Oh, Sir Nigel Do Not ...

... come at high tide again.

"Would you like to dig a hole", the head gardener said. She knows that boys always like to dig holes but quite frankly, I'm a bit past that stage now. She directed me to part of the garden where the fig tree is going to live, it's been sharing a pot with a large ant's nest for several years and it's time it had a home of it's own. The hole wasn't too hard to dig as it turned out and although the ants fought hard the lost the battle and the fig tree should do well in future years.

We went down to Luxton's Steps earlier today to see Sir Nigel Gresley come through on a trip from Guildford down to Dartmouth. It's her 75th anniversary and she's been upgraded to main line standards and is doing lots of touring this year. Do take a look at the website and see if she's coming near you.

I worked out it would be coming through here at about 1pm and I wasn't far out. I'd also checked the tide times and it was about three hours from high tide so I anticipated that I'd be able to get a low shot from the track side. Sadly that wasn't to be as the water was too high to get along to the place I'd like to have been. That position would also have given me the light on the side of the engine and the carriages. So it had to be a shot from the bridge which is never a bad position.

I was pleased to see that she was showing a good head of steam and a brisk breeze from behind her has shown it off quite well. It was great to see her although I don't think my pic really does her justice (I'm always moaning aren't I?).

Anyway here she is and I hope you'll look Large to get closer to the steamy action.

Happy Easter everyone!

David