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What a difference a year makes

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2012-07-10 14:39:12 - Graham Ellis





A year ago, Lisa and I were cruising in the Mediterranean in early July - which I was reminded of yesterday when I spoke with our dedicated server hosting company concerning their service for the next twelve months. This year, I wasn't in Rome but in East Anglia on that date; by contrast, the second picture shows the newly opened station concourse at Kings's Cross, where they appear to have forgotten to install rubbish bins. What you're seeing here isn't just the messy British public ... I could have taken videos of Joe Public looking around for somewhere for his garbage!





A year ago, the ground in the UK was wizzened and cracked. And this year it's waterlogged. We see a lot more of the countryside these days - last year we just had one gog (Gypsy) who has now been joined by the much more needing-attention Billy!





Last year, an extra return trip on the TransWilts line run by First Great Western on Sunday mornings lead to heavy loading on the evening train ... as witnessed by the scene in the car park, with up to a hundred happy holiday day-out folks from Melksham going to Weymouth (not to count up to 100 from Chippenham and up to 200 from Swindon). This year, alas, the train and admin capacity is eaten up by the Olympics, and the morning train's not running. Result - an empty platform and station in the evening. Alas - this Sunday it was even worse, with just a single train calling at Melksham on Sunday; two more cancelled due to staff shortage, and the trial with the other two not repeated.

Last year was a time of big plans coming to fruition; a cruise that had been in the planning for over a year, and eight extra trains that had been six months in the planning. This year, we're at a time of planning, and you're seeing intermediate and daily life pictures. The extra water on the land may be annoying and squelcy, but it sets us up well for supplies for the next 18 month, and the lack of 8 trains this year is letting us plan and work for eight trains every day in years to come. Ah - but the cruise was a "once in a lifetime" event. This year we're earning money for another "once in a lifetime" event - daughter Kim's wedding, in the planning for next year (and to be utterly fair to her and Kyle, I'm not expecting them to break the bank).