Earlswood Station Open!

Wow, after all my moaning (mostly on Twitter) about Earlswood station ticket office being basically closed, we do actually have a new member of staff now - Hurrah...!  However, when I passed the door yesterday (quite late at night on my way home) I was surprised to see that it was *still* open hours after it should have been locked up...Just in case this was in error I pushed the query button on the platform and reported it (wouldn't want the coffee guy to turn up in the morning to a missing coffee tuk-tuk-thing)... ;)

Earlswood Station Rain storm...

...it's just absolutely horrible at the moment (last couple of communting days exactly the same)...today the early train was completely cancelled thanks to flooding at Christ's hospital...this can't have been a surprise can it?  Could they not have started it from Horsham on this occasion?  What about tomorrow?

Walking home from Earlswood station

...on a dark, winter night...

Earlswood Bike update 2

Well, it's been about 10 days now (since I first noticed)...and today I had a few seconds to take a look and see if anything has actually happened...answer?  Nope...
The red bike is still there (complete with removal notice) -

- and the other two bikes are still just as securely fastened, but have had their threat letters removed (by wind or by hand?  Who knows?)...but it looks like they needn't have been too worried about (imminent) destruction...

Peeping over the fence at London Bridge Station

Yep, there is still quite a lot of work to do... ;)

Okay, perhaps...

Okay, perhaps...
Originally uploaded by finkangel.
...I set off a *little* on the early side! Oh well...

Earlswood Crime Scene

Oo-er! Got to the railway station the other day, only to find that it has been transformed into a crime scene! Desperate (and obviously rather strong) villains managed to pry open the front of the ticket machine and steal all the pennies (and perhaps more importantly, the blank tickets - if they can get a good font match, that is)...

...probably not much chance of catching whoever did it either (apart from the fact that whoever is investigating put the tape on upside-down), the CCTV in the area has been vandalised so often they gave up replacing it and put up a mirror instead (for all the good that will do) - update - there are now in fact some cameras, up by the Indian Restaurant, so there may well be some footage...very unusual for there to be any sort of brush with the criminal underclass in our neck of the woods, it's normally such a lovely, quiet sort of place...how exciting!

Canary Wharf Crossrail station progress - then and now

Just a quick update, and a comparison (out of interest), showing how things were when the work first started (and had us scratching our heads wondering what on earth they were doing down there)...

...and how things look now, and actually, if you compare it to the concept drawings, it looks like they have got a bit carried away with putting in these metal tubes (and done a bit of a wonky job to boot)...although it is always possible that they are going to drain a larger section than they need initially (just so there is plenty of room to work)...We shall see!

I just hope they have left enough room to get the barge out! ;)

Strepsils - Charing Cross Station

So, it appears Fink is not the only one to get freebies on his commute into work. Strolling across the concourse at Charing Cross this morning, I suddenly broke from my conversation with Sarah and grabbed not one, but TWO free Strepsil samples... I can't tell you how they taste as they are still at the bottom of my handbag, but it will be moved into the top drawer of my desk and will be taken out when I get a cold (So far, I've managed to avoid coming down with the one that struck Fink at the weekend).



Special thanks to my commuting friend Sarah, who scanned this image and sent it through for inclusion on the blog and regularly listens to me twittering on (when I'm sure she would rather be reading the paper). I hope your head and arm are feeling better after that very very nasty man let his bag fall from the overhead locker onto you this morning
;o)

East Croydon Station - Photography forbidden

I was on East Croydon station platform on Friday night, awaiting my connection and thought I would take a few pictures of the trains, not really been there at night with the good camera, walked right up to the end of the platform and took these from a prone position with the camera sat on the floor in front of me...

Twice I was approached, both times by people in HVJ's, the first one, a kindly gentleman, approached from behind asking if I was "alright mate?" because he thought I had keeled over, the second, and you can see her in the photo above came and sternly scolded me because "it ain't allowed after the terror bombings"...she didn't ask me to delete the pictures though, just stop taking them. She explained that "even them train spotters 'ave to ask in writing to the station manager" (before they are allowed to huddle in their anoraks with their weak lemon squash at the end of the platforms) as if for some reason they had more right than me to behave oddly at East Croydon station...hmph... >;(

Redhill station - a year in pictures