The Penistone to Mallaig Line

Some of you may remember the following two things 1) there is a railway line running across the back of our garden and 2) last October a steam engine pulled a train past the house. Given the gradient from Barnsley to Penistone it actually required two LMS Black Five locomotives to pull the train. Unfortunately all I saw was the smoke from engines 45231 (The Sherwood Forester) and 45407 (The Lancashire Fusilier).

The first half of our recent holiday in Scotland was based around seeing lots of bits of the highlands that we hadn't seen before, and, doing it in style.

The stylish way to see the countryside between Fort William and Mallaig has to be the Jacobite Express. We didn't get to look at the engine in Fort William because we were running a little late and wanted to get a good seat and so it was only when we got off in Mallaig that we found out we had been traveling behind The Sherwood Forester.

If you haven't been to Mallaig before then I'll just say that it seems a wonderful little fishing community that serves what has to be the best set of fish and chips I've eaten in a really long time.

We didn't take the train back to Fort William but were instead collected by a coach so that we could spend longer visiting some of the places we had seen from the train, specifically Glenfinnan with it's viaduct and monument to the 1745 Jacobite uprising.

The World's First Air Purifying Dress?

Sorry that it's been a while since the last post, but we've been away on holiday and whilst I've been doing lots of things that warranted a post I just haven't had the time. Now of course I'm back at work and don't have the time either! Anyway I'll try and write some posts about the holiday over the next week or so but first...

On Monday this appeared just a short walk from the train station in Sheffield (If you can't read the sign then click the image for a nice large version that you should be able to read properly).

Is it art, fashion, science, a combination, or just really strange? I can't quite make up my mind!