Fortunately
my train travel experiences are infrequent, but my recent return
journey to East Yorks was without a hitch, less than 6 hours each way
and a paltry £80 which, had I taken advice, could have been discounted!
It was also a pleasant surprise to see the wonderful refurbishments at
Waterloo where on the veranda, overlooking the concourse, where once
stood a seedy and grubby beer bar which has now been replaced by a fleet
of restaurants, shops and bars. Along with King's Cross, which was
always architecturally pleasing and now looks better than ever, our
Capital has at least 2 state of the art railway stations.
Safely
returned to the sanctuary of Parley Court and a combination of sunny
periods and black clouds, what was left of the day was spent looking
around some more of the Parley Estate business interests.
It
would seem some of the turf fields are not doing quite as well as had
been hoped, due to the amount of 'Summer' rain, Ray (right) the
agronomist (adviser on crop production) was called in to make an inspection along with Hugh and youngest son Gavin (left).
No problems however for the Model Aircraft Cub
who use the fields from time to time as a runway,
and about a dozen YELLOW WAGTAILs that were capitalising on the good number of invertebrates.
a redundant Swallows nest was found.
From there we took the 40 minute drive to Southampton Docks where wood
recycling operations now take place. The sheer volume of scrap wood from
all across Dorset and Hampshire has now become too much for the recycle
site on the farm so had to be moved here.
The
Swedish cargo vessel MAPLE INGRID was here to pick up a cargo of what
is described as 'dirty wood' chipping which will be burnt in her home
country for power generation. A flash of inspiration some months ago saw
the 'clean wood' being separated from the 'dirty' and goes through
another process to turn it into bedding for larger animals.
I
was for a short while back in my element, having spent all those years
in and around Docklands, but was surprised to be told by Hugh that the
vessel was secured within
The Empress Dry Dock, formally the refit basin for the Ocean Liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.
Further reading on the subject brought up this ancient photograph and the following facts.
The only way they could afford to build the new dock was to enter
into an arrangement with the London & South Western Railway
Company to raise a loan of £250,000 (worth over £16 million today).
Construction started immediately and in a rare public appearance,
Queen Victoria opened the new Empress Dock on 26 July 1890. It is
rumoured that the Southampton Corporation sent Queen Victoria a
bill for the red carpet laid down for her at the ceremony. Perhaps
that is why she never returned to Southampton again!
Fascinated by all of this I donned the regulatory fluorescent green jacket and started an investigation of the Pump House,
even
managing to blag my way inside to view the massive pumps. About the
biggest black man I have seen in a long time was only too willing to
give me the Cook's Tour, saying that he and his colleague engineer
carried out continuous maintenance, but currently only one pump is
operable.
Back outside a view of the dock entrance
and looking back to where the Ingrid lay.
Across the cassion another example of recycling this time scrap metal but not part of Hugh's domain.
The view down towards Southampton Water and then The Solent which separates the Isle of Wight from the mainland.
A familiar sight at a distant berth was the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Vessel 'MOUNTS BAY' often seen alongside in Portland Dockyard.
There were 3 Car Ferries alongside at the time
and an untold number of Tug of varying shape and size.
The final sight was this Power Station on the west bank of the main shipping channel.
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