Spending Time Indoors

 This lock-down thing is taking its mental toll on many and the sooner it is over, the better.  That said, I have been kept very busy and am doing outside jobs whenever the winter weather allows - and there are plenty of them.  I have made myself use the long and winding metal outside stairs to get up and down - slightly more useful that exercises in front of the TV.

Even so, there remains time for reflection which is no bad thing.  The other evening I was sitting in my favourite chair channel-hopping between two absorbing programmes on the TV using that most useful 'pre-ch' button.   It is amazing how you can watch two quite separate documentaries in alternating snatches and take in most of both.  Perhaps it's just me who can do that but I doubt it.

Trouble arises when the advertisement breaks coincide.  That's ideal if you've been waiting to have a pee but if not it's just you, your surroundings and reflections.

Anyway, that other evening I reflected on the scene below - a beautifully built stone wall.  Once the top part of the external east wall of an old railway water tower, now our new lounge wall:

Said favourite chair is right alongside what proves to be a satisfyingly tactile wall.   Forget the vertical black tube; it is not a drainpipe but the stem of an overhanging reading lamp above the chair.  Just admire the craftsmanship and accuracy involved in making and laying those stones to the satisfaction of a Bowler-hatted Victorian foreman with a ruler probably.  They have been exposed to 150 years of Beasts-from-the-East  They were high in the air on the blind side of the tower so unlikely ever to be seen and closely scrutinised.  Hats off to whoever you were.  You have my day by day admiration and respect.

In other news, here is a Facebook image from exactly three years ago showing the early train from Ribblehead to Leeds from FoSCL's Ribblehead viaduct camera.  

Sadly the camera, one of the most popular on the network, has camera COVID just now - it has water inside and must wait until lock-down is over for replacement and bench-attention: