St Pancras water tower

This is the water tower at St Pancras, London.   Rather more ornate than ours but the MR would have wanted a showy piece of architecture in that location - if only to counter the gas works!

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I am told the tower survives, having been taken down during the reconstruction of St Pancras station. It was rebuilt slightly to the north, by the Regents Canal.   I must look for a 'now' picture.

And here are some:

two pictures of the relocated tower, above and below

and two amazing pictures of how they moved it.   It was cut horizontally into three then craned into place.   I thought it was a big enough crane job to plonk the 13.5 tonne roof room onto our tank but to move an entire water tower, almost intact, by crane must have been pushing lifting and other technology to the very limits:

Sandals and socks

Regular readers may recall me saying that one of the chemo side-effects is sore feet.   My approach to the increasingly irksome condition is to wear sandals and socks - a fashion no-no, they say.

At my age you could not care less about such things - one of the many delights and reliefs of the ageing process.   When, rarely, people comment on my footwear I tell them that I am a trend-setter and that EVERYBODY will be wearing sandals and socks this year.   If it's somebody I judge may appreciate the subtlety I say Season rather than Year.

IMAGINE MY DELIGHT THEN TO DISCOVER THESE ON THE INTERNET:

Socks made to look like sandals and socks.

I rest my case.

Hollywood comes to the Water Tower

The Hollywood style sign on Castlebergh for the Tour de Yorkshire was removed today by climbers and, courtesy of Settle Town Council, brought to the water tower for display on the fence - for the duration of the Settle Flowerpot Festival at any rate.

The sign has already drawn comment, for and against.     Here is the sign in its new home:

People arriving by train should be in no doubt where they are.








And below is a picture of it being secured onto Castlebergh by climbers.   It was considerably less fuss to put it on our fence.

I'm a(n) Historian

Some weeks ago I agreed to do a talk about the S&C at Settle Library.   Locally, that's the Big Time.   Apart from putting it in the diary I quite forgot about it so was alarmed to see this cropping up all over the (local) social media and on noticeboards:

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Particularly alarming was my billing as a 'historian'.   Pedants call it AN historian, out of respect for the H.

I lay claim to many well deserved descriptions but historian is not one of them.   I cannot now recall if history was among my 8 O Levels but I rather think it was not.   Leeds Grammar School, anxious to maintain its batting averages, may not have entered me for history - so disinterested was I in dates, kings, queens and monasteries.

Anyway, I think I got away with it at Settle Library.

Che Mother 'happy Breakfast Gets Bigger

My daily chemo breakfast just got bigger by two tablets, to thirteen.   Quite what the stomach makes of this lot each morning I cannot imagine.   Anyway, I'm in good hands at Airedale Hospital.  Just five more weeks to go, out of six months.   Still got my hair and my marbles.

Click to enlarge into a dinner

Very Posh Special Train Today

Here is a picture of Statesman Rail's special train from Hull today passing our camera at Horton i, the Pullman passengers dining well amidst glorious scenery.

http://awesomescreenshot.com/0035uosy4e

The train stopped for an hour at Settle so using our four wireless loudspeakers I took the opportunity to tell the 250 passengers about our shop, the signal box, the water tower and our award winning toilets - to good effect all round.

It is so sad that the Eden Brows landslip has curtailed these special trains but well done Statesman for making the best of it.

Lovely Picture of a House Martin

When we put up our webcams on S&C stations we thought we would capture some nice pictures of chuffer trains.    We never thought we would get action shots of dicky birds like this:

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I am told it is a house martin.   It may just have a bird brain but I bet you wish you could do that sort of thing?