Thursday 17th January 2013

Hello and welcome to Barrow in Furness. I have no idea what a Furness is, but we are in it.

With Barrow.

Barrow is situated on a headland at the north end of Morecombe Bay (possibly), it takes a 55 minute train ride to go from Preston to Carnforth onto the peninsular and then across two lots of mudflats to Barrow. I am here to do an audit tomorrow and am in a hotel in the grounds of Furness Abbey. It is very nice and not for the like of me in my workgear.

I wish I had stopped off at Carnforth for an hour, as it is where Brief Encounter was filmed, and it is a very nostalgic station. But I only thought of that as the train pulled out and I saw the wonderful looking station café on the other platform. Another time then?

Grange over Sands looks as hard and bleak as granite, but worth a return visit if only for the views over the salt flats I guess. It looks wonderfully bleak, if you know what I mean?

Anyway, I am here with more people on the train warning me about the strong possibility of getting my lights punched out in a town centre pub. I certainly got some hard stairs as I wandered around taking photographs, but I remain punch-free for now.

It was very dark when we woke up at a quarter to six, but the room was illuminated by the pale blue light that indicated snow had fallen. We had a couple of inches and it was still falling. We got dressed, had breakfast and then I went outside to move the car from the drive an onto the road. I put in my luggage and we headed out.

A lorry had jack-knifed at the bottom of Station Road, so we had to turn round and try to get to the top of the hill and onto the Deal Road from there. It took a couple of minutes of sliding and wheel spinning, but we got to the top and cruised to the junction: and then along the Deal Road and into Dover. Almost a blizzard was blowing, and I doubted any trains would be running. But a Javelin was waiting, and I got on it and a couple of minutes later it pulled out on time.

The snow petered out by Folkestone, and apart from patchy fog sweeping in, it was an uneventful trip to London. I had an extra half hour as I had caught an earlier train, so went to Kings Cross to see how the station clearance was going and to snap the scene, before heading Down Euston Road to the station and to wait for the train north to be called.

I saw the platform number go up on the sign, I move towards the platform and am in full stride as the announcement is made. I am second at the barrier and, well I won’t say run, but walk quickly to the first of the unreserved standard class carriages and bag one with a table and a fine window. The carriage only ends up being less than half full, and I had all four seats and the table to myself. And 20 seconds early we pull out into the winter morning.

There was some snow around Milton Keynes, and thick fog too in places. But most of all were naked trees with branches bleached white with hoar frost all along the route, or at least until 11 when it must have warmed up outside. It was glorious to see, and I wanted the train to stop so I could get shots. But couldn’t of course.

I got off at Lancaster, and my connecting train arrived, and soon the expanse of the bay spread out on the left hand side of the train. In the distance the peaks of the Pennines were white with snow, it looked magical. After an hour of trundling along, we pulled into Barrow and after snapping the station, I headed out into the town.

The town is like any other in Northern England, I guess; it is suffering from the economic downturn, and there are a number of closed shops. Even a discount Supermarket has closed and is boarded up. Most of the pubs look hard as nails, like the one in Pottersville; only to get people drunk. Fast. Maybe I’m wrong, but they didn’t look inviting.

So, I snapped some stuff, and at the town hall found a place to eat and had a salad and some spicy pasta and a beer.

Time then to find a taxi and take me to the hotel and maybe get some work done.