Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71

Aft'noon all,

Best regards to any that ail.

Smashing birthday trip for mum today.....the scenic route to Shrewsbury along the B5062 from Newport via Crudgington for a 45min river cruise on The Severn from Welsh bridge to English bridge & back aboard The Sabrina. Then straight into The Armoury restaurant opposite the quay for a superb lunch.....

....Charles Darwin was born at what is now known as The Mount near here....Chester has a replica of this suspension footbridge....

....The Armoury restaurant....great views out across the river from our window table....

....Is was having one of her good days....feeling normal except for the fat leg discomfort....

....Shrewsbury flower show is held here....Quarry park....

....English bridge, the turnaround point.....

The scenic route home rounded off a great day.....and indoors before the rush hour/bank holiday weekend traffic kicked in. Is has gone straight up for a lie down after her exertions but she held up well.

Enjoy what you do

Dave

Mornin' all,

Best regards to any that ail

Marvellously clear sub zero frosty good to be alive start in The Moorlands. More fried breakfast calories burnt around the weekend circuit.....

....the steam/smoke front & centre is from one of the steam locos at the Churnet valley railway....

Church duties beckon

Feathered ones provided for

Enjoy what you do

Dave

Aft'noon all,

Best regards to all that ail.

Just back from a semi successful 4/5 day sunshine chaser juggling max 2 hr..ish  daily travelling (Is is still delicate) with a pleasant mainly B road route, enjoyable accommodation, interesting destinations etc.... This one via Broadway, Stow on the Wold (Mon & Thu overnights at The Stow Lodge), then via Chipping Norton & Watlington to Henley (for coffee). On to Runnymede/Windsor for a night, train Windsor to Richmond for a rtn cruise along the Thames to Hampton Court Palace, an overnight at The Christopher in Eton (couldn't afford two) then retracing our steps for another coffee stop in Henley and back to The Stow Lodge for our last overnight....

The new GWR station at Broadway....

A great place to stay....The Stow Lodge....

Heading for Chipping Norton from Stow....

Henley for coffee....

The Jurors at Runnymede....

Windsor Castle.....

Cruising away from Richmond on a Turks vessel towards Kingston and Hampton Court....

Teddington Lock....

Changing to a mock river steamer at Kingston....

The Turks landing stage at Hampton Court....

Part of Hampton Court Palace....

Gardens....

Is enjoying Henley....

The Barringtons....

Lower Slaughter....

We had a couple of wobbly moments with Is being too far from the car without her water/paracetamol for controlling the pain but generally the mixture of 'travel a bit/exercise a bit', stay in pampering overnights worked and will form the basis for our next few days away....important to get her out into the fresh air, re-establishing routines etc.

Enjoy what you do

Dave

Mornin' all,

Best regards to those that ail.

Eyeball searing frosty good to be alive start in The Moorlands. Heavily punctuated circuit of the weekend constitutional route......

Feathered ones provided for.

Church duties beckon.

Enjoy what you do.

Dave

Mornin' all,

Best regards to those that ail.

Low cloud swirling rays of bright sunshine misty sort of start in The Moorlands. Smashing circuit of the weekend route to start the day....

....the Endon brook snakes away towards Cheddleton shortly to join the River Churnet....

....the River Churnet flows left to right through this scene, half a mile or so from its meeting with the Endon brook...

....the present limit of the Leek arm of the Caldon canal with the feeder from Rudyard lake supplying water to keep the canal topped up...

Feathered ones provided for

Church duties beckon

Enjoy what you do

Dave

Happy Easter to all!

The 6am Easter mass by the reservoir at Tittesworth this morning was attended by 20 or so parishoners.

Clearing skies & single figure cool for the constitutional around the weekend circuit which followed

Feathered ones provided for

Enjoy what you do

Dave

Evenin' all,

Best regards to any that ail

Another superb Moorland day today.....Is wanted a share of the scenery so the constitutional became a circuit through Wincle, Buxton, Goyt valley & Wildboarclough in the car......

....Shuttlinsloe, the highest point of Cheshire close at hand....

....close to 3 Shires head, the meeting point of Derbyshire, Staffordshire & Cheshire. At this point we are approximately 3 x the height of Blackpool Tower above sea level....

....the descent into the Goyt valley is down one of the inclines of the former Cromford & High Peak Railway....a gunpowder factory was drowned under one of the reservoirs in this valley....Fernilee I think. The excellent Foxline titles on The Cromford & High Peak Railway tell the story of this fascinating route....

Enjoy what you do

Dave

Evenin' all,

Best regards to those that ail

Good to be alive blue sky cool & sunny afternoon for a Morridge, Winkhill, Ipstones Edge & Waterfall Cross circuit, after work today....

....trains ran here until 3-4 yrs ago....Winkhill station on the Cauldon Lowe branch from Leekbrook jnc.... 

....and the same stretch of trackbed just a few years ago....

Enjoy what you do

Dave

Morning all,

Crashed last night and literally just finished catching up at 8.10am! Yesterday was a lovely day to have so many of my family here, but extremely tiring - I have got the usual two carers visiting early and late, and the district nurse is due to check me over before taking my bloods here for Thusday's oncology appointment, otherwise it will hopefully be a quiet day.

Mike(SM), I've always been lucky when it comes to getting jobs, quite a few because of 'who you know'. The first significant big paying one came from an encounter during a darts match in a pub in Hertfordshire - I had bumped into Lesterr Simms, the then importer of NGK spark plugs to the UK who supplied the ones for my racing motorcycle and gave a little sponsorship for badges and stickers on the bike and I. In conversation I happened to mention that I was unhappy about the work that was expected of me after years of study whereupon I was offered the task of race engineer, as he was getting too busy running the fast growing company. This involved a company car and visiting all the race tracks with sponsorship deals, as well as selling branded merchandise from the boot. Topped with a decent salary, and the chance to still do the occasional race I said yes instantly! From there the job with Yamaha that took me back to live near Edinburgh was a simple poaching job, but with a massive salary lift and (due to high mileage!) two new company cars per annum. This was followed by my 'Ill fated' move to Cornwall by father in law one and so the hamster's cage rolled on...........,

AndyP, having, like yourself spent many years in the car business. Rising to dealer principal/Managing Director at a couple, I can agree how ridiculous the systems imposed on dealers by the manufacturers must seem to outsiders. I ran two Renault franchises before settling with Citroën for the last sixteen years before the cancer snared me. It is hard to believe that Ford used to impose rules on dealers about how interviews should be conducted, even interfering at showroom floor level where they tried to make all salesmen approach prospective customers in the same way. I remember doing a 'mystery shop' on one at their request - the young salesman opened with the unfortunate question 'can I help you sir'? I simply said NO and carried on walking which left him nowhere to go! Why do car makers always assume that each individual car buyer has the same needs, circumstances and indeed funding?? They actually always insist that an attempt is made to sell a 'PCP', even if their wallet is over stuffed!

Dave(TG), what a lovely set of images as usual, and the topography would suggest that it really does represent a thorough work-out. Hope 'Is' can now relax a bit, and that the pain is lessening by the day.

John(KB), another sun-set for your 'professional portfolio' I would imagine - beautiful.

Andy(leopard), great news on the outcome of the operation mate - might be a good idea to look back at Flavio(iD)'s pain advice from some posts gone by if it still hurts.

AndyP, I shall have to look in on the 'North Road' thread later to see what track has gone down, especially at the speed you are known to work at

I returned to home to discover that a couple of people had purchased items on e-Bay in my absence, and consequently my PayPal account had swelled accordingly, so I spent some of it! I wondered if anyone else on here would have attempted to build the Dapol 57ft non corridor suburbans in carmine red, which paired with a 2P (hoping to find one on e-bay!) made up the most common trains running up the Darvel branch line? Anything to keep my interest up, and I'm being encouraged by Joanna at the minute which can't be bad.

Now, with the usual generic greetings - I send commiserations/congratulations as necessary, and I shall try to lurk and post later.

Kind regards,

Jock.

.....she is brightening Jock....still gets tired easily though....however, almost a year to the day since the troubles started I should be taking her away for her birthday on a 'chase the sunshine' break in April.

Hope things are as well as they can be for the two of you.

Dave

Aft'noon all,

Best regards to any that ail

Misty vistas circuit of Morridge/Onecote after work today. Another never venture out cameraless moment...even if it does look bleak & unpromising. For the first half of the ride I was thankful for the hat, coat & gloves but that changed as I climbed back onto Morridge on the return leg as the sun started to break through in dramatic fashion.....

The Beverley Craven concert last night was good for me, as I relived the hit singles of the mid 90s but Is was entirely unimpressed with what she viewed as a string of samey man hating songs by someone too self involved. Oh well....I won't be allowed to choose the next concert.

Feathered ones provided for

Enjoy what you do

Dave

Aft'noon all,

Best regards to any that ail.

Blue sky sunny seasonally cool good to be alive afternoon in The Moorlands. A Morridge/Elkstones constitutional route chosen to burn some calories.....

We have tickets to see Beverley Craven tonight

Feathered ones provided for

Enjoy what you do 

Dave