A month without trains

A month without trains

I’m not alone in having their lives turn upside down due to the current Covid-19 situation in the country; many trips have been cancelled or postponed until later in the year.  It’s been nearly a month since I stepped off a pair of 159s having come back from a little jolly to Didcot to rope in my last GWR 802, which for me is the longest period without trains for a good few years.  I only started to record my trips back in 2014, but even before then I can remember using the trains every couple weeks or so for shopping.

So what have I been doing to fill the time, during the lock-down period, other than working in the kitchen serving military personal?  Well basically it’s been bilge watching all the episodes of The Grand Tour using a free 30 day trial of Amazon Prime (something which has been on my list to do for a while), watching Japanese animation (anime) (mainly from my large back-pile of titles purchased which I haven’t gotten round to watching), also catching up with work in the garden (mainly major repairs to the shed to make it stronger and more secure as some of the wood used by my dad 35 years ago had rotted away throughout the years).  Most of these repairs were carried out using spare wood we had laying around inside the shed from various projects over the years, but it looks so much better than it did before hand.

Anyhow, also I’ve making use of the daily right to leave the house for exercise, by exploring some of the byways/bridleways/footpaths in my local area, of which there is quite a few to pick from (one benefit of living out in the countryside).  A few pictures from these walks I’ve posted on my twitter account, and the walking has done me good as it gets me out of the house, down paths I’ve not walked before or walked many years ago (bringing back memories of my youth).

As for trains, I’ve got a couple trips booked up for the start of June, but other than that nothing is booked up, and where I did miss travelling for the first few weeks, I am noticing the benefit in my bank account with not spending so much.  Also not having an alarm clock at weekends is still a novelty for me (although sleeping in to late sometimes isn’t possible), I don’t think I will be able to go back full-time weekend tripping, maybe once leisure travel is allowed once more it will only be a couple times a month I head out, start building my savings up.

Stay safe everybody

The repaired shed (not finished)

 

 

 

A local footpath