The Lurker

Well I suppose Man United are in a similar place, having started life as Newton Heath Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway

It’s been a strange Christmas and New Year. FiL has been ill for some years and got far worse about a month ago, and Mrs Lurker rushed up north before Christmas. He survived being moved to a hospice and she was back home for Christmas. We went up at New Year but returned as mentioned before, leaving Mrs Lurker with her Mum. FiL finally died at 10.30, peacefully. I am holding the fort here with the boys while Mrs Lurker is helping her Mum.

I used google maps / street extensively when preparing for our US and Canadian trips in the past few years. I found it very useful for picturing in advance where we’d be going.

language evolves all the time. We don’t speak Middle English- we don’t speak Victorian English either. Different to or different from don’t alter the meaning to the average speaker of English. I do probably tend to use “from” naturally. From my ambivalent response, youcan tell I am a bit younger than Peter; I was not really taught English grammar at school although I did have apostrophe s drummed into me - and that does change the meaning of the phrase. ironically I went to a grammar school! on the other hand, different than is meaningless to me.

As a child I was given Railways in the Years of Pre-Eminence by OS Nock. IThe Golsdorf "masterpiece" was always one of my favourites in it.

It wasn’t just me then!

Paddock Wood where I grew up had that too - I moved away in 85 - but I am not aware of a local gasworks or electricity station that might have led to a lights off time; I’d always assumed it was a function of being a (semi) rural place.

Greetings all from a windy Sidcup. Been up north to the in-laws; but FiL is seriously ill and so I and the boys came away a day early leaving Mrs Lurker with MiL. went in to the toon one day and the Tyne was amazingly still - some shots below of the reflections.

I can recommend “Modern Tagine Cookbook” by Ghillie Basan. the recipes are pretty easy to follow and the results tend to be tasty and well received by the Lurker Family- and even MiL. I don’t have a tagine; I just use a heavy bottomed saucepan. there are not too many specialised ingredients either.

Greetings from a mild Boring Borough where the night has drawn a veil over the grey skies. christmas meal will be turkey with the trimmings. I have a one person pud as I am the only one who likes it. today has been relatively quiet and it is just the four of us tomorrow. Relatives will be visited later in the week. have a great Christmas/ festive season.

I think sprouts used to be a lot more bitter- but it has been bred out of them in recent decades. Same thing had happened to aubergines apparently. No need to boil sprouts for ever and no need to salt aubergines or stir is you used to have to do, old recipes a La Mrs Beaton called for carrots to be boiled for ages too; maybe they were once less sweet as well.

Superb! there are similar pictures on the BBC where they are referred to as Mother-of-Pearl clouds

Happy birthday BR60103

The Icefields Parkway is magnificent- I have been lucky enough to do it twice, each time southwards. The first time was, like Tony, in sunshine and clear blue skies.Lake Louise had a marvellous early evening feel; it felt almost dreamlike. It was cloudy the second time but still dry, but still great views.

I’ve had fried Christmas Pudding as leftovers on Boxing Day- but not deep fried.

There's something really rather powerful about seeing something you've studied in the flesh so to speak. Even the Falmouth Ria and Malham, both of which came up in my Geography O level.

My Mum had a Rolf Harris Christmas Album that we listened to lots when I was little. I quite liked Six White Boomers and the one about "Forget you ever saw me dust". There was one about a Christmas Pig and one about a Banksia.

I remember as a child in Singapore that the person who dressed up as Father Christmas at the Sunday school party wore sandals.

A hard hat

Sounds a bit like my Grandma. When we were little and pestering her to do something, she’d say it would be done “now presently”, which meant it would done when she got to it, which might be a good long wait!

The earliest known ancestors of pelicans date back at least 36m years and are remarkably similar to today’s species. Clearly they mastered a particular niche and have been exploiting it ever since.

JVol1004 is great, the train framed by the arches and the tangle of bridges.

I think the biggest thing we could do for the planet is stop having so many children. There is something irksome with all these celebrities and their vast families. It makes the aspirational classes want big families too. i think Sir David Attenborough said it one of his shows but it doesn’t get repeated. controversially, the Chinese one child policy probably delayed some of the warming. and that is probably a little too political for which I apologise

I was interested that Nearholmer had seen the Night Ferry at Tonbridge. I was under the impression that it ran via Faversham and Canterbury East, and the SREMG site has a 1953 summer timing which shows the route as just that. Having said that, wikipedia mentions that it became electric hauled after the electrification of the South Eastern mainline in 1961 it was usually hauled by a class 71. I guess that routes were not fixed in stone and there were diversionary routes a-plenty. Olddudders' mention of BTR1 above reminds me he posted about the different routes as BT1, BT2 etc on a different thread (years ago probably!)

Greetings all from a grey Fold in the Hill at the southern extremity of the Boring Borough. WFH today - Younger Lurker is off school, having been sent home on Monday. First time I have had to dash home to pick him up. Amazingly Mrs Lurker managed to get a Doctor's appointment for him and he now has a course of antibiotics for a respiratory infection. According to his medical records, first lot of antibiotics since 2013, so he has been well for a good long time. We decided he should have today off to continue resting and go back to school tomorrow. I am keeping my head down as at least one set of accounts are due to be signed this week and I don't want to get any more last minute panic questions, where the auditors realise they have not tied something up. WFH probably doesn't help but as the tax part of the audit team are in Glasgow, it is not as if we can have a quick face to face chat to sort things out.... All the talk of shipping reminds me I keep meaning to take pictures of the models we have in the office. I had better do it soon because there is talk of moving offices and they are the sort of thing that will get lost on the way, particularly as we sold the shipping company 3 1/2 years ago...!