The Signalbox Experience

Just to complete the trio of 'experience' posts, here is the St. Albans signal box. Apparently, it is the only restored signal box (in England) that is still on its original site. It is being restored by a group of local enthusiasts and it is open for the second and fourth Sundays of each month. We went in and got a very enthusiastic volunteer show us how all levers work: 

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to control the real trains on the real track so we had settle for a pretend scenario of a pretend train coming down the track in order to press buzzer, ping bells and pull and push levers. Perhaps that was a little virtual after all!

For more details on the St. Albans signal box click here. 

You'll Never Know What You'll Find In The Park

Demonstration of the Roman army's tortoise formation during the Roman Museum's 70th birthday celebration in Verulamium Park.  We also saw Roman surgeons, potters, surveyors, gladiators, weavers, and some fearsome cavalry:

The point is, if there needs to be one, similar to my previous post about the power of getting out and experiencing stuff first hand being such a good thing, especially for kids. 

Foot and Cycle Paths

One of the good things about Britain is the amount of public paths, short cuts and through ways. Invariably they are a function of history, whether the paths mark ancient cattle tracks or disused railway lines. Even when they go over private property, English law gives a right to use the pathway, which makes for some lovely walks over farmland. In towns and cities it has resulted in lots of short cuts, back alleys and a maze of little discoveries. And St. Albans, as a town with at least a couple of thousand years history, has many of these little paths. Generally towns which grew up before the car have more of them than planned towns or towns that have grown after the car. The one above is a little backcut which gets me to Ramsbury Rd much quicker than going around the roads. 

The one below, is called the Alban Way. It is a cycle path that runs from the Roman site at Verulamium to Hatfield along the route of an old railway line. More details, here. I cycled to Hatfield on it yesterday. The photo below is when the path runs through open countryside.

It also runs through St. Albans very close to where we live. In fact Charlie and Ollie use it everyday to get to school, here. 

I also found some lovely pictures of the Alban Way on flickr, courtesy of phatcontroller: 

I also took a couple of pictures of the flora. This is a bluebell, I think! 

This time of year is lovely in Britain. Spring doesn't exist in quite the same way in the States, where it seems to go from winter to summer remarkably quickly. The English spring looks lovely as everything becomes green and the flowers bloom. Birdsong fills the air and the days are getting longer. 

Afternoon in St. Albans

That lovely time in the afternoon, when the sun is making its way toward the earth, casting long shadows over a crisp Autumn day. This was taken at 2.34 pm on the trusty Blackberry camera.

The Native American and The 15th Century Clock Tower

Native American pan-piper plays in front of 15th Century English church. One for the cultural benefits of our globalised era then.

This clock tower had a mechanical clock from the beginning, a great rarity at the time. It also was used by the Admiralty as a semaphore station in the Napoleonic wars. It only took 5 minutes to relay a message to, or from, Yamounth. Faster than a slow email then! I wonder if the Native Americans could send smoke signals that quickly. Perhaps there is a kindship between the Native Americans and the Clock Tower in St. Albans after all, with early long distance messaging being the common thread.

By the way, as lovely as pan-pipes may be in the Andes, I have a particular loathing for them when accompanied by a pre-recorded backing track of AOR.

Misty Cathedral

St. Albans Cathedral in mist early last Saturday morning.

St. Albans

St. Albans is where we now live. It is a good town; lots of history (third largest Roman town in Roman Britain, death place of first saint from British Christian martyr and a jolly good catheral), close to London (20 mins fast train to central London), and has some youthful energy about it (busy market a couple of days a week, strong local music scene, lots of Goths hanging in Catheral grounds). Apparently house prices are the highest in the country outside of central London (gulp!) and its people are 9th most active in the country. Here are some shots: