177/366 Not Vlogging & Downton Abbey

Another picture of yesterday’s misty morning. Unrelated to the main topic of today’s post, about which I don’t have a lot to say.

With regard to the vlogg, I really do have nothing to add. I have done nothing at all about it. Well, I have thought a little bit about it. I’ve kind of decided that you don’t really want five minutes of me talking to the camera. What do I want to give you? Education (arrogant of me) relaxation (yeah, I don’t think I’d be good at that) entertainment (to be honest, I’d be even less effective at that). I must admit, there is a pressure building up in side me, so I am going to have to do something about it soon.

I included Downton Abbey in the title as I wanted to say something about this TV series. Today, we watched the film. The end of an era. Over the last few weeks we have gone through the six seasons and various sub-episodes, finishing today with the movie.

Over the weeks I have to love the characters in the programme and have been captivated by the story. I confess that I did not expect to enjoy it, but we both became involved in the series very quickly. I am very sad that evenings and weekends will no longer involve deciding whether to watch one, or because of the gripping story follow on with the next episode. We often watched two because we couldn’t wait. I think it’s fair to say that the only other series which has generated any kind of equivalent pleasure is Star Trek.

I usually do this blog between 7 & 8 in the evening (I am tonight). At the moment, we have Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway Journeys running in the background. It’s the episode from the London Victoria to Abbey Wood. As it happens, this episode was talking about the state of the Thames in the 1800s, at the time being the open air sewer of London. Just a little unpleasant!

Early in the 1800’s the effluent of Londoners was collected and sold as fertiliser to the countryside. Then the clipper ships started bringing Guano back from South America, as I have been reading in the Clippers (Book of the week). The Guano was a better quality than the London Poo, As the london stuff was no longer required, it had nowhere else other than the river to go. I must admit I never expected to find a link to The Clipper from a programme about railway journeys. Interesting,