End of the book

You may have wondered (though most likely have not as i suspect you are normal) how i manage to create the graphs such as on this page which shows the rolling stock and train companies i have traveled on over the course of a year. The answer is, i have listed all of my journies on rail in a little black book! I don't write down the numbers (my train spotting days can be left in my teens) but i note the type of train i have been on, and who operates it. 

This then allows me to create graphs using Google Sheets and sometimes i publish them at the end of the year. So, i have been doing this for a number of years now but my book has finally run out of new pages! But fear not, i will start a new book next week...

Manchester at last!

I haven't been to Manchester before and as I'm nearly fifty I thought it was high time. After last week's last minute postponement due to the weather I finally made it to the fine city in the North West yesterday. It was worth the wait as Manchester is great and I'm sure to return many times in future. I visited the Museum of Science and Industry, walked two canals and travelled around on the tram a bit too. You can see my rail related photos here. More about the museum and canals later.

Evesham

My original plan for the weekend was to go to Bedford on Saturday but for various reasons that never happened. Instead I went to Evesham instead on Sunday. I have been to Evesham once before, when I was at university but that was about thirty years ago! Evesham is a nice old town with medieval and Civil War buildings though I was more interested on this brief trip by walking along the Avon. To get from Worcester to Evesham I went on the new GWR Class 800 train, which was rather nice. You can see my photos here.

Lapworth to Hatton

As the car was at the garage for it's MOT I was not at work today. Instead I went on a long canal walk along the Grand Union Canal between Lapworth and Hatton. A very nice walk it was too though maybe slightly further than I thought it would be. Southern Warwickshire is one of the most wonderful places in the world and walking a canal through countryside is one of the best ways to see it especially when you suddenly spot over a hedge a beautiful old farm house (see photo below). You can see my canal photos here. I also took some photos at Hatton station which are here.

Plotting my travels

I've decided to create a Google Map of all the places I have visited in the UK this year. I just thought it would be interesting to see where I visit a lot and where I need to go more often. Obviously there are time constraints in play if just going away for a day. I tend to avoid places more than two hours away by train and prefer no more than an hour if possible (longer distance trips are possible with overnight stays of course). Anyway you can see the map here. I shall endeavour to keep it up to date.