Monday 6th September 2010

And just like that; it’s Monday again. And here I am back at work, and its like I’ve never been gone as mails go unanswered and promises made last week are broken. Again. I would like to think I am moving forward with the job, but sometimes it feels like I’m treading water, trapped to be doing the same things day after day, week after week; with just the occasional victory to keep me going.

Sigh.

Anyway, in two weeks time, we are on holiday, and our days are quickly filling up with fantastic things to do. So, we keep our eyes on those days whilst taking each disappointment and rolling with the punches. More of our pans nearer the time; but they do involve: photography, trains, architecture, travel and probably more photography.

Where was I? Oh, Saturday……

Well, Sunday was a fine and bright day; and so we got our backsides out of bed pulled on our walking boots and went for a wander along the lanes and byways around the house. It is great to see how the scenes have changed this year; fields have gone from being sowed, the growing crops, then the harvest and now ploughing. Where once were the bright colours of ripening wheat and rapeseed now are the browns and greys of stubble and furrows.



At least the hedgerows are a riot of colour, with brambles laden with ripening or already ripe blackberries. We took a bag and picked the juiciest, sweetest berries for supper. At the usual points we met the hungry pigs, the friendly lonely horse and the cautious cows. All familiar landmarks and neighbours to us now. We walked on over the rise of the final hill, between harvested fields that were once golden wheat right down to the cliff’s edge, but now just stubble, along a path to the cliffs. It always amazes me that golfers are out at such hours; dressed in pastel shaded Pringle and stomping around pulling buggies full of bonneted clubs. But then, who are we to judge? Walking the same byways, snapping the same things. They give pleasure, I guess.



We walk back through the village via the shop and buy some bacon for second breakfast and some butter for supper. Supper was going to be blackberry and apple crumble; which turned out just fine with lashings of vanilla ice cream.

In the afternoon, we head out to stand on an isolated bridge, looking into a railway cutting at a tunnel portal for a steam locomotive to come screaming out. Our friend, Gary, joined us, and we waited and chatted to the stranger in the old Mini Clubman who was already waiting. Right on time we saw the light reflected on the rails, and the Black 5 came out of the tunnel and was passing under our feet in a flash. My finger had pressed the shutter automatically, and captured thirty or so shots.



The train was to turn round at Dover , and so we drove the couple of miles to Shepherds Well to the station to see it come out of the tunnel the other end. More people were waiting, and it was quite a wait. But Gary and me, standing on the footbridge, got the first sight of its headlights and were ready as it’s nose came out of the tunnel and soon enough it thundered beneath our feet. A few shots the other way and it was gone, and time for us to head home for dinner; steak and ale pie, roast potatoes and runner beans from our garden.



And then it was time for me to head out just after six to see the train make one more pass through Dover , and I to my favourite spot on Shakespeare beach as it passed by in the gathering gloom of an early autumnal evening. A quick dash home to inspect the shots I had taken that day, and put the crumble in the oven and anticipate it as the fine smell of it cooking filled the house.

Not a bad day, after all.