I say to anyone that asks what my role at work is, that I am there to keep trains on the tracks and people off them. My actual role is a little more complex but to me that’s my role in a nutshell.
And sometimes they unfortunately clash. Like tonight for instance, no one fortunately was injured but they could well have been.
Some of the darling youths of the East Midlands, bless them when they are bored just love to try and cause misery and inconvenience to others, tonight they put a ladder on the line and a line of ballast on the track to try and derail a train. It’s all shits and giggles to them however a train unit has had its braking system ruined and will be out of service for tomorrow’s peak.
Crushed ballastWhat remains of a ladder
So if you happen to be travelling between Sheffield and London tomorrow, and your service is cancelled this could be the reason why. One day these little darlings will actually cause serious injury, they’ll probably get off because they were bored and didn’t understand, but they are good kids and always go to church on Sunday! Tosh, they are unsupervised little shits that want to see people get hurt. I know it’s not all youths but there is an underbelly of society that lets them down. This train hit this obstruction at 70mph, tonight we were lucky, tonight everyone goes home to their loved ones, tomorrow might be a different story.
Don’t play on the railway. I work on it and can confirm it’s probably one of the most dangerous places to be, it’s not safe at all for the untrained individual. And for gods sake tell your kids to keep clear as I don’t wish to be bagging them up when it all goes wrong.
Working a 24hr shift roster as I currently do it’s hard to give a true preference. I have never had a problem in rising though and am quite proud to say I have never been late to work in my life, for that I can be totally relied on.
I love an early rise, I like my cup of tea or two before the rigours of the day kick in, yes I’d say I’m more of a morning person.
Shift work really throws your sleep patterns out of kilter though, and there are times when you have changed from night shift to early shifts when you just don’t want to wake up early, but your body says different. There you are due to rise at 04:45 for an early shift but your body and mind decides you are going to be awake about 3 hrs earlier. This is where fatigue steps in.
However a week or two’s holiday sorts this out and after a few days your sleep pattern is sorted. So I’m now quite confident that I’m definitely a morning person. It’s lovely to rise early before the world is totally motivated and get the day underway, nothing is wasted.
What technology would you be better off without, why?
It’s poison, venomous and down right nasty and to be honest it allows the less ingenious of society to literally get away with murder.
I admit the advent of the digital age has many benefits but allowing knuckle dragging morons to voice opinions on every subject that they have no knowledge of, or interest in is only a bad thing.
Yep as you can see I have also experienced them as I’m sure everyone else who passes by this post has also experienced one of these individuals.
Influencers, now that’s a joke of a job description if ever I have heard one. Don’t get me started, have we really become such a society that we need these individuals to coerce us into making decisions and purchases on items they have no experience or knowledge in, just because someone offers them a years supply of said item just to spout a load of old tosh on how this is going to change your life. Give me a break 🤦♂️
What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?
That has to be ending the life of a much loved and cherished member of the family, a pet.
In our married life we have had three wonderful little Bichon Frise dogs, who we have rightly or wrongly treated as our children, they have wanted for nothing and had the best that we could bestow on them. We have never had children as we can’t, we obviously upset someone in a previous life and that privilege and pleasure has been taken away from us. We needed surrogates and the dogs were those stand ins. We were very happy.
There comes a time where you have to let go, you notice changes in an animals behaviour, the little whimpers, the constant sleep and the inability to do things, the little looks you get and the realisation that their quality of life is deteriorating. Decisions have to be made.
That final journey to the vets, me driving, my wife cuddling the little package on the back seat and the fight to see through the flood of tears that are clouding your eyes.
The vets bench, the dogs wagging his tail, he’s ok you think, but he’s not. The injection to subdue him, he rests, the second injection and then he’s gone.
The lonely drive home knowing you have left a family member behind, the sadness you are going to feel everyday going forward.
The little things you miss, the what ifs? that suddenly come to mind and the guilt you feel for ending a perfect little life.
We’ve done that three times now and it hurts so damned much, I don’t think we will ever be able to do it again as the pain is just unbearable.
Life is full of hard decisions, but when it ends in the death of a much loved companion, I just don’t think there are many such decisions that are harder to make.
If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
I guess it would be counterproductive, as I’m an individual who likes to keep busy, I guess I’d probably work myself into an early grave. what’s the point.
I’m sure we can all list a number of pet peeves that wind us up on a daily basis, but for me the ones that trigger me are:
Incompetence, in work, sport and all aspects of life, especially so called professionals who should be oozing ability and who struggle to just manage the basics.
Ignorance, those in a position of responsibility who just turn a blind eye to the needs of others hoping the whole issue will just go away. Supposedly these people are the high flyers, but to be totally honest are only interested if there is something in it for them.
Rudeness, ties in neatly to the two points above. If you can’t say anything nice then just don’t open your mouth. There’s an old saying that goes something like this, “ Put your head into gear, before you put your mouth into motion.” Some people could learn a lot from this. Quite simply just take 5. 5 seconds or 5 minutest, it’s up to you just think about what you say. And in this world of delicate souls it could make the difference to someone between feeling appreciated or totally destroyed. Do not go out there to ruin someone’s day, you just do not know what’s going on in their life.
We moved into the East Midlands approximately seven years ago, I came up with my wife and my dog and they were, and still are, the most important in my life. However that has changed since the passing of my dog in August. My family unit has changed. I still have my wonderful wife but I now feel vulnerable in a way, as there is no one else. I have no friends up here only colleagues and the recent passing of my dog has made me consider that I am only one tragedy away from being alone.
I am a person who likes my own company, but I’m not looking forward to having that forced upon me. My future seems quite bleak in that aspect but I’m just going to have to prepare for that day I guess.
When you start losing the ones you love it’s as if you are personally having the love and support you are used to, gradually being ripped away from you. It’s a horrible situation that I don’t think that life ever prepares you for, and you will always be caught out by it.
Appreciate what you have. And protect that with all you have.
I’ve never been a fan of social media, I don’t do the main three as I’m not particularly interested in talking to anyone I went to school with, most of them kicked the life out of me so I’m not interested in that. X or Twatter or whatever it is know as now was always a cauldron of vileness and hate and nothing seems to have changed there either. As for Instagram, i don’t need some z list nobody to tell me what to buy or where to go, the fact that you are there ruining it for everyone doesn’t really float my boat.
But there’s a new kid on the block. Bluesky.
I’ve joined out of curiosity, I’ll probably bin it after a few weeks as I usually do, but so far it seems quite pleasant. There seems to be a few people migrating from the other side so no doubt it won’t be long before the poison sets in. Then it’ll be time to go. However the filters are pretty good and I have many words and names filtered and they don’t seem to be getting through so I am actually only seeing what I want to see. And that is good. As long as it stays like that I may be tempted to stay.
Apparently it was how Twitter was back in the early days, but we all know youngsters grow up and can develop an attitude so I’m very sceptical at the moment.
For the moment I’m happy with it, cautiously content is probably the right statement. But could it get any worse?
Update: account deleted on 27/11/24. It really is as crap and poisonous as all the other platforms out there. Not needed in my life.
I thought maybe that I’d answered this question in the past. But a quick search though my history confirms that is not so. I have spoken about them many times in the past (as well as our dogs that are always my very favourite domesticated animal) so my favourite wild non domesticated animal would have to be the humble little hedgehog.
Hedgehog in our garden
I have to make people understand that we do not yet live in a countrified part of the East Midlands, it’s very much the opposite. We live on the Far Eastern edge of the city, ten minutes east and we are in a more rural setting, but then ten minutes in the other direction and we are in the centre of a decaying lawless city that has seen better days. And we have hedgehogs visit on a regular basis, they are urban city dwellers and that is unusual.
We’ve lived in this house for around seven years now and I was always aware from the start that there was something out there at night snuffling around. You could always hear their presence and installing cameras around the house confirmed it, we had hedgehog visitors. We also had them in our previous house down in Hertfordshire so they were very much a welcome visitor.
Another smaller visitor
My garden has been a constant challenge to get right, it is North facing, it is extremely cold in the winter months and has developed over the years into a wonderful little haven for these guys with lots of perennial cover and wildflowers for their delectation. Yes it’s fair to say that when the garden was designed they formed a big part of the consideration as to how it was laid out.
We have hedgehog highways that allow easy access throughout our garden into neighbouring gardens, we have ramps to allow them up the paving as well as small water features around the garden that allow access to water. We also leave cat biscuits out every night to give them extra feed, because as you may well know their natural food sources are dwindling due to decline of wilded environments, yes, another animal the good old human being is killing off probably unbeknownst due to ignorance.
Hedgehog highway signs around the garden. I know they can read but it shows the way to human visitors
It is estimated that in the UK there are less than two million of these animals in existence. They are high on the endangered species list here, considering back in the 1970’s there were estimated to be in excess of twenty million in existence, that’s a decline of almost eighteen million in fifty years. Horrendous.
This is why I try to help and educate people of this animal. It is wonderful when we have guests, that I know we can all sit in our conservatory and at pretty much the same time, they can sit and watch our prickly friends come to visit and eat. It’s lovely to see and they are always happy to see them. Some have even left here and gone and set up similar environments in their own gardens. That’s a win in my eyes.
I believe we have the same family circle visit our garden as they know they are welcome. At the beginning of the year we have them come in and feed in twos and this year we even had three at the feed station at the same time. As they all get older we have the usual territorial huffing and puffing and only one at a time, but they can all be identified due to their differing sizes and attitudes. It really is wonderful.
Three at the feed station
I love these little creatures, I love all wildlife but these guys are different as they need a helping hand. And that’s the very least I or you can do. It’s no sacrifice. Be a friend not an enemy. It’s your choice. Just choose well.
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
The Tudor era fascinates me, I’d love to meet Henry the eighth, to hear him, to see him and just to find out if he is exactly as he is portrayed in pretty much every book or programme I have ever viewed about him.
His wives fascinate me, their stories and their upbringings.
His subjects such as Wolsey and Cromwell also fascinate me, the whole Tudor period is just like one big soap opera, really gripping stuff.
Though if Henry’s anger is as bad as they have portrayed then maybe I’d like to meet him from a distance. Maybe a bit more than an axe swing distance.
Foxes Den 
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