Well, not heaven exactly but the next best thing - the steps now give safe and steady access to the new viewing platform and seat. They are made from left-over sections of insulated wall from which the new rear extension is built.
Screwed and glued together and with anti-slip edges to the treads they are solid as a rock. Here's another evening view this week. It is dark in Settle but the western sky is still bright. Well worth the climb.
A broken neck (nearly five years ago quite soon) concentrates the mind somewhat when it comes to falls. I remember that prevention of falls was a high NHS priority when I was a non-executive director of a Health Trust. Falls, especially among the elderly, accounted for a huge number of hospital admissions - indeed, fatalities. Easy to identify the problem but almost impossible to prevent them to any meaningful extent. We are a poor design, top heavy and walking on just two of our four limbs.
We built-in some features when we adapted the tower, most notably the lift of course. Since my big fall we have installed more handrails around the place too. Still, some hazards remain - most notably getting into (easy just yet) and out of the bath - hard, inelegant, dangerous and bordering on impossible.
Baths are a bit old fashioned anyway, showers being quicker and, if brief, easier on water and heating. Even so there's nothing more relaxing than a good soak in a bath. For both of us getting out of the bath has become hazardous at best. Yet the technology is out there to lower you into the bath and raise you out of it in safety. We decided to go for it. There are gadgets galore but the undoubted Rolls-Royce of them is the belt type electric bath lift. All are expensive and the market (older people mainly) is vulnerable.
Most widely and very convincingly advertised is Aqua Lift. Click here for a brochure the website said so we did. Almost immediately the telephone rang, it was Aqua Lift. Would we like a free home demonstration. No obligation so why not? Better still they could fit us in next day. Good as their word their man, a smashing chap named John came and showed us the machine in a most expert and convincing 'dry demonstration'. The machine was just the job. It came to the price, inevitably. I had done a bit of homework online and had been alarmed at the big range of prices for what appeared to be near identical products, differing only in the makers' name or so it seemed to me. There is no VAT payable on the disability aid. After a couple of phone call to head office the best price, with a substantial discount was an astonishing £2,316.25p. That was today's price for an immediate order. We wanted to do a bit more research, declined for now but promised to contact John if his price was competitive. He said that he would have to return if was were to buy his Aqualift. We shook hands and left it at that.
We have quite taken to sitting on the indoor rooftop viewing platform. As the evenings are drawing in this means an early view of sunsets and into the hours of darkness. Here's an example. When Settle stations lovely old 'gas lamps' come on in response to the darkness the view is even lit up for us.
The lamps are actually modern exact replicas of the once familiar Victorian copper topped lamps on cast iron posts. Every station along the line has them as a result of a huge grant from the Railway Heritage Trust. They used to have those orange coloured sodium lamps, recently replaced with LED bulbs of gas-lamp colour. Don't they look fine? Far cheaper to run as well.
Our railway line has had a serious derailment just south of Carlisle. A train that passes through Settle almost daily is the cement train from Clitheroe to Scotland. On Wednesday I saw and heard the cement empties pass through Settle at 1106. This routine happening was memorable because I heard a loud bang - bang - bang - bang noise as it sped past. Not unusual. Trains can and often do lock their wheels under braking. This can cause a flat spot on the locked wheel which if allowed to remain can damage the track as well as making a noise. Worse, it can cause a derailment.
This is what seems to have happened to our loaded cement train as it approached Carlisle where there is a set on points where the S&C and the Tyne Valley lines merge. A really bad wheel flat can create a false flange.
This is the suspect Carlisle wheel showing the false flange, the flat, and very very obvious scorching. Because of the line's speed limit heavy trains coming downhill from Ais Gill summit undergo long spells of braking. A wheel with a serious flat like this will lock up, worsening the flat.
Above is today's scene. All these wagons are derailed. Two are out of sight - in the river Petteril below.
Network Rail are speaking of weeks rather than days to recover the vehicles and repair the damage - including the river bridge which dates from the 1830s.
This morning on my way back from the front gate / letterbox with the Daily Telegraph I just had to take this picture. The light was just right to show off the Wendy House a.k.a. Mark's Man Cave or Settle International Terminal 3 - earlier posts explain why.
The mid-October sunrise gave T3 a halo, the sky was blue and a northbound vapour trail was prominent against a clear blue sky. London Heathrow to Glasgow most likely. The window of Terminal 2 also shows up well.
Apart from the period of mourning for the Queen, we have flown a Ukrainian flag over the tower since the start of the invasion. It was small though. Over time its yellow component had faded to white and it had almost blown itself to shreds.
With mixed feelings yesterday I raised a brand new and bigger one.
I look forward to lowering it one day - the sooner the better.
The horizontal railing intruded annoyingly into the otherwise glorious view from the viewing platform:
Depending on your eye line it was always on or near the horizon. But no longer:
I've left the vertical post in the centre and also 60mm stubs projecting from that post and from those on each side. The removed two sections of 25mm rail can be replaced at any time using 30mm outside diameter (26 mm inside diameter) tubular collars securing the joins firmly in place.
A raily good result, eh?
From the ground the absence of the two railings is invisible - they coincide with the roof overhang's shadow. The still in situ vertical post completes the illusion:
Just spent a delightful weekend with family in Gerrards Cross - the first time we have visited there since Covid so there have been a lot of changes.
Not least the boys James and Ben have both shot up and are way taller than their mother, Lorna. Here's one of little olde me with James for comparison.
Sixth former James is learning to drive too! Here's his VW Up parked outside with his mother's big Jag behind it.
And her's said mother in her lovely sheltered garden with Darcey the dog looking a bit wary of the camera.
Our roof room sits deliberately low down inside what was the water tank. This is to stop it dominating the overall appearance of the tower and topmost structure. Several things were incorporated into its design to minimise its outward appearance.
From inside though the lowered floor of the roof room is disappointing in that all that a seated person inside the room can see is the inside wall of the cast iron tank. Impressive but frustrating. The view to the east is further restricted by frosting to the lower parts of of the roof room's glazed east wall. That was a planning requirement to prevent us overlook an adjoining garden. It doesn't work at all well as visitors always ask about it and on hearing the explanation they invariably stand on tiptoes and look over the frosting or go outside to satisfy their natural curiosity.
To the west though are much finer views stretching for miles into Lancashire, the Forest of Bowland and the hills above.
The roof room has had its problems - cold in winter, hot in summer and bedevilled by cluster flies in autumn - see recent posts. The fly problem seems to have been solved or drastically reduced - time will tell for sure. The room has been used as an occasional bedroom, dining room and TV lounge but it has lacked a main purpose. Yet there it sits overlooking a view-to-die-for, rarely seen. I have long wondered about building a viewing platform in that otherwise underused room. Well, at last I've done it:
Simple really - a modern see-through sliding two-seater chair, securely mounted on a spare table that was just waiting for a permanent use. Accessed by three steps, the seated occupant now looks straight out over that stunning view. Incidentally, the picture shows well the clever design of the massive steel verticals which form the window frames and support the roof. They are of T section with a very deep upstroke of the T and very small horizontal top strokes. That design enables very slender frames when viewed from outside yet makes for a massively strong roof support. Compare the verticals on each side of the viewing platform.
Sitting in comfort and in any sort of weather there it is in all its glory. Thanks to recent tree felling we can even see the trains. The only impediment is the horizontal black (purely ornamental) handrail. That will be made removable and we shall see if things look right with that arrangement. The inside of the tank will have a repaint while we are at it. Work in progress but hopefully the result will be an enjoyable and really useful roof room. The presently very obvious former dining table may yet be cunningly disguised. Standing head-height on that viewing platform is right up to the ceiling.
No dining tables were harmed in the making of this structure.
