Return of the Jedi (Helen).

Once again I was awoken at an early hour by heavy rain and the crack of thunder. Macy the cat does not like the thunder and cowered under the bed until I got up at 0730. Soon afterwards I heard the sound of a whistle. Trains seem to have to sound there horns on approach to Berkhamsted and the whistle was so different that I went to the window. This was despite the fact that you can't see the trains on the railway as they are behind trees. You can see them at night as the lights shine through. It was great to see the billowing smoke above the trees and wondered what the engine was. With a bit of detective work it seems it was the 'Union Of South Africa' on it's way to Chester.

LNER  Class A4 designed by Gresley and built in 1937. It is one of six still in steam and working. In the 1980's it had it's name changed to 'Osprey' for political reason, and then changed back in the 1990's for the same reason!

Over the last week or so I have noticed that there has been a large number of page views of this blog from Turkey. So many that they were equal to those from UK. I then wondered whether there were any canals in Turkey. It turns out that they have started to build a canal at sea level between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. This would bypass the Bosphorus and be about 50km long and 150 m wide and 25m deep. It would be built on the European side of the Strait and the idea would be to take a lot of the many oil and chemical tankers off the dangerous strait, approx 10000 tankers carrying 145 million tonnes of oil. There have been many accidents in the winding and narrow strait of the Bosphorus. It is supposed to be costing $10 billion and work started in April 2013. Another large project in Turkey is the building of a new airport. This involved increasing the height of the runway area and they were going to use the spoil from the canal to do this. Currently the canal project is going very slowly so this has had a knock on effect with the airport project. Maybe it is the developers of the new canal in Turkey that are doing intensive research in to how to run a canal system!

Showing the area of the new canal.

Helen was due back at 1645 so I went early and took the recycling to the bins at Waitrose and the rubbish to the C&RT bins on the way to the station. Berkhamsted Football Club were at home and seemed to have a fair crowd. If I heard right it seemed that they won 6-0! I was early and watched the Virgin Pendolinos thundering through the station. All the Sothern Trains looked brand new and Helen arrived on one of those. It seems like almost all the trains in the country are owned by three companies that were formed on privatisation and they lease them out to the service providers. One of them is up for sale if you have a few quid spare. 

Bound to London Euston.

After getting abck to the boat and a cup of tea we decided to go and shop for enough to see us over the next couple of days. We also thought they may be a meal deal in M&S or Waitrose but in the end, after a drink at the Weatherspoons, we went to Domino's and had a pizza. I had never been to them before, and I'm not sure I will gain for a while as they are quite expensive. Still it filled a corner. We are on the move again tomorrow and looking forward to that.