Tuesday 20th March 2018, 3.55pm (day 2,399)
Yes, this was me today (well, apart from the hair)…. and it’s only Tuesday…
Yes, this was me today (well, apart from the hair)…. and it’s only Tuesday…
Monday morning, and it’s raining, and you’ve just bought a weekly ticket for the first time in ages (meaning you’re going into Manchester every day this week) and the 06:59 turns up as a two-carriage piece of obsolete shit as it always does, only today the previous service through was cancelled so by Littleborough it’s already achieved full CTS (Cattle Truck Status) and we haven’t even had the Rochdale passengers on yet. Happy Mondays.
No rest for me despite an 11pm arrival home last night, it was off for a full day’s work, even if I did the second part of it at home. 13:48 departure from Victoria delayed a few minutes while this very long freight rumbled through platform 3b. This is just the very back end of it.
A prosaic way to mark Clare’s 41st birthday: many happy returns to her, as mentioned tonight, maybe on this date next year she should take over the blog for a day, as its title will apply…
First time I’ve pulled a duty on the 06:59 for a while. First time I’ve been at the station before sunrise in an even longer while. The world turns…
Not the greatest morning. It’s dark at 7am now when we wake up — when did that happen?! Profound demotivation on the journey in, though it did improve. My first proper selfie on the blog since 11th June 2016. There may be reasons for this.
It’s actually not a bad place to catch forty winks, the train home — I manage it frequently. Like these two gentlemen, I am tired…. but have now just three days left before my summer break.
Generally the theme over the last few days has been relaxation, and this seems to be the state of mind of this lady on the train to London this afternoon, particularly as this shot was taken before we had even left Leeds station. I did my best to adopt such an attitude today as well, despite the need to go down to London yet again to hang around at an embassy (you might see this tomorrow)….
Long day for me today. In on the 7am train out of HB and back on the 17.45 from Manchester, on which this shot was taken. I felt like the woman in the middle.

When the 07:42 cattle truck to Manchester turns up half an hour late, like it did this morning, you can be damn sure there’ll be a few people wanting to get on it. Why was I not among them? Because there was another three carriages along three minutes later, with blissful peace on board. Take this picture as an illustration of how humans typically fail to delay gratification.

11 years of using the Calderdale line, and one learns which services have CTS (Cattle Truck Status) and which are safer. I will never aim to catch the 1726 from Manchester, for example. It just ain’t worth it. The 0742 from Hebden (depicted here just about on its arrival to Manchester) is usually not so bad but today, for some reason, it suffered from a massive case of CTS.
Why monochrome again? Because it hides a multitude of white balance sins.