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| Nova Spotting enhances the Socially Distanced walking experience. |
Work is still taking me out to help out at Seacroft, and I'm still enjoying the extra train rides and the bonus two miles of walking daily, still taking pics of the comings and goings from Neville Hill depot, but also taking an interest in snaring images of the remains of Marsh Lane station, which somehow endured on the end of the elevated railway out of Leeds until 1858, and also admiring the vast cutting that digs its way through Richmond Hill, the first major engineering task in the locality that came with the building of the Leeds & Selby Railway in 1834, and subsequently massively enlarged. I wonder if it's worth noting that it was on May the 4th that I noticed that Cross Gates has a chop suey bar called Woo Kee, (or would that be tacky?), but it is worth using a couple of bright mornings and evenings to take some pictures around the Seacroft Hospital site, as increasing little remains of the old isolation units and infectious disease wards that brought this site into being in the first place, and i remain sure that it will soon enough be dispensed with by the trust, to become part of the residential growth that has claimed all of the apron of fields that surround it. So admire its red brick clock tower and administration building while they are still in hospital ownership, and regard the rest of the site as it somehow just keeps on going in NHS service against the odds, before we get to the business of working, still on with decanting the RIP store to archive and filing away the cardiology paperwork, striking up a good work rate that has us completing five days worth of boxes in four, while keeping up a good rate of patter with my colleague and a good amount of social distance from the wider world. Our work rate is worthy of comment, as my colleague observes that having company makes here feel at ease with relaxing her pace as she has someone else present to pick up the slack, while I have the opposite feeling of being the guest who really ought to keep busy while being observed, and being allowed the relatively easy life in the hospital MRL service for a few weeks. Otherwise, the need to pick up my weekly snare of food essentials has me doing the Thursday evening run through the city once again, riding the empty #64 bus which hardly anyone uses anyway, and pacing a route via Eastgate, The Headrow and Westgate to the LGI site to pick up beveraging supplies that I'd left behind weeks prior, before taking the run to the station via Great George Street and Park Row, to observe again that folk in the city seem to be outnumbered my road-working men, and to also report, with a small amount of delight, that the Class 91 hauled services to London haven't completely been replaced by the influx of Azumas, and the Key Worker timetable, as the 1649 arrival from Kings Cross still runs the 30+ year old Intercity 225 formation.
Otherwise, the week didn't get me feeling as relaxed as the preceding one had, as the stress pains in my chest that blighted my work two weeks prior started to make irregular appearances once again, which will do much to harshen my mood, and several days of listening to a radio on which too many people complain of the stresses of being compelled to self-isolate at home (without even then pain of being furloughed or without an effective income) does nothing for my feelings of testiness, while there still far too much talk of the end of lockdown as we pass over the seven week mark. Regarding the news of the UK death toll hitting 31,000, now officially the highest in Europe, even worse than Italy and Spain, the initial sick men of the pandemic crisis, which has some foreign media regarding the situation in Britain with some horror and government officials in this country claiming that it's 'unfair to compare' the situations in different countries at this time, as if it might make them look bad. What's also odd is how we keep hearing about a reducing death toll and a diminishing hospital population of COVID-19 patients, to the point of rendering the much vaunted emergency Nightingale hospitals surplus to requirements already, while we seem to see a pretty continuous rate of weekly deaths, which indicates that people are still dying away from the care of the NHS, and even the best presentation of statistics seems to be warped by incomplete data, thanks to universal testing still not being far enough on, increasing the infection rate to reflect something closer to its actual rate. The real takeaway from the week seems to be a deliberate cloudiness that covers all future planning, as towards the continuing healthcare situation, the easing of lockdown and the coming steps to revive economic activity in this country, as we've been teased for much of the week with promise of the Prime Minister making a speech on what's coming next, with all speculation being met with warnings that any future changes will incremental and slowly implemented. So it's a surprise when the speech arrives late on Sunday, and it's announced that getting people back to work has to be the immediate and nationwide priority, despite Lockdown theoretically continuing, and the only way to accurately summarize the reaction is to channel my inner Victor Lewis-Smith and say 'Some described the announcement as as vague, incoherent, and unhelpful, delivered by a bumbling dimwit, hopelessly out of his depth. Its critics were less kind...'
Walks: Morley Social Distancing Circuit - Trainspotting Variant. Walked: 8/5 & 9/5.
2.5 miles, via Valley Mills, White Rose, Broad Oaks, and Daisy Hill. x2
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4392.3 miles
2020 Total: 125.8 miles
Up Country Total: 3929.3 miles
Solo Total: 4078.1 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 2986.1 miles
Next Up: Push it on to my next week off work.
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