Awake at half four with a mild allergy attack, I lay in bed half an hour listening to me wheeze, and decide enough is enough so I get up to make a coffee and fed the cats. It is just getting light on the horizon, and mist is rising in the valley below. I leave the kitchen door open to allow some air in. It feels good, though better had I have had another couple of hours sleep.
I head to Tesco whilst JOols tries to return the hire car she had whilst I was away, only to find the office was closed, so she comes to find me in Tesco, as still have no mobile phone. As we still have to return the car, and have half an hour to kill, we drive down to the cafe in Snargate Street for breakfast. A small fry up is just what makes you feel better, as outside traffic rumbles by heading for the port.
Back home we unpack, and pass the time away until it is time for me to head to Sturry to pick Will up, s o we can go and do some train chasing. It has been over two months since we had a steam tour round these parts, and now we have two in two days, and I decide to get shots both days before and after the stops in Canterbury. First up is Braunton at Wye, where there is a fine view down the climb out of Ashford, giving the photographer plenty of time to get shots as the train gets ever nearer.
I fond a place to part near the station, and we have 40 minutes before the train, so we head into the Tickled Trout for a drink, and find their service as slow and poor as usual, even though we just wanted drinks. We just about get the drinks, finish them before it is time to walk along the road to the station, take up position on the bridge and are ready for showtime. A couple of regular services go through giving us the chance to set up the shots nicely. And as one passes through the station, in the distance we can see Braunton already accelerating up the hill.
Quickly she is nearly upon us, and the shutters are going eighteen to the dozen and there she goes below us and away onto Canterbury. I only find out once home that all the shots with the 50mm are blurred as the lens decided to focus on a lamp rather than the train behind, not one can be rescued from that, a shame as they should have been great. Oh well.
We drive back to Dover and then home to have a cuppa, to review the shots and prepare for the next location at MInster. I want to listen to the football, but as it is Ryder Cup, there is 44 hours of golf on the radio, and all programming on Radio 5 seems to have been postponed for golf talk. So, I have to put up with Talk Sport, which is almost just Premier League focused and does not seem to have a commentary anywhere, and at the most exciting moments, like the final seconds of the games, they cut away for an ad break. And then do not give the Norwich result or score as we drive to Minster.
At Minster we are confronted by the scourge of modern railway travel; the rail replacement bus. And there is very little parking around the station, so we have to park in front of someone's house and walk to the station. And once there we find a Javelin in the platform, and the news is it is waiting for another bus, this time from Margate, before it can leave for London. Indeed as we hear this, Braunton comes round the bend in front of us, and stops at the signal and can do nothing but wait.
Some 20 minutes later, the bus arrives, half a dozen people get off and start to walk up across the bridge, only to stop to photograph Braunton as she steams in the distance, thus missing their train and watch open-mouthed as it glides out of the station. They'll be having another hour's wait then.
Braunton gets the road, and starts to move, invisible from us she she is shrouded in steam as she vents steam. But she appears out of the steam, like a scene from the Railway Children, crossing over onto the 'wrong' line and accelerating towards us. And as quick as that she is below us, and we are in a cloud of smoke and steam as she takes the chord to Deal and away from us. As she disappears from view, we can hear her pistons working hard as she gets up speed.
We walk back to the car, and I want to know if Norwich had won, but the north London derby is on, and it is all Talk Sport wants to talk about. I drop Will back in Sturry, and then drive back via Sandwich and Deal to home, where we have a cuppa and a couple of slices of fresh corn bread.
Phew, I have done nothing, but taken all day to do it!
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