A day trip

 

We were away on a day trip this week to Llandudno, Wales for the first time in a good while following the disruption of the Pandemic in 2020 where with different parts of the UK under different regimes habits were disrupted.

We were a bit late in arriving thanks to odd route decision and the first habit change was in getting a meal where the usual haunt of Tribells was given a miss as reports suggested the quality had dropped off so we went to a cafe/restaurant on Mostyn Street near the former M&S shop for cod, chips and Mushy peas.

Given how long I had gone without food it really was a must and it did not disappoint  being in thin non greasy batter with plenty of superior pure fish rather than the reconsituted sort served quite warm with a huge pot of tea.

Several shops were visited such the Gift Centre, Boots and the cat rescue shop although like a number towns in the UK there had been changes such as M&S moving to Mostyn Champneys retail park which I used to like to visit for the school wear section and HMV closing its store due to issues between it and the landlord over rent.

I did get to see the promenade  and pier with the gift shop no longer with us but with the boat trip excursions around the coatsline still running, busy as ever.

We took a better route back thank goodness in the light rain of the late afternoon.

Fixed!

Although the weather has been pretty abysmal here with heavy rain, hailstones and very early more like spring cool temperatures of late limiting opportunities to be out I am making progress on one aim over the last year or so.

A running issue in this house has been how when the gas central heating was put in that has created issues when it comes to where furniture can be put in in some rooms even the piping has created issues because they run warm even with the floorboards over them.

This over a period created some issues with my record collection with a small number developing quite noticible warps where the storage units crossed over piping set below not always helped by the storage area failing to keep discs upright at 90 degress.

Having sorted storage out more that left these discs and so I've been replacing the most affected, more difficult to play for the warp catching the underside of the cartridge or causing the arm to move up and down a lot.

We've almost completed that task this week where the replacement copy - by no means cheap at all of The SMiLE Sessions - which for good measure an individual also left a tear in the rear sleeve having had an accident I wasn't told of arrived on Wednesday and was stored well clear of any hazards.

I can now relax a bit having dealt with that damage.

Sparky and his Magic Piano

The idea of the musical story isn't new and in the late 1940's and early 50's we had  Sparky a young boy and tales from his world full with effects and imagination.

This week the entire series has been reissued on compact disc in high quality for the very first time for "boys" of a certain "bone age" to enjoy again from the gramophone age.

The cover illustration keeps a fair bit of the period 50's Capitol feel when the 78 was giving way to the 45 and 33 rpm album.

Naturally they are all in mono sounding as good as possible.

This and series like the Junior Choice volumes British EMI issued in the 90's are the sort of recordings that take me back to those less complicated times.

Train service thoughts

Having been away throughts do come a bit to transport as for many a decade the notion of getting further in less time has interested railway commentators and the people who dream of and design railway systems such as the ill-fated Inter-City 125 High Speed Train of the late 70's and early 80's, a idea that was obselete before the first engine was fully assembled.

Britain as a country is a mainly urban and inter-urban one with only Scotland having significant highly seperate rural communities, followed by Central Wales and then patches such as the Lake District in Westmoreland.

As a West Midlander, my region is highly urbanized from here in North Staffordshire, The Black Country, Birmingham of course and Coventry-Nuneaton so local stops are really quite important to getting about and dealing with the road traffic congestion we see every day.

The Marches are different with smaller villages between towns but in the main they are on a few lines that run from major centres such as Telford, Wolverhampton and Brum plus Crewe into the nearby bigger towns of Wales so again local stops matter, this time as part of the connectivity across Shropshire, Hereford and Worcestershire.

For us a high speed limited stop system doesn't really offer much and if anything issues around capacity on the lines cause problems especially when trains are delayed which is what happened while away recently.

Increasing that capacity by using the space that exists to reinstate an extra pair of tracks would achieve more for us than the much talked about, ever increasingly way over budget  and delayed HS2 system with dedicated trains going over very limited stops and track from London to Manchester in the North.

That would improve punctuality and enable small improvements on the premium pair of lines when it comes to speed that matter more on cross-country services while allowing services valued for local connections to run without some of the conflicts operationally speaking we presently have.