The Monday Photo

This is my postie, wearing his reindeer hat. I have no idea what his name is, but it's a fine hat. Keeps the ears warm, too; stylish yet practical.

That’s all folks.

Taken from the railway bridge at Buckingham Road, Winslow.

The Monday Photo

Workmen clear trees from the old railway cutting at Winslow, where the old railway branch line is to be reinstalled as part of the East West Rail project. In the distance, two more workmen walk along the flooded track bed towards the old iron foot bridge.

When the project is finished, you will be able to travel by rail to places such as Worcester, Glasgow, or the Norfolk coast, without having to spend three or four hours going all the way into London, then coming back out again on a different line.

Don’t forget, you would have to struggle across the underground with your luggage too. This is not the best way to go on holiday. Instead, you will be able to take the new line East or West across to the main line you need. From the new station at Winslow, you will also be able to get to Aylesbury, then from there to London Marylebone.

Services will start to run at the end of 2024, say East West Rail. Between Oxford and Milton Keynes there will be two services every hour. From Oxford to Bedford: one service an hour, and between Milton Keynes and Aylesbury they say there will be a service every hour.

All these trains will pass through Winslow, so I expect they’ll all be stopping at the new station. Meanwhile, there will be more room on trains in and out of the North side of London.

These workmen travel from near Brighton every day; a matter of a couple of hours by road at the moment, they say. That know that will change when the lockdown is over.

This is an Amazon link.

The Monday Photo

The driver in the nearest JCB is really feeling the cold, up high on the M1 motorway embankment, early in February. Not far from this spot a bridge carries the motorway over the disused Wolverton to Newport Pagnell branch line.

I drove through Quainton on the way to see my dad last week, passing East to West through the village. When I got to Lower Street I saw the thatchers were at work on Orchard Cottage.

I had a few minutes so I stopped to take photos, and I talked to Dave, one of the thatchers. He was trimming the new thatch on the gable end of the house next to the road.

On my way through East Claydon last week, I noticed that the house that used to be The Swan, the last coaching stop on the old Aylesbury to Buckingham turnpike, was covered in scaffolding. It looks like there’s some serious roofing work to be done.

The well painted Victorian postbox I showed you a few weeks ago (scroll down at the link) is out of sight at the far end, but you can just see the yellow padding the scaffolders have put round their tubes to protect unwary letter posters.

There’s also another view of The Swan, at the link above.

Well, that was clever. I made a note of the names of these three workmen and what they were doing in the Ouzel Valley Park in Milton Keynes, but I’ve lost the piece of paper. 

Anyhow, the two in the first picture were on their lunch break, but the man with the keys to the pick up hadn’t returned, and their lunch was locked inside the cab.

I took their photo, then when their mate turned up they all piled into the pick up and I got his picture too. He’s nearest the camera in the second photo. If I remember right, they were trimming conifers.