London Marathon

Emily

 

A day in London for the Marathon to cheer on my fab friend Emily, who was running it for the first time, and she did really well, I'm sure she was exhausted and hurt in places that she didn't know she could hurt, but Emily looked really good and we had a great time in the crowds trying to find other vantage spots, lovely atmosphere, and really inspiring to watch.

 

 

London Docklands

 

 

I stayed in London the night and because of a bit of a mix up I booked into a hotel near Covent Garden, I was lucky anywhere had vacancies, or maybe unlucky! The hotel was so bad it was fun, a real flea pit out of the 1960s.

 

View from my hotel

 

 

It was a funny couple of days in London, I was so proud of Emily and had a great day with the Marathon, but at the same time I managed to fall out for the final time with a friend and question the quality of the friendship with another one, a bit sad but these things happen and I am stronger for it, the real downside was Sunday night I met a guy from Nepal and a height challenged guy called Butch. We got on so well immediately and had a real laugh and a big night was in the offering, but foolishly I had arranged to meet someone and the rest as they say is history....thank god, anyway I will meet up with Butch at some point and I think its guaranteed it will be quite a night!

 

I had a trip down memory lane to where I was born in Wandsworth Common.

 

 

17 Mayford Road SW12

 

 

Was great to see where I went to school and the house I was born in, the area is very up market now and good to see the houses looked after so well, unfortunately I was with the wrong person so one day soon I will go back on my own and have a good quiet mooch around my old haunts.

 

 

Amsterdam

 

My first trip to Amsterdam was pretty good, although again I was with the wrong person, but it was cool, gave me the flavour for going back, it may be the cycling capital of the world but that makes it a very hazardous place to walk in. I love Holland, we called in at a couple of places on the way including Rotterdam which was nothing like I expected, very clean and interesting. On the way back we stopped in Antwerpen and that was  good as well, was worth  the visit just for Antwerpen Central station.

 

Antwerpen Central

 

 

Clatterbridge Hospital again tomorrow, the 3 months pass so quickly, fingers crossed nothing will have grown unduly. 











 



 

 

BST at last!

Light evenings at last, I do like the winter though, I have had a great year so far, many explorations, wrapped up in my big coat out with my camera, I love the trees when they are bare, they take on such character, that's probably the one thing I don't like about summer, the trees in full leaf, and the ground covered in bracken and brambles, makes for poor photos and hard work scrambling around disused railway cuttings, and the flat overhead sunlight means you have to get up very early for interesting photos, but then that's the great thing about having real seasons they are all great and offer very different challenges both for exploring and photography.
Most of my explores this year have been by train and foot, the last time I put petrol in my car was the first week in December, how good is that!
I have had several trips to Birkenhead and The Wirral, I love it over there, such a contrast wherever you look, very rough and ready in places and quite Port Out Starboard Home in others!

New Brighton





After a break of a year and a half I have been out chasing the steam trains, quite regularly.  The Yorkshire Dales has always been one of my favourite areas, and with steam trains running, what better way to spend a day.

Galatea



Sadly its not all been fun and games, I learnt this week that the disused railway embankment behind where I live in Latchford, Warrington is due to be flattened and a strip of 240 homes built on it. It really is a crying shame that this will be allowed to happen, it is purely done for profit by the owner of the land with a total disregard for the locals. I know it is personal to me because I will be directly effected, instead of having a mini wildlife park to look out on, I will be looking into someone else's Kitchen! But there will be many people like me, who will not be happy, the land owner has created a wildlife haven by his neglect and now wants to destroy it. It would make such a good green path, all the bridges are intact and it runs right through the centre of the village, but profit comes before everything now, and before long every town will be full solid with houses so they will then start building in the sky. We are constantly told there is a shortage of houses, there certainly isn't a shortage of second hand houses, and I don't care what anyone says, theses schemes are done for one reason only, and that is to make developers even richer.

240 homes



Ok that's my rant done with, life is too short to let things like this get to you, I am very lucky because my experiences of the last year have shown me that excessive wealth is worthless., and only a fool seeks it.



Contented 2015

Yup the year is going well! I new once I got out of 2014 I would feel totally different.
First things first, I had my 3 monthly scan today, actually I only had an X-Ray and bloods taken, somewhere along the line there was a mix up over the CT scan, so I have to go back in the next week or two. Fortunately I was able to have an X-Ray, and this showed that the Mets in my lungs have disappeared, which is fab news to say the least, the Bloods also were very good. Dr Griffiths was very impressed, so obviously all the exercise and healthy eating is paying off. Now we are in 2015 my attitude and general mood has been transformed and I have hardly drunk any alcohol since the beginning of December, save for a few GnT's at Christmas, so this should all help with my general health. At the end of January I did have a week of stomach pains which was rather badly timed as it was a year since I came out of hospital, and the pains felt too much like a year ago, they have stopped now and Dr Griffiths said I would get pains from time to time over the next few years, as the internal scaring from the operation would never heal completely, also I do a lot of exercise and had had a 12 mile hike in the snow in Derbyshire a few days before, so that would have added to the stresses going on inside me.

Chee Tor Tunnels

Monsal Dale Viaduct

 

 

I have been wanting to go back to Derbyshire for some time, and with the first real snow of the winter at the end of January, it was too good a chance to miss. Train from Warrington to Stockport then on to Buxton, and then a bus to Blackwell Mill, which is quite remote and was once a huge junction of railway lines built by the Midland Railway, but most are now long closed. I don't do buses, so waiting in the cold and the snow at Buxton and then being deposited in the middle of nowhere was interesting, more to the point waiting 12 miles down the road in the dark in a tiny village wondering if the bus would turn up was very interesting and very very cold! The buses were very good and were almost to time and the drivers very friendly and helpful, so a fab day all round. Much of the old railway line I walked was covered in virgin snow, between 6"-10" deep, so it was quite hard going at times, but so worth it, I only met about half a dozen people all day, so I had a lovely feeling of freedom and space.

 

Millers Dale Viaducts

 

 

The walk I did was across the furthest of these two Viaducts at Millers Dale, but of course I wasn't content with just looking over the parapets, I had to walk all the way down (and more to the point, all the way back up) to take some photos of them from the road below.

 

 

Rock Ferry pier

 

 

A couple of days later I was out exploring again, ( this was probably where my stomach pains came from) this time closer to home, a train to Liverpool Lime St, then hop on the Mersey Rail to Rock Ferry. I presume this is the Rock Ferry that Duffy sings about, no idea what she is going on about, as its not the prettiest of places, the usual boarded up pubs and shops and a burnt out church, and also a derelict pier, which long ago, you could have got a ferry over to Liverpool, now it is slowly rusting away with each tide from the Mersey, right up my street though, can't beat a good bit of rust.

 

Last Saturday I was up in the Cumbrian Fells with my camera, I had wanted to go the week before when there was a good covering of snow, but for once I thought I should have a rest, anyway most of the snow had gone last weekend and Shap Summit on the West Coast Main Railway Line between Lancaster and Carlisle was covered in thick fog, but over the Fells near Appleby on the Settle and Carlisle Railway it was a little clearer, it was incredibly still as well, "Duchess of Sutherland could be heard for around 10 minutes before she came into view, that amounts to at least 6 miles away!

 

 

46223 "Duchess of Sutherland"















January Blues

Ok so I am not exactly Blue. I feel pretty positive and am having a good month. Really is the weather for staying in, so have been spending a lot of time on the PC editing and uploading photographs, I may have said it before, but if I spent the rest of my life doing nothing else other than editing photos I still wouldn't get them all done. At the moment I have around 30000 Digital photos all edited and filed and around 15000 negatives scanned but only a few of them edited. I probably have around 10000 more negatives to edit and I keep getting other peoples collections to scan and I keep going out and taking more photos, so it really is a never ending project. On top of this I have a life to lead!
I have been a bit lazy this past week, not a great deal of exercise, I have been feeling very tired and have been falling asleep in the early evening, a little bit worrying as that was how my Kidney problems first started, but I did have a stinking cold over Christmas and I did push myself a bit too much after the New Year so I am sure all is fine.

 

Bear and Frank

 





Rain is horizontal at the moment so it looks like another day on the PC.

Happy New Year

 

 

Em and Dan

 

 

Ok so not quite New Year, although it will be for my lovely  friend Lu in New Zealand in a few hours time, bless her, not seen her for 5 years or more, but NZ is a bit too far for me to travel.

I had a fab Christmas with another great friend Em, and her partner Dan and Em's mum and Dan's parents, way too much to eat, seemed to do nothing but eat both days, Em and Dan did an amazing job with the food, really was superb, just need to get out cycling now to burn it all off! I managed to not get carried away with the drinking, which I am pleased about, after recent events I am not that interested in drinking, certainly not to excess, so that has got to be a good thing.

Can't believe there is only one day left of 2014, will be so good to see the back of it, it really has been a rotten year, started off awful and has ended pretty grim, actually  that's not strictly true, as I feel really good now, just bit of a rubbish time up until a few weeks ago. I do feel very positive about 2015, I have loads to look forward to, and now I only have myself to look out for so it should be rather good.

 

Boxing Day

Gin Cocktails

 

 

Despite what I said earlier about drinking, I did visit a Gin Distillery, ok so I was only the driver and I had a non alcoholic Cocktail, but I did buy some Bombay Sapphire Gin and very nice it is too, the site  in Hampshire is well worth a visit, have a look at http://distillery.bombaysapphire.com/

 

 

Crosby Beach

 

 

Last Sunday was one of those perfect winter blue sky days, heavy frost, very cold and not a cloud in the sky, so I jumped on the train to the other side of Liverpool, just up the coast and had a lengthy walk from Bootle past Liverpool Docks and onto Crosby Beach. Was a really fab day, and it brought it home to me so clearly that this is what I enjoy most, out exploring with my camera, I don't need all the grief that I have had in the past year, I have some great friends and I have a great hobby so I am really very lucky. The main reason for going to Crosby, apart from it being really rather nice, but was to see some statues on the beach, around 100 of them in fact! They are life size cast iron figures by Sir Antony Gormley, and they are really rather good. There is something rather haunting about the way they stare out to sea and appear to be walking out into the water as if driven by some unseen being, calling them, reminds me of the Eloi in HG Well's "The Time Machine" well worth a visit, some details here  http://tinyurl.com/kan5mxm

 

The Talbot, Bootle

 

 

No I didn't go into The Talbot, Bootle is not the most salubrious of places and it does seem to have its fair share of dodgy pubs, although the people are great, they just don't have time for people with more money than sense.

 

A very Happy New Year, see you in 2015!

 











Merry Christmas

Westminster Bridge

St Paul's

 

                                Trafalgar Square                                    

 

 

 

A few days in London last week was fun, a walk round looking at the lights and a trip  to the 02 Arena. The streets were heaving at this time of year, but was still good and if you are prepared to walk there are still plenty of interesting quiet corners. I went into Foyles bookshop for the first time in years, quiet it certainly wasn't, but interesting it was, you could spend hours in there, if of course you are interested in books.

 

Phoenix Theatre

 

Almost opposite Foyles on Charing Cross Road is the Phoenix Theatre, now home to 'Once' the musical. I really want to go and see this, loved the film, it was so moving and real. Ronan Keating is now starring in the musical, not 100% sure that he is ideal, more likely getting a well known name in to boost ticket sales, but I may be proved wrong, some friends are seeing it this weekend so I will see what their verdict is. Before 'Once' 'Blood Brothers' played for around 21 years at the Phoenix and that was a truly memorable show, and for a while one of the Nolan sisters played the lead and she was really very good.

 

 

Frozen Yogurt

02

 

 

The other day I had a trip into Manchester on the train, £5 return, so why drive! I wouldn't have driven anyway, I am not a huge car fan, spent way to much on them when I was younger, so if I can I walk, cycle or get the train. The idea of Manchester was for Christmas shopping, which went well, but I did manage to buy myself a few presents as well and also got rather side tracked by some second hand bookshops including Empire Exchange, which is more a collectors shop rather than just books, some great wacky stuff in there.

 

Empire Exchange

 

 

There are still some very sleazy backstreets in Manchester city centre and some decidedly dodgy looking clubs and pubs, I kept focused on the job in hand and resisted the temptation to go in any of them.

Little Lever Street

 

 

A quick mention of another exhibition at the Pyramid and Parr Hall in Warrington, that is coming to a close. Cantered around the anniversary of WW1, there is some superb artwork on display, from local schools and colleges and also a very moving Audio Visual display.

 

Pyramid and Parr Hall

 

 

I no Christmas can be a very difficult and sometimes lonely time, (I spent last Christmas in hospital) but make the best of it if you can, Merry Christmas.





 











Europe

A year ago on my birthday, December 1st I was in hospital, this year I was in Paris, after a 1600 mile drive round Europe. Luxembourg City, Swiss Alps, Milan, Lake Geneva and Paris.

Luxembourg City

Swiss Alps

 



Really was a stunning week, only a couple of slip ups with the driving so I think I did pretty well, even driving into the centre of Milan and Paris. Paris was nuts to drive in, the big roundabouts are a free for all and the orbital motorway makes our M25 look like a drive in the park! High spots were driving high into the Alps on a closed road to get to the top and find the road completely blocked by snow, then the sun came out and it was really stunning, although a local did give me a real telling off as we shouldn't have been there.

Milan Cathedral

Biella

View from the bedroom in Biella Jailhouse

 



Staying in an old jailhouse in Biella in Italy was quite something, the most beautiful setting, all cobbles, old buildings and few cars. The Eiffel Tower in Paris was very special, lit up at night with the top disappearing into the mist, all of Paris was very special, really would love to go back. The low spots were a couple of arguments with my friend, culminating in a horrendous fight in Paris on my birthday, we are now no longer friends. I do feel awful about it, we had had such a great time, and it was my fault, I said some things I never should have, it had been building up for sometime, I just lost it, my ex friend can be very rude and has very bad moods, and I think I just couldn't take it anymore. I do feel sad, as when it was good between us it was very good, and we had been best friends for some years, but deep down I new something like this was going to happen eventually, so now at least I can move on and get on with my life, it won't be easy as I will miss her something rotten, we would talk every day on the phone, sometimes for hours, so there is going to be a big void in my life, but what was the alternative? Holding my tongue and being walked all over? I am a soft touch, but even I have limits.