Exploring Vintage Railway Lines

I have got into this Friday night tradition of writing about my past week, very therapeutic just lately with all that has been happening in my life and the lives of those around me.
Saturday night I had a terrifying experience at my friend Dwains house culminating from a huge local disturbance in the force.
Of course the biggest thing has been my dad, who is now in hospital, although he is doing well physically, well me, my mum, Luke and my brother Sylar are not trained medically and at home under our nursing skills he seemed to be getting progressively worse.
Since he moved in to the downstairs room, he was just sleeping and not eating and was obviously suffering a lot of pain anyway in the end my mum finally called the doctor to come out again and he was admitted into our local hospital.
I don’t really know what to feel like, I try to laugh and joke with my dad but its been draining couple of weeks watching him lying there, sometimes you would think he was going to get better only then to deteriorate once again.
On top of all that it has been half term and Luke’s been at home all week while I have been getting up for work, but since he has got his own bedroom, this doesn’t cause nowhere near as much problems he has simultaneously got his own independence, I was looking at some vids the other day and I am amazed how much he’s grown up in the last year or so.
So I am sat here at my computer having watched about these salmon going through all this long battle upstream to the place they were first born, and having climbed waterfalls and made it past bears without being eaten, they just lay there eggs and then die.
But has the program summarised their bodies bring nutrients from the sea to the forests and when the eggs hatch the cycle starts all over again
Still its left me feeling just a little empty so I prayed then I thought of the funny bits of last week, on Monday, The Chimney Sweep our lonely fork truck driver now having being abandoned by 40 minutes thoughtfully brought me a TV to er buy which didn’t work like.
Well actually I stand corrected, it didn’t work without the remote which The Chimney Sweep couldn’t find, I think I will henceforth know him now by the pseudonym Steptoe.
Monday night at the AA, once again me and Uncle Buck opened up but found there were no lights working in the kitchen, eventually we stumbled across a notice which we initially couldn’t read because it was dark but after Uncle Bucks lighter revealed that some temporary lights were hidden in the corner.
The share was really mind-blowing and everyone’s spirits were lifted, Yoda of course came in a silly hat and I once again came away spiritually recharged and like that old “Lifted” song by the Lighthouse Family, Uncle Buck’s change in the last 6 months has been phenomenal.
On the way back from the AA having not eaten all day I collected my tea from our excellent local Chinese and was just about to eat it when Luke handed me the phone with The Ice Maiden, his mum on the other end.
This is my first AA apology of the week, I was maybe a teeny weeny bit rude. And that’s it my grumpiness has manifested itself in me all week, I mean I was hungry and thinking about my tea like a hungry pack animal and she was just enquiring about my dad.
Tuesday I had the day as a holiday with the job of taking “Christine the Third”, our car in for its first year annual service but sadly I had hoped so much to have taken my dad but he was just fast asleep in bed almost all of the day.
Back at work on Wednesday was hard, I knew my dad was very unwell but there wasn’t much I could of done if I had been at home, he was admitted to hospital on Wednesday and every night since including tonight I have been there with my mum and either Luke or my brother, since he’s been admitted he seems to have improved quite considerably and can now stand unaided.
He is really confused about what he is seeing and it is quite hard to understand what he is saying but he knows who we are and what day it is and tonight had us laughing.
Anyway Wednesday at work, Betty complained that the day I had taken as a holiday was one of the busiest days for a while and that has contributed to this week breaking easily through the 800,000 record of 2009 so far.
Amazingly most of this feat has been achieved by just one fork truck driver on his own, so despite all this economic uncertainty our bricks are still pouring out the gates, but remember also I am used to “The Lost World” traffic flows so my opinion could be biased.
Thursday and the highlight of really a rather black day was getting out in the “pool car” to go collect a letter from Dewsbury Post Office, the office was quite busy and since the post office charge a pound for each item of mail that has no stamp and on top of that the value of the postage.
Well it got me thinking as I drove back stopping off with a quick trip into Greggs to get a Tuna Crunch, I just love them, anyway I reckon the Post Office could make a great trade sending out unstamped mail, most companies think it might be important, well Betty did, I was glad for the drive out.
We also learned on Thursday that come Monday and four new fleet wagons will occupy a place where I park “Christine the Third”, so I will have to park her near the field car park that once dominated my waking nightmares.
I was parking my car where I had parked “Christine the First” way back in 2002-4 when the car had been my stash of secret cans of kestrel super before I ventured off into the fields that lie beyond.
Back in my alcoholic haze, a time when has Shandy Pants the other day joked I wasn’t here in fact he said “lights are on but nobody’s in” but that’s the flashbacks you get being a recovering alcoholic
I parked “Christine The Third” there for the very fist time this morning which was Fish and Chips Friday, Billy Bunny was once again on his rounds and I was definitely this morning going to have that out of date ASDA sarnie in the office fridge for dinner, but, I succumbed in the end to fish and chips.
I have been particularly interested that the Ice Road which is the infamous mile long road up to the monastery actually crosses an old railway line and have made it a mission one summer day to go for a walk down there and take some pictures.
I have been really enjoying browsing this website I have found which shows a lot of the disused railway lines around West Yorkshire where I live http://www.lostrailwayswestyorkshire.co.uk/
I love local history, its fascinating in our modern times looking back at how people one hundred years ago lived round here and it was all centred on the great Victorian railways which criss-crossed a lot of our landscape with fantastic viaducts.
So well I guess that just leaves the fact that this week we took out of the yard over 850,000 bricks a record for the Monastery during the current year and a record that should be repeatedly broken as the spring and summer approaches
Mv Jan Feb Driver SumOftotal
>> NE 20 David M33COD 24408
▲ 54 19 George P30COD 24408
>> NE 18 MP07HBP 27572
▼ 10 17 Jackie Chan 28024
▲ 32 16 HAN007 30380
▼ 9 15 Donkey Daz 31188
Jackie Chan and Donkey Daz slide from last months Top Ten positions out of the Top 15 while early Februarys No1 Craigs Drivers have not returned from Falkirk.
>> NE 14 Henry RX05ETK 31188
▲ 57 13 Scott T500TTF 35256
>> NE 12 John DX04DNY 37968
▲ 153 11 Lord Archer 38872
▲ 39 10 BX54OVU 40388
A huge leap for Lord Archer there who seems to enjoy early morning calls to our works jumps a huge leap to number 11, but beware because he has been placed under heavy surveillance
▼ 7 9 Dizzy 41584
▲ 14 8 Maximum Moaner 41584
▲ 15 7 The Crowman 49720
The Crowman jumps to this weeks Number 7 sending Dizzy spinning down to number 9 and jolting Maximum Moaners jump from last months number 14, but The Crowman has been accused of cheating by The Jedi Council.
What he has been doing is loading wagons for other members of his team thereby elevating his position, the council has adjourned the case pending further investigation.
▼ 2 6 Burty Basset 61916
▼ 4 5 Van Damn 62376
▼ 1 4 Harry Potter 67248
Slipping four places in our mid month movers is Burty while holiding on strongly to the top 5 is Van Damn, while Harry falls to No4 with a number of excuses about his vehicles reliability.
▲ 73 3 Jamie (and his magic torch) DX04DNU 72772
▲ 5 2 Orville 83168
▲ 3 1 Keith Chicken 109836
A surprise jump into the Top 3 from virtually nowhere is Jamie and his magic torch but the two birds trade positions from last week right at the top at what has been the hardest month so far, of the year.
The February winner will collect a prize which was promised last month by our well respected manager Bob, at the moment it looks like Keith Chicken maybe the man of the moment with good two full loads in front of Orville.
Orville just wish he could fly…
So its late now Friday night, Luke is staying at my friend Dwains house with his son Mr Popple and I feel much better for having written all this.
I don’t know how much sense this all makes but despite just living from one unpredictable event or catastrophe to the next with my life, I feel my higher power in those seemingly insignificant but meaningful synchronous happenings.