to buy some flour, which is as rare as hen’s teeth nowadays. Bolster Moor have been buying it in industrial quantities and then putting it in smaller bags for resale. Apparently, packaging issues are one of the main reasons for shortages, not the inability of mills to supply the raw material. Folk are running out of packaging, not flour! Dee’s final purchase was one of the shops award winning Pork Pies for us to share as a treat. Admittedly, around this neck of the woods it’s almost impossible to find a pork pie that doesn’t carry the sobriquet ‘award winning’ – but with Bolster Moor’s the title’s well deserved!

Mercy mission done we drove over to John and Norah’s to deliver the goods, along with some other bits we’d picked up for them as part of our shopping trips. I feel for John and Norah, we get to do their shopping but they’re completely cut off from a lot of their normal life. Both of them are active and have a wide circle of friends with (until Covid-19 happened) a busy social calendar – all of which has had to come to an end for now and be put on hold until who knows when.

I’d packed my camera in the car on the off-chance there could be a picture opportunity in the offing but the weather conspired against us, so as we drove across the Colne valley and the railway from Manchester to Leeds a band of rain seemed to take delight in frustrating me by blocking off the views which would have been gorgeous a week earlier as we came back cross country via Slaithwaite – or ‘Slawit’ as some insist on saying – i’ve no idea on the correct way to pronounce it as even the local can’t agree on that one! I sometimes wonder if it’s a class thing in the same way that some people insist the word ‘bath’ has an R in it.

Back at home we dodged the rain and settled back into a routine. Dawn got busy in the kitchen sorting out our supplies whilst I retreated into the office to catch up on some work and process some more old railway pictures that were next in the queue whilst respondng to emails and trying to keep on top of information about the big, wide (lockdowned) world. Tomorrow we have another day where we sally forth – this time to shop for ourselves and visit a fishmongers that Dawn’s folks frequent but we’ve never visited…

 

Lockdown. Day 36 (Tuesday).

29 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Lockdown, Musings, Photography, Railways

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Today the weather really has changed. The broken cloud we had yesterday morphed into heavy grey, rainbearing skies this morning making the world look very different when I opened the bedroom blinds. It made me just how lucky that we’ve had over a month of near continuous sunshine just when we needed most. Imagine what people’s spirits might have been like going through lockdown when the weather was appalling?

Having kept my head down all Monday to complete my next article for RAIL magazine on the East London Line it was great to be able to put it to bed and get back to scanning my slide archive as that’s had to take a back seat this past week. I’ve several pages of my first set of pictures from 1989-90 to complete and I’m eager to get them finished as it feels like a milestone in what’s been a bloody long process! It’s not the most exciting of tasks, it’s very much a marathon, not a sprint, but after all these years it feels like the finisheing line’s in sight.

Whilst I’ve been doing this I’ve been kept entertained by a pair of Blackbirds who’re nesting in a tree at the back of the house. They keep foraging for food on the shed roofs opposite my office window and I’ve been helping them by keeping an eye out for the local cats who consider the area their territory. I’m making the moggies feel uncomfortable enough that they don’t hang around, giving the Blackbirds a free-fly zone. We have a cat ourselves but Jet is an old boy who’s 18 and a half, so his bird-catching days are long behind him. Oh, he’ll saunter around outside, but he’s unfazed by our feathered friends nowadays are barely gives them a second glance. The fact he’s as deaf as a post probably helps as he only notices them if they intrude on his line of sight. 

I was so engrossed in the process of scanning and editing several batches of slies that the day flew by. before I knew it we were in to evening. Dawn’s got the week off from work so she’s been busy downstairs with DIY, and getting exercise that way, so I headed out for an evening constitutional on my own, in the rain! There was no way I was going to get my daily target of 12,500 steps. Even so, it was lovely to get out and experience the wind and rain on my skin after a long day sat at a desk.

Here’s a couple of the images I’ve been scanning. This is a classic image of a railway that’s gone forever. On the 8th March 1990 a pair of Class 56s pass at Barnetby East junction in Lincolnshire. Nearest the camera is 56088 with a loaded train of HAA coal hoppers on its way from Immingham Docks to Scunthorpe where the coal will power the steelworks furnaces. In the background is 56090 heading back to the docks with the empties. the signalbox and semaphores here lasted until Christmas 2015 when the area was resignalled. The Four wheeled HAA coal wagons are long gone too, having been replaced with much higher capacity bogie hopper wagons which are kinder to the track (amongst other things). 

0616. 56088. 56090. Barnetby. 8.3.1990 copy

Here’s another, taken at Peterborough a few days later on the 12th March 1990 when the Class 91 locomotives were brand-new. Here’s 91011, named ‘Terence Cuneo’ (after the famous railway artist) out on a test train before entering passenger service. Now, 30 years later the Class 91 fleet is slowly being phased out of mainline service with LNER, although several are planned to remain in traffic until 2022. Will this plan survive the downturn in traffic due to Covid-19? Who knows? 

0648. 91011. Peterborough12.3.1990 copy

If you want to have a look through more of these old photos, follow this link to the ‘recent’ section of my Zenfolio website.