jonny777

This is a typical early 1990s container train, but I notice that the second 86 has its pantograph lowered. Was this normal? I thought the idea was to have both locos working in order to maintain speeds over the stiffer gradients on their route. I realise the second loco may have failed, but keeping in the train would tax the lead loco even more. I would appreciate info on the location. 86638 and ano in 1991

Euston in the late 80s was still a station with interesting stock movements. Here, 85007 has backed onto empty stock, while 86253 waits for departure time. This was the era when BR thought it would be a great wheeze to have small loco numbers low down on the IC liveried bodywork in order to mess with spotters' heads when watching trains pass at speed. Another 86 (probably 219) lurks in the background. 28th May 1989

Dry and sunny again here in North Somerset. Yesterday was very depressing, for reasons I cannot explain or fathom. Visited the garden centre for a few supplies, but they seemed not to have many items, and their prices appear to have doubled in the last few weeks. Tried to cheer myself up with cider, but that seemed to make things worse, especially when I found that in the process of morphing from itunes into apple music the software had 'lost' about 80% of my music. I have now managed to get everything back, but only because I found a mobile phone backup file on my external HD and managed to import from that. Fitful night's sleep due to after effects of cider on my restless brain. Let's hope today is an improvement.

Thinking about it; that probably is not a service from Euston, as they would have been Mk3s at the time.

86229 'Lions Club International' arrives at Birmingham New Street with a service from Euston on April 16th 2003.

Around 20 years ago, 87001 was repainted in BR blue and very smart it looked too. It was not quite a match for Virgin West Coast coaching livery, but hey-ho. Here it is at Watford on 23rd May 2003.

Dry and sunny again here in North Somerset. Did I notice the mention of the dreaded word - shorts? No, no and a million times no. I have enough trouble trying to prevent that glowball in the sky from giving me skin cancer (from which a number of my relatives have succumbed), without exposing extra areas of my flesh to the problem. Although Covid has alerted me to how much society seems to run on personal vanity. I read of the queues at the barbers after lockdown was eased, and wondered why people are so obsessed with the length of their hair? Who are they trying to impress? And, another article told women that it was now ok to get out their favourite frock from the wardrobe; but if they enjoy wearing a frock so much, why not do it indoors or while in the back garden? It seems that a lot of people need an audience. (Edited: to say that, having read this again, I appreciate the irony of posting these thoughts on a forum; to an audience). However, Covid has convinced me that backwards time travel is not possible, because surely someone from the future would have come back and warned us in 2019? Although, I suppose if someone had warned us, the pandemic might not have happened and there would be no need for them to come back and warn us..... oh dear, I may need another lie down.

Dry and sunny again here in North Somerset. I don't know much about the funeral; as I hate the things at the best of times. 'No Fuss' is my preferred way to go into the ground by my allotted silver birch tree. However, there was a very dignified minutes silence at the Crucible with all the audience, officials and players standing to pay their last respects. I believe the press/media coverage of whether there would be a punch-up between William and Harry was wholly disrespectful and inappropriate; and illustrates precisely what is so wrong with the MSM in this country, and why I ignore virtually everything they say.

4 if you count me. My brother has one but switches it off while I am there, in case I say something 'dodgy' while she is listening - such as Alexa? Where are the Skripals, currently?

Very very late visit from North Somerset, where it has been sunny all day. Yesterday was advised that Dad's care home had called out the GP. This was because Dad was not eating anything and kept falling asleep. The Doc couldn't find anything obviously wrong, so the staff put him to bed and hoped he would be more comfortable there rather than sitting in his wheelchair. I spent a rather fretful night wondering if I was going to get another phone call, or a barrage of text messages from my brother when I woke up this morning. However, the news this morning was that he had a bit of breakfast and is a little less sleepy today. Fingers crossed.

I have encountered a room such as that in a Folkestone hotel. The 'en-suite' cupboard had a sliding door, because any other would have made the whole outfit unworkable. There was a shower and a toilet inside the cupboard, which was adequate I suppose - but to describe it as cramped would be a gross understatement. Again, the sink was in the room, although that was useful for washing cups without having to go into the en-suite cupboard all the time. The breakfast was also good and cooked to order in the kitchen, not dried up self service stuff; and their scrambled egg was so good I tried to discover what the ingredients were, but without much success. I tried to work things out for myself, and repeat the process when I was back home, but I couldn't quite get the same luxury feeling to it - even with butter, or double cream.

I'm late also, but due to brain fade - which is occurring more regularly these days. Dry and bright here in North Somerset, but a cold wind - so much so that when the sun goes behind a cloud it is not very pleasant sitting in the garden. I have planted a lot of summer bulbs which were on offer online, and so I hope we have a decent display maybe in August, which is good because lots of flowers are past their best by then. I also pruned the elderberry as if left alone it grows very quickly into a tree and shades out everything for yards.

For my least favourite hotel, I didn't have to go very far - because it was the Travelodge in central Cardiff. The experience did depend on the room allocated, but there were a few which were immediately above Walkabout. If I was unlucky to get the ones which faced onto Great Western Lane, the thump thump thump of the music would stop around 2am, but then the p1ss artists would discover the multi-storey and start racing their cars round and round several floors with much wheel spinning and loud exhausts. A short gap would ensue around 4am, and sleep might be had until one was awoken by the sudden sound of masses of smashing glass, as the bin men upended the glass recycling tubs, at the back of Walkabout, into their lorries. The outside events could be mitigated somewhat by having the windows closed, but with bedroom temperatures at around 24C throughout the night, sleeping conditions were rather difficult, especially as on certain nights people would appear to be running up and down the hotel corridors shouting, and banging on bedroom doors at regular intervals.

Dry and bright in North Somerset this morning, and not too cold with a temperature of 6C. There are some areas of blue sky in the distance again, but we have a thin area of cloud over here at the moment which seems to be moving away only slowly. I had a spell yesterday lunchtime where everything seemed to happen at once; my summer bulbs arrived, followed by an Ocado delivery, and then a couple of plants from the online garden centre I have been using as our local one has only the popular choices, and often very few of even those. At the same time the washing finished, but on trying to open up the rotary dryer I discovered the threaded lines were too tight for it to reach the required height and sit on the retaining clip. I suspect SWMBO had been fiddling with the line adjuster without bothering to open up the whole dryer. Anyway I moaned, and said I couldn't do anything with it, and she went outside and fixed it rather smartly - which to me indicated her guilt. After all that, plus finally hanging out the washing, and also planting the new arrivals.... and putting away the delivered groceries while SWMBO chatted quite happily on the phone to daughter, I decided I had done enough for the time being and so watched Judgement Day Part1 (the last round of qualifying for the snooker World Champs). These events start slowly on 8 tables, but rise to a climax as each best of 19 match nears a result, and the excellent Rob Walker switches the view from table to table to try and cover all the excitement; ably assisted this year by Ken Doherty. Day 2 is today from 11am on Facebook and Eurosport Player, so I might treat myself again. Non-snooker fans can ignore all this. The best of the lineups today is Stuart Bingham vs Luca Brecel - and this is just to get to the first round draw, for the Crucible bunfight starting on Saturday. I bet there are a few top 16 players not relishing getting the winner of that match in the first round.

I think you may be misinterpreting the influence of the weather. Warm weather encourages people to be outside much more. This is now seen as the best place to be with the air dispersing the virus. Ironically, the early advice during lockdown 1 was to stay indoors and the police were even fining people for sitting on park benches even if many yards away from the nearest other person. We thought the virus would be floating around in the air and infecting us all. Fortunately, experience has taught us the exact opposite is the problem. It is in closed indoor spaces with groups of people congregating together where the virus spreads the quickest. Then comes travel which moves the virus around the quickest. Most forms of transport, other than the private car, are going to be rapid spreaders as they consist of groups of people in confined indoor spaces where outside direct ventilation is poor, and air conditioning is prevalent. Cold weather merely forces the majority of people inside their homes, closing doors and windows. This is no problem when lockdown restrictions also force everyone to remain in discrete household groups; but last autumn that was not the case. I think the next (vaccine limited) spike will be linked to how quickly the public insist on getting together within enclosed areas, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, and the like; and also how quickly the long distance travel market - especially by air - is opened up. No one really knows whether the vaccinated people will continue to spread the virus, while experiencing much milder symptoms, or not. I shall remain cautious.

Dry and sunny here in North Somerset. I may have no excuse for not getting out the mower later. I think blackbirds must be nesting close by, as a magpie landed on the roof of next door's shed (which is closely adjacent to the boundary fence) and the blackbirds went crazy. There were at least three of them making a terrible racket and dive bombing the magpie which, after a couple of minutes of all-out blackbird attack, decided that it might be advisable to go elsewhere. Since then, serenity has returned.

Oh for goodness sake - I have just seen people queueing for about half a mile around the car park just to get into IKEA at Eastville. Do they not realise the shop will open again tomorrow? I wouldn't queue to get into an IKEA anyway. I try to avoid the shop like the plague.

Dry and bright here in North Somerset, and a respectable temperature of +7C. I think all this cold spring weather is a taster of what we would be in for if the Gulf Stream reversed its flow mid-Atlantic and headed back for Florida; as is widely forecast by the Global Warming scientists. We would then have a climate something a kin to Iceland (the country not the supermarket). Now that would really wake the media up to the true meaning of Climate Change. Youngest son starts his new job today, although he is only swapping one zoo for another lesser known one but with better pay. He promises to pay us a visit now restrictions are eased a bit more, and so we might find out all about it presently.

Ok.... Own up. Which one of you has won the lottery? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303936537453?ul_noapp=true&fbclid=IwAR0QixHe7QcMh70KM_fWB0vHeX_UXnQY1OWKVjn9lBYDjUbauXD-eoe6DYc

How old is that basic locomotive external design? Have they not progressed over the last half century?

I relaxed too soon when I mentioned doing nothing earlier, because as SWMBO was trying to hang out some washing, the rotary drier collapsed because the bottom of the pole had rusted away. I have a galvanised tube which would fit in the hole, but on digging out some rusty pieces of metal I discovered there seemed to be some form of thick plastic sleeve almost welded to the concrete hole. This means the diameter is too small for the spare galvanised tube. I spent ages trying to wedge a screwdriver between the concrete and the plastic, but to no avail. I wonder if the whole block was manufactured that way? Anyway, I tried an extreme option of adding some white spirit to a piece of rag pushed into the hole and setting that alight. The hope was that it would get hot enough to melt the plastic. It must have had some effect because I could chip bits away with a large screwdriver afterwards. In the end I managed to get the galvanised tube a few inches into the hole, with the help of a sledgehammer, and the drier pole to slot into that. It is not perfect, but seems stable enough for the moment.

My thoughts on easing of restrictions, is that avid travellers should look at the stats and keep away from areas which have high infection rates. These are the areas with rates continuing above 75 per 100k. Clackmannanshire, Barnsley, Wakefield, Luton, Hull, Leicester, Doncaster, West Lothian, Leeds, Bradford, Renfrewshire, and Sheffield. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?_ga=2.146590588.97899327.1618130874-1772697453.1618130874

Dry and sunny, but cold here in North Somerset. Half an inch of rain yesterday evening which was very welcome news for Jonny the tub waterer. I see from the stats that the BBC2 average viewing figures on Friday evening were only 320,000 people; thus proving that although the passing of the monarch's husband is a sad time; the British viewing public does not want wall to wall looping obituaries. I saw Gardeners World yesterday evening, and Monty Don even admitted he planted some things in the wrong place and was digging them up. There is hope for us mere gardening mortals yet. I watched the Grand National and heard my horse mentioned once near the beginning, but never again. I assumed it must have fell at the second, so watched the re-run only to discover it was pulled up at fence 29 (out of 30). Must have been a game old thing to last that long, but probably so far behind that it was never in the camera shots. As I had no money on it, I don't mind. Doing very little today, as the grass is now too wet to cut; I am relieved of watering duties and the plants will be doing their own thing if the sun keeps shining. Now for some bacon and eggs.

I can see your point about having to cook/clean in a holiday home; but my problem with hotel rooms, especially in the morning, is that breakfast is often 8:30 to 9:30 but I like to lounge in bed during hotel stays. If I am going to get up and have a shower, then swmbo has a shower, followed by getting dressed and wandering downstairs to eat, I have to get out of bed around 7:45 just for everything to be completed on time. Not only that, but if the hotel terms are half board, I am obliged to leave the room (whatever the weather) for a few hours when I might not want to. With a static caravan I can do as I please; and if I want to remain inside all day and have a bacon sarnie at 10:45 I can.

I have contemplated the idea of a static caravan, which all the family could use if and when they fancied a break. However, some people quote site fees at around £5000 a year, which seems a bit steep. One could get a decent number of UK holidays for that outlay each year.