The Talisman

Like Ian and countless others, I headed over to King's Cross this afternoon to watch the arrival of the first steam engine built in the UK for fifty years.

By the time I arrived, the crowds on the concourse and platforms were massive so I wandered down York Way to watch it before it entered the station.

I didn't take any photos, as usual, so here is a picture of where I stood:

View this aerial image on Multimap.com
Bird's Eye view on Multimap.com
Get directions on Multimap.com

 

Now, as we have already established, I am not a train-spotter. Nor do I fraternise with them. So I was careful not to appear too eager or to appear to be anything other than an inquisitive passer-by who had happened upon a crowd of people.

I fooled nobody.

A friendly middle-aged woman and her eighty-nine year-old mother asked me when the train was due. And a genuine passerby asked me what everybody was looking at.

Oh well...

They didn't teach this at *my* school

I remember my GCSE physics teacher telling us a story about the last time he bought a house.  It was the middle of winter and had been snowing heavily.

He was worried about how much it would cost to heat so walked to the bottom of the garden and looked at the roof.

Unlike the houses either side, it had no snow on its roof.  He concluded that the insulation was inadequate and answered his own question.

He was clearly just being naive.  For there is another perfectly reasonable explanation for why the snow may have melted...

Snow, snow, snow

Everybody else seems to be at it.

So here are some pictures of snow.

 

The view from the flat this morning....

 

 

Some kids made the most of the school closures....

 

I took this photo of Canary Wharf this morning.  Scarily, it's completely invisible now...  the weather isn't getting any better....