Sunday, 29 September 2024

A look back at Spring 2024.

Popcorn & I had a few walks in the Spring and this is a selection of photo's, taken in several areas.

A popular bridleway and one my wife & I used to enjoy walking along.

Cherry Blossom alongside the bridleway.



Not sure, but I believe this is apple blossom.

Cowslips.

This field is always full of the Cowslips a week after I took this photo they were abundant.

Bluebells, always a welcome sight in Springtime.

A barn up on the Wolds, I know a pair of Barn Owls nest in here most years.
You can see the square hole the farmer has left in the top of the door.

Farm buildings in the valley here.

I have several favourite trees and this is high up on my list.

My assistant Popcorn waiting patiently.


A view across the Wolds.

A young woman jogged by, just ahead of her is a large bank of wild Garlic.

Wild Garlic, it spreads rapidly so don't try it in your garden!   The smell of garlic here
was very strong.

Garlic flowers.

A few houses nestled into the hillside on the Wolds.

An old quarry, redundant now for many years.

I love to photograph old doors with the paint peeling off, lots of character.


In the foreground is the old weighbridge, used to weigh the lorries carrying limestone
away from the quarry.

Back out on the Wolds now and another of my favourite trees.  Still bare and leafless but I
enjoy the skeletal shape of trees at this time of the year.  Alongside it is a field of Rape, grown
for it's seed.  A very productive crop for the farmers and grown in abundance all over
Lincolnshire.  On  a hot evening the smell from the flowers can be overpowering.

Thank you for visiting my blog, please leave a comment.

Nikon Z6.2 with 24 - 70mm lens.




Sunday, 22 September 2024

Tickets Please.

  The Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft.

On the August Bank Holiday weekend we went to the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft.  Trolleybuses were used commonly  throughout the UK  until the late 1960's. They were road going vehicles with electric motors powered by overhead cables.  The very last place to run them was Doncaster and the last one ran on the 24th March 1972.

We had them in Cleethorpes and I recall how smooth and quiet they were to ride on.  The trolleybus museum has a collection of working, restored examples and visitors can enjoy riding on them around the museum site. 

We had a mixture of sunshine and cloud on our visit.  This picture shows the overhead
electric wire system, the busses connected to them via twin poles above the busses.

Most busses carried advertisements on them.


The interior of this one shows the familiar brightly coloured Moquette fabric which the seats
were covered in.  Train carriages also used this type of fabric, very hard wearing.

A couple of busses by the bus shed, but not perhaps what they may seem.

Teddy enjoying a ride on the top deck.

And here you can see, they're scale replicas built on site by the volunteers who run the
Museum.  They are powered by a small motor and the driver, seen here, sits inside them 
to take them round the site.  Children love them.

The bus on the left shows the rods connecting the trolleybus to the overhead wires.

In the workshop we saw this bus undergoing restoration.

Regular trips take visitors around the site to experience what is was like to ride on an
electrically powered bus.  Seems things will soon be going full circle when vehicles on
the UK roads will all be run by electric motors. 


The livery on the busses is kept to a high standard.

A much better picture showing the system of overhead wires and how the trolleybuses
connect to power the motors.  

A driver and his conductor (known as a "Clippie") taking a rest between rides.

A Clippie's ticket machine.

The bus on the left is an original, restored model that ran in Cleethorpes, my home town.
It's almost certain I would have ridden on it many times.


Time for a cuppa and something to eat.  No, that's not me.

There are a few restored old shops on site, this one is a photography shop.

Many familiar cameras on show, the Kodak one, just below the timing clock, is the same
as my 1st camera.  I bought it from Comley Cameras when I was 11 years old and I'm still
buying things from that shop.  Although they've relocated to a different place in Cleethorpes.

The museum shop has lots of interesting things within.


This Thomas the Tank setup attracted me and I couldn't resist a few photos. 




A toy peddle car.

And then I was tempted to take one more photo, I can't remember what this character was in
the original books, written by Wilbert Awdry & his son Christopher.  They wrote many books
for children which were later made into TV shows.

That's the end of our trip down memory lane, hope you enjoyed seeing the trolleybuses.


Nikon Z-2 + 24 - 70mm lens.