Bills Posts

On Saturday, I wrote about our visit to the Kempton Steam Museum. I commented on how magnificent I thoughtt the building was, but lamented the fact that I hadn’t taken a picture. Luckily, Elayne had.

The height of the building reflects the need to house the 19 metre tall steam engines that’s it houses. We were told that the building was constructed first, and the engines taken in piece by piece and constructed in situ.

Given the size of some of the components and the mounts for the steam engines, it is a remarkable piece of engineering. Plus what they were used for, to push 19 million gallons of drinking water per day into the city.

Whilst I was in the museum, I watched an information film about the Metropolitan Water Board, and what they did about the water. It was absolutely fascinating. I’m wondering if the fils are available on YouTube. I must have a look.

We went for a lovely walk this morning, not too far, but there was loads of wildlife, especially birds, these Egyptian Geese were puttering on a bit of a display for us.\

We even saw a couple of Deer, there is a Rut on but the ones we saw were being lazy. I’ll put a picture up over the next couple of days.

Rain was forecast to start at 10:00, and to be fair it was pretty much on the mark. We hadn’t got too far from the car, so we didn’t get very wet.

It was a very pleasant morning.

I’m really quite annoyed with myself. Today, we visited an amazing museum; The Kempton Steam Museum. The museum hosts two giant steam engines, that from 1929 to the 1980’s was used to pump drinking water that had been filtered through various processes in to London. Each steam engine was capable of pushing 19 million gallons of water into the city per day.

Let’s get that annoyance addressed – I haven’t got a picture of the building in which the engines are housed. Most frustrating because like a lot of things from those times are very different to some of the functional monstrosities that have been constructed since, the building really is quite attractive. It has that sense of grandeur, with its curving brisk work and high windows.

We were lucky today, which was quite an arbitrary day for a visit, as it was a ‘Steam Day’ which meant that the one engine that is full operational would be running under steam.

Watching this 60 foot tall piece of magnificent machinery being brought into operation was a piece of art in its own right, the little engine that is brought up to pressure and then engaged with one of the giant fly wheels to start the pistons turning was fascinating.

The people who volunteer there clearly love the place, and that comes across in their eagerness to talk. Of the people who visit the museum, I suspect may of them are regulars. There’s a tea shop, and a row of seats from where you can watch the engine working. A definite feeling of calmness, as the giant engine (actually, the same size as Titanic’s engines – parts of various films were shot there).

There’s even a small narrow gauge railway that gives rides. At the moment you get three times round a very small loop, but there are some magnificent plans that I really hope will come to fruition.

All in all, a really delightful day.

I am plumbing the depths of things to write about. It’s not because I have nothing else to write about, it’s partly because I want to practice doing a bit of random writing, and partly because I am deliberately avoiding some topics that I do want to write about because the topics in my mind are not really mature. That situation may persist for a bit of time.

I did a bit of ironing. We have a bit of a backlog, so I thought I had better do some.

Whilst doing the ironing,, I was flicking some YouTube items. The one about star trackers was quite interesting. Especially the one that had a very simple set up, using the GPS & orientation sensors off the phone. I’d quite like one of those. The whole astrophotography thing is quite appealing, there are some wonderful sights to be had.

As you flick through, every so often a music video pops up. There were two tonight; The Pierces, You’ll be mine. I can remember when that one was released. It got played a lot. I’ll add it to my favourites. The other was Gotye’s Someone that I used to know. I can remember the first time i heard it, I was bored, in a clothes shop. It’s quite a distinctive tune and it got me straight away.

It certainly made the ironing more interesting.

With the work that we have had done in the house, we haven’t had access to the living room for the last seven weeks. I must admit, it’s not the work that has been the problem, the lads from Ace of Spades have been superb, even if they have consumed vast quantities of tea, custard creams and bourbons. We had to stop buying chocolate hobnobs because I was becoming addicted to them.

Anyhow, life has slowly begun to return to normal,, today we started moving furniture back in to the lounge. Thankfully. The time of living in the evenings off the bed are drawing to a close. These last two nights in particular, I have just given up trying to not sleep. That’s one episode off Grace where I have no idea how it ended, and another episode that is so clouded by the fog of drowsiness that I’m not really sure what happened.

When it comes to important decisions such as which curtains are best suited, well don’t attempt it half asleep. I’m afraid my lack of enthusiasm got the better of me, with muttering of “I don’t care” coming frequently. Not the best response to a wife who is bubbling with enthusiasm, and expects the same from you.

I’d say I’m in the doghouse, but we don’t have a dog and any cat house would be far too luxurious for me. Anyhow, I managed to wake up enough to pen something a bit better than last nights very feeble effort. Goodnight.

My apologies, fell asleep and woke up too tired to do a full blown entry.

The Interchange is fully operational, and in use. The bus station is closed off and out of use, and I am in trouble because I am too grumpy.

I agree that I am grumpy, but don’t ask me for an explanation or a reason for my grumpiness, it is quite irrational and stupid, but there it is, I am.

It really was very nice to just get out for a couple of hours this evening and have a wander around on the other side of the harbour. As you do, we took a few pictures which was very pleasant, I’d even taken my big camera with me, but as it was night, I took the tripod as well. I needed it. I don’t have the steadiest of hands.

We went into Gunwharf, and the Lindt shop was open, but we both exhibited great will power and resisted the urge. Luckily, when we came back it was closed.

The ferry trip over was slightly strange. The captain seemed to take a very wide course, as slowly as he could. Coming back a couple of hours later, it seemed like the captain couldn’t get across the water fast enough. It was OK though. Both quite smooth journeys. A very pleasant evening.

Sorry, but it was at least 20 years ago. I was listening to the radio, and the presenter was at the Prickwillow Pump Engine Museum. I have to be honest and say. That they painted a fascinating picture of the engines that were used to drain water off the Fens in Norfolk and Suffolk.

WE visited the museum. I enjoyed the visit. Elayne kind of didn’t. I have to admit that it looked like the museum was in its early days.

I’ve just checked online and Prickwillow is still a thing, not sure if it is in the same place but it has significantly grown, I have to say that I am really pleased that it is still going, and appears to have grown and is hopefully doing really well.

Anyhow, there is a reason I am telling you this. I’ve found another one – similar but different, and hopefully much, much better. We haven’t got there yet, but we will do. I’ll tell you about it.

I haven’t checked, but it’s quite likely that I’ve used this picture in a blogpost sometime in the last month or so. It’s a location within easy walking distance of home, and I think the image has a lot of potential, in that I like the structure, but I’m not happy with the picture. I’d like to make it better.

When we were out with the camera club a couple of weeks ago, I had one of those moments when I realised that I just don’t know enough about some the settings on my Nikon, which as a camera which only went out of production a couple of years ago is still not a bad purchase – even 2nd hand. So, this week, I am going to play a bit more with some of the features on the camera.

One of the things that I have regularly moaned about is the lack of opportunity to take pictures, where I might get even the slimmest chance of getting a good shot. The camera club offers a regular walk usually in the countryside, but this Monday there’s a chance of some night-time work. I’ve been saying that I’m not going to go as I’ve been rough and not felt like it, but I do feel better and might just change my mind. There’s an opportunity – why not take advantage?