Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[RED-DOG]

What happens when one buffer hits another?

[Colchester Kev]

What happens when one buffer hits another?

you get one old duffer.

[Woody502]

As Kev says you get one old duffer who hits a buffer and the bank account will suffer!

What happens when one buffer hits another?

you get one old duffer.

[taximan007]

I drove up to Manchester today, & decided to go across an old favourite road of mine, the Woodhead Pass. It goes right across "the tops" (the Pennines), & is breathtakingly beautiful.

Some six reservoirs are up there, all hugging the roadside, seemingly (but clearly not) near the top of the Pennines, & they catch & store the run-off  & snow-melt, & this in turn provides most of Manchester & Sheffield's drinking water I imagine. The Reservoirs are Woodhead, Torside, Rhodeswod, Valehouse, Arnfield & Bottoms.

Typically for that part of England, the little villages have lovely names - Hadfield is next to Padfield, & there's Tintwistle, Gamestey, Broadbottom, Mottram, & Mottram in Longendale.

I'v always been facsinated by the so-called "tree-line", & certainly as you traverse Woodhead Pass, you are well above the tree-line, thus there are no trees at all. This can be caused by many things - climate (it gets much colder as you go higher), soil conditions (many trees need decent soil conditions which don't exist on top of hills & mountains, where the soil depth is thin), &, and I think this probably applies in the case of the Pennines, prevailing strong & gustry wind. Trees are one of Natures most beautiful creations, & we have hundreds of millions of them in the UK alone, yet most folk rarely give them a second glance. But see the difference when they are absent, & you then realise how they are, really, one of Mother Nature's finest creations.

Today, the cloud over the Pennines was so low it was like fog, the drizzle fell as mist, & it was bloody cold up there. All of which, added together, made it just so wonderfully beautiful. And so wonderfully English. Stick the Costa del Sol where the sun shines, & give me England's countryside to admire until I die.

Now, I know you all, or mostly, have jobs, & I'm Mr Lucky So & So who's retired & can spare the time to smell the roses - or look at the trees - but please do try & take a drive over Woodhead Pass or Snake Pass before Mr Reaper arrives. It's so beautiful, it could only be in England.

Looks very nice:

Click to see full-size image.

[kenjude]

Had a nightmare of a journey to Ebbsfleet this morning, the M25 Bridge/Toll Crossing was closed by high winds, sheesh.

Would have thought a railway buff such as yourself would be travelling from St Pancras Tikay.

[booder]

I used the Snake, Woodhead or Mam Tor every week for about 7 years.

See it in the early spring when the heather blooms purple as far as the eye can see.

Or just before daybreak in the dead of winter when the light from little stone farmhouse kitchens dot the bleak landscape like fireflies.

i travelled Woodhead weekly for ten years when i was driving HGV's, always a journey i looked forward to,apart from the evening rush hour on the western side, a nightmare.Just before daybreak ,as you rightly point out,is the perfect time to cross.

[Dingdell]

This week's Diary.

I'm on holiday (= unemployed) on Monday, (though I have to get home from Manchester first) so may drop down to Luton in the evening.

Tikay really needs to get his satnav looked at - Luton is not on the way back from Manchester....

[tikay]

As Kev says you get one old duffer who hits a buffer and the bank account will suffer!

What happens when one buffer hits another?

you get one old duffer.

Woody is not wrong! I must admit, the money is very handy. It's not work in the real sense, & yet I earn a lot more than I ever did when I worked "properly". Life can deal some strange hands.

[tikay]

Had a nightmare of a journey to Ebbsfleet this morning, the M25 Bridge/Toll Crossing was closed by high winds, sheesh.

Would have thought a railway buff such as yourself would be travelling from St Pancras Tikay.

That would have been my choice, but Poker Week booked the tickets for me, & in any event, St Pancras was not, on this occasion, convenient for me. But I use St Pancras regularly, have done for years, so I've seen at first hand the restoration of the Barlow Train Shed, in all it's magnificence. They really have done a splendid job, it must be said.

[tikay]

I used the Snake, Woodhead or Mam Tor every week for about 7 years.

See it in the early spring when the heather blooms purple as far as the eye can see.

Or just before daybreak in the dead of winter when the light from little stone farmhouse kitchens dot the bleak landscape like fireflies.

i travelled Woodhead weekly for ten years when i was driving HGV's, always a journey i looked forward to,apart from the evening rush hour on the western side, a nightmare.Just before daybreak ,as you rightly point out,is the perfect time to cross.

The road has changed on both sides of "the Tops" now, Dual Carriageway on the Eastern side, & M67 on the Wesrern side, but the summit remains mercifully, "as was".

I came back from Manchester this morning via the Snake Pass, (A57), & that's also one of the UK's most scenic & dramatic pieces of road, & I'm sure Booder & Tom both know it well. The temperature either side was 8C this morning, but at the summit, it was -1c!

Strangely, there were no sheep on the road today, whereas years ago, there always were, particularly in the winter. It was said - no idea of it was true - that the reason the sheep frequented the road so much was because after it had been gritted, it left a salt residue, & the sheep liked the salt! Could be an old wives tale though, but the sheep sure could be seen licking the road.

It (Snake Pass) drops down past Ladybower Reservoir, which is something else. Built during WW2, it's huge, & I believe the Derwent flows through it. Several villages were flooded to enable it to be filled (which took 2 years), including Derwent, & Derwent Church could be seen protruding above the waterline when levels dropped until a few years back, but I believe it's been dismantled now. The whole village of Derwent, "as was", is in fact under the Rerservoir I believe. Overflows from Ladybower Reservoir use a weird "bellmouth" system, known locally as "plugholes", & these are a spectacular sight to behold when water levels are high.

After which, driving through Sheffield & back onto the M1 is a bit of an anti-climax.

God Bless The Pennines, Yorkshire, & England.

[tikay]

This week's Diary.

I'm on holiday (= unemployed) on Monday, (though I have to get home from Manchester first) so may drop down to Luton in the evening.

Tikay really needs to get his satnav looked at - Luton is not on the way back from Manchester....

Damn SatNav thing took me home. Home! Angell never recognized me.

[RED-DOG]

The film "Dambusters" was shot on the Ladybower.....

[matt674]

I used the Snake, Woodhead or Mam Tor every week for about 7 years.

See it in the early spring when the heather blooms purple as far as the eye can see.

Or just before daybreak in the dead of winter when the light from little stone farmhouse kitchens dot the bleak landscape like fireflies.

i travelled Woodhead weekly for ten years when i was driving HGV's, always a journey i looked forward to,apart from the evening rush hour on the western side, a nightmare.Just before daybreak ,as you rightly point out,is the perfect time to cross.

The road has changed on both sides of "the Tops" now, Dual Carriageway on the Eastern side, & M67 on the Western side, but the summit remains mercifully, "as was".

I came back from Manchester this morning via the Snake Pass, (A57), & that's also one of the UK's most scenic & dramatic pieces of road, & I'm sure Booder & Tom both know it well. The temperature either side was 8C this morning, but at the summit, it was -1c!

Strangely, there were no sheep on the road today, whereas years ago, there always were, particularly in the winter. It was said - no idea of it was true - that the reason the sheep frequented the road so much was because after it had been gritted, it left a salt residue, & the sheep liked the salt! Could be an old wives tale though, but the sheep sure could be seen licking the road.

It (Snake Pass) drops down past Ladybower Reservoir, which is something else. Built during WW2, it's huge, & I believe the Derwent flows through it. Several villages were flooded to enable it to be filled (which took 2 years), including Derwent, & Derwent Church could be seen protruding above the waterline when levels dropped until a few years back, but I believe it's been dismantled now. The whole village of Derwent, "as was", is in fact under the Reservoir I believe. Overflows from Ladybower Reservoir use a weird "bellmouth" system, known locally as "plugholes", & these are a spectacular sight to behold when water levels are high.

After which, driving through Sheffield & back onto the M1 is a bit of an anticlimax.

God Bless The Pennines, Lancashire, & England.

FYP

[tikay]

Here's one of the Bellmouth overflows in Ladybower. Don't be swimming near that, or you would know what a real suckout was like.

[Dingdell]

I have obviously missed out on the delights of the UK big time, and I'm genuinely sorry about that. But poker is broadening my horizons. On the way to DTD last week we drove past some big chimneys - never seen them before (I don't often go north). Snatty was not impressed about my lack of geographical knowledge, apparantly it's one of the largest power stations or something in the country, just as you turn off for Nottingham. They burn coal there and it makes power, although it looked like a lot of pollution too, is it steam or smoke going up into the night sky?

Anyway, the evening was not over. To make the circle of energy complete on my table was a guy bemoaning the fact he would have to get up in an hour for work. "What do you do" I asked, "are you a milkman?". NO - he was a miner. Not a very young person but an actual miner who goes down into mines and gets coal. He did have a slight 'blinking in the bright lights' look about him. Fascinating bloke, we talked for ages about mine safety and how things have changed, I went down a mine once when I was a kid, and they really haven't changed a lot since then. I love the different people  you meet at the poker table, without this guy we wouldn't have any power.