Our loft, apart from being a mess, can sometimes turn out to be a proverbial treasure trove. Well, not exactly!
We all love to look and dream about red sports cars, especially an iconic red Corvette, naturally, don’t we?
I look at this red Corvette most days, pick it up and look at the lines, imagining I’m somewhere in the Mid West cruising along Route 66, or some long open highway with only mesas, inselbergs and the odd raptor for company, the shapes of distant mountains blue in the background.
The Beeching Review and cuts of the British railway system from 1963 were simply catastrophic.
They encapsulate the ludicrous notions and false economies of the time, executive decisions which were and are still made without due thought of the social, environmental and economic consequences.
After all, the British railway system had been nationalised since the late 1940s; the system as a whole, if run properly, was surely highly profitable and the whole idea of nationalisation (to my mind) is for the ‘stronger’, busier, more profitable areas to help out and support financially the ‘weaker’ ones – common sense, one would think, part and parcel of joined up thinking of governments which, one would hope, were doing the bidding of the people who elected it. Not a chance.
Instead, large areas of Great Britain were left devoid of rail services, especially the outlying areas.
But it seems to me and hosts of others that Wales was the most hit, where only three major lines were left and none connecting the highly populated south to the rest of the principality.
Wales became a nation divided, without any efficient road link connecting north to south. The effects of these cuts, from which we have not recovered from even yet throughout the United Kingdom, were simply devastating.
We recently spent three nights in Belfast and we enjoyed it very much.
However, one more night would have been advantageous. Our flight from England was delayed thanks to President Trump’s arrival and all the extra security that entailed.
So by the time we got to our hotel it was about time for our evening meal – we didn’t have that much time to explore the city.
The second day was taken up with what turned out to be a fantastic trip around the County Antrim coast, which lasted most of the day.
The third day we had already pre-booked a visit to the Titanic Experience and the Game of Thrones exhibition, both in the same general area on the city’s outskirts. This took up most of the day too. We did do a little exploration that late afternoon.
And then our return flight back home was at 8:20 the following morning, so we were up with the lark to catch that.
So, despite a very full two and a bit days, we didn’t get to see as much of the city as we would have liked.
What we did glean, however, is that Belfast is lovely and the people are lovelier. We will return.
Ciscography 