Thursday 15 April 2010

The road to hell----

is paved with good intentions.

I have been meaning to do an entry for ages but one thing and another has meant that I have not got round to it. At least spring seems to have returned with blue sky and sunshine today.

I did mean to do an entry on April 9th to coincide with Isambard Kingdom Brunels birthday after reading an article that Network Rail have spent money on cleaning up the entrance to Box Tunnel in time to celebrate the Great Western Railways 175th birthday. Box tunnel at the time of its construction was the longest man made tunnel in the world and on April 9th it is possible to look through the tunnel and see the sun rising at the other end. Some say that this was done by Brunel on purpose others that it is just a happy coincidence!

I am off to York for the weekend fortunately by train and not air! Having been to Iceland I can testify that the volcanoes are certainly impressive, in fact the whole country is rather impressive. It is very expensive and is not a beach/shopping kind of holiday but if you are interested in the natural world it is awesome. Imagine swimming in an outdoor lake where the water is as warm as your bath water!

Will do another entry next week continuing my memories.

Andy

7 comments:

Linda George said...

Hope you have a good time in York Andy. We had a weekend there once and really enjoyed ourselves. Still have the photos of the trains somewhere up in the loft. xx

Jeanie said...

We had a great weekend there too Andy for our 30th wedding anniversary. We were booked into a hotel just across the road from the racecourse and had a super time there and around the sights.
Have a super weekend. Hope the weather is decent for you too.
Jeanie

Sybil said...

Hi Andy, Well would you believe it but I live within 200 mtrs of Box Tunnel...in the village of Box the trains pass by my back bedroom window I suppose only about 30ft, away !! and NO I don't actually hear them now..after living here about a month I realised I hadn't heard a train...then promptly heard one !!!!It is amazing how quickly ones ears get used to noises. The tunnel does look quite spruce now that they have cleared a lot of the folliage around it. There is a lovely wooded area that was planted for the millinnium just by the tunnel
nice to sit there if one likes the trains.
Have a lovely weekend
Sybil x

Ally Lifewithally said...

Andy enjoy your weekend in York ~ Ally x

Jan said...

You will have the time of your life up there with all those trains ,enjoy ...love Jan xx

Liz said...

Have a great weekend, but don't believe York's claim to having the most complete Roman city walls. If you really want to see the best defence the Romans could build go to Cestria (Chester). It also has an amphitheatre.
I am sure Brunel had a great purpose for all his creations. The 'coincidence' I believe is best descibed by some of the first set of alternative words given by the Oxford Thesaurus: accord, agreement, coexistence, concurrence, conformity and harmony,
rather than the usual ones: accident, chance, fluke and luck.

Ken Riches said...

I am sure that the train ride will be catharthic for you and that your weekend in York enjoyable.