Becca Jane St Clair

Today was Frostbite, the December get together for Tim’s 16mm Garden Railway group. Here’s a few videos I took of the trains (mostly Tim’s). A write-up and photos will be coming after I play catch up with my other posts!

Tim’s engine, Dark Horse steaming up:

Dark Horse:

Dark Horse pulls a long load:

Lady Jane:

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[The exhibit mentioned in this post comes after the posts that will be written, but as it was all Rainhill, I included it in this post.]
For Tim’s long weekend in December, we decided to head back to the west coast and go back to Liverpool to do some of the tourist things, and to head to Blackpool. We decided to book a hotel out of town and take the train to the two cities, and Tim happened to pick Rainhill by default of the hotel in that town having an open room!

Rainhill, however, has an interesting history of it’s own. In 1829, a competition was held in Rainhill to pick the type of steam engine that would be used on the newly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 10 locomotives were entered in the contest, and one-by-one nine of the engines were disqualified or forced to drop out. The Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials.

In 1980, for the 150th anniversary an exhibit was opened as part of the Rainhill library and features models of three of the engines, as well as a diorama of the event itself. The library exhibit is free to get in to, so Tim and I actually wound up going on our last day in town. It was actually really interesting to read all the stuff about the trials and to see some of the models.

Tim and I left with 5 prints of the event and a few books off their sale table for less than £2 before we headed back to Dunholme, with a stop at IKEA on the way!

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(Finally writing up a trip from several weeks back!)

Tim had a day off on perhaps the snowiest day of the season so far here, but we had made plans to take the train to York to go to the quilt museum and the National Railway Museum, so we decided since we didn’t have to drive in the snow, we’d still go.

I think we both wish we hadn’t. Not because we didn’t have a good time, but because it was cold and wet and both of us were a bit under the weather…that turned into a really bad cold when we got home!

Our first stop was the quilt museum….once we found it. All we had to go by was the sign we had seen in the city centre. We followed the sign until we ran out of signs, and after not being able to find it, we decided to head to the information centre to get directions. The streets of York were unplowed, the sidewalks unshoveled, and when we walked on a narrower street we got splashed by the passing cars. It was absolutely miserable and the snow had turned to sleet, and then to rain. At the information centre we picked up a flier, looked at a map, and discovered the museum….right around the corner from where we were looking! My socks were completely soaked by this point, but fortunately I had thought to pack an extra pair of socks into my knapsack (US: backpack), so I swapped my socks when we got there.

The quilts were beautiful, but we weren’t allowed to take photos. Ironically, we traveled to York, UK to see two quilts that had been made in Lancaster, PA. One by Mennonites, one by Amish. I was pretty amused.

On our way over to the National Rail Museum we stopped for some Lunch and some hot chocolate to warm up. The wet had already soaked into my socks again, so we stopped in Marks & Spencer’s to purchase socks. I spent about £12 on two pairs of thermal socks, a pair of padded socks, and 2 pairs of knee highs and after getting permission from the women at the till (US: cash register), I changed my socks again in the shoe section of the store. I put on a pair of thermal socks AND the pair of padded socks. My feet were FINALLY warm.

Of course, we had to walk back across town to get to the NRM, but the good thing was the museum was right next to the train station we’d need for the trip home.

We had a good time in the museum. They had a lot of things related to Tim’s job (signalman), so I finally was able to learn more about his job since I wasn’t allowed to actually visit him at one of his boxes. They even had a signal box set-up in the children’s area that let you play with the signal, and Tim showed me how to work it.

We also saw several of the Royal trains, which I found fascinating.

It was getting dark, so we headed across to the station and boarded the next train back to Lincoln….I slept the whole way home on the train, I was so exhausted….but my feet were finally dry!

Tim’s job!

For more photos: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/york-part-2/

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[22:23:58] Sarah says: Joe did say today that he thinks you should come stay here again, since our pantry is disorganized. 🙂

Hehe! Sarah and Joe are the two who I house/catsat for over the Summer. I organized their pantry in a fit of boredom.

Tim’s uncle passed away yesterday, and before I get back to blogging about trips and things, I wanted to post about meeting him. We stopped by “on our way” to Liverpool and Blackpool to see him. We were expecting to stay for maybe a half hour before he got too tired for visitors, but he managed two and a half hours before we bowed out to leave. I had never met him before, and I think Tim was a little nervous for me meeting his uncle while he was so ill, but I’m glad I got the chance to. While we were there, he pulled out all his old 45s and showed them to us and played a few…at eardrum breaking volume! He had pretty much every single 45 the Beatles released….in original mint condition. It was absolutely amazing to look at his collection and hear him tell us about it and ask his wife (Aunt C) to put on a few records for us.

I’m glad Tim got the opportunity to see his uncle, and I’m glad I got to meet him. Tim’s dad told us he really enjoyed our visit, and that’s what counts.

This reminds me of snow days and lazy Saturday’s….

1 can condensed tomato soup
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of flour
4 slices of bread

1. Melt butter on stove, add flour and stir
2. Add soup
3. Heat over medium heat. Add Parmesan cheese and heat until it bubbles
4. Serve over toast

Note to UK cooks: You can make this with a can of uncondensed soup, just double the butter, flour, and cheese. (and you’ll also get enough for 6-7 slices of bread!)

This recipe originally came from my mom’s 1950s Girl Scout Handbook!

Liverpool boat cruise:

Sea Life at Blackpool is two separate files. My attempt to join them together prior to uploading took away the sound for the second half and I couldn’t figure out how to get it back!

I’ll be backtracking to finish up the York write-up before I handle this past weekend! (something to look forward to!)

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Okay, I have no idea if they’re called The ‘Pools or not, but we went to both Liverpool and Blackpool this past weekend by rail from Rainhill, a town about 20 miles outside of Liverpool….and I’ve decided that Northern Rail is horrible! BOTH days were filled with delays and cancellations….and I got locked in a loo!

Day 1, we arrived at Rainhill to take the 10:28 into Liverpool around 10:15 or so….to find out that the train had been canceled and we would have to wait an hour for the 11:28. We debated driving into Liverpool instead, but by the time we got back to the hotel and the car (a 20-30 minute walk) and drove all the way to Liverpool, we wouldn’t have saved any time. Plus, we had special “Christmas Cracker” train tickets that only cost £1 for the round trip INCLUDING access to the Merseyrail electric line though the city. There was no way we’d find parking for that cheap! We had no other problems, and I’ll tell you all about what we did in a later entry, because I know you’re all dying to hear the stuck in a loo story.

Day 2. It seemed to be a typical thing for trains to be running late or not at all on the Northern Rail lines, and today was no exception. We found out we’d wind up missing our connecting train to Blackpool if we stayed at Rainhill, but the station master suggested a short bus ride to a nearby town where we could connect directly with a Blackpool bound train. Once we got to St. Helen’s, we found out the Blackpool line was also running on a delay, but we managed to catch the earlier (now delayed) train as a result.

I really had to use the toilet, and because we arrived at St. Helen’s with only a few minutes to spare, I was unable to use the toilet in the station. The trains are equipped with toilets though, so it wasn’t going to be a problem….only it was.

The toilets on the trains are designed to run with electrically powered doors. You press one button outside to open the door, one inside to close it, and another inside to lock. When you’re ready to leave the toilet, you press the top button that opens/unlocks. I pressed the button and the door moved maybe one or two centimeters. Thinking I hadn’t disengaged it properly, I hit the close and lock buttons again and tried for open/unlock. No such luck. I banged on the door and yelled “Help! The door to the toilet is stuck!” Of course, Tim was sitting in our seats all the way in the back end of the train, so he couldn’t hear me, but someone apparently did and alerted the conductor. I banged and called for help again, and I heard the conductor tell me he was going to try to get me out. He tried squeezing his fingers through the small gap, but was unable. He told me to wait, and he went and asked the driver to reset the toilet door. He then tried to press the open button, and it still wouldn’t budge. The conductor had to use his entire body weight to pry open the toilet door far enough for me to sneak out, after which I am sure a giant “out of order” sign got placed on the loo.

Further updates later!

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So random! This happened about 20 minutes prior to posting. We heard the sirens and went out to see what the commotion was…

We’re back from a long weekend on the West Coast. I owe a few blog posts of the trip, and of a trip North a few weeks ago!

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Tim’s on the overnight shift all week, and I somehow managed to put myself on the same sleep cycle as him so I’m awake at home overnight until he gets home at 6am and then we both go to bed until around 1 or 2 in the afternoon.

Tonight after dinner we finished off the last of the ice cream, and since the container was plastic, I set it in the sink to rinse out before putting it out for recycling. Well…it never made it to the recycling bin. I decided I wanted to have arts and crafts time at 1:30 in the morning!

We bought a blanket for £2 at Primark to keep on the sette (US: sofa/couch) because it sometimes gets chilly down here without the fireplace going and it came wrapped in a black ribbon. I saved the ribbon, figuring it could find it’s way onto a Christmas present as a ribbon or something. We also had a huge roll of silver wrapping paper Tim bought, and I had some star-shaped gift tags I had picked up for £1. Also on hand was some glitter glue (leftover from making Tim’s Christmas stocking) and a glue stick.

I laid the ice cream container on it’s side and traced a line onto the wrapping paper to mark the bottom, then cut it out. I used the glue stick to glue the paper all around the side of the carton. I wound up splitting the paper into half, because it was hard getting the long strip around the curves. Then, I laid the lid down on the wrapping paper and traced it to cut out a piece to fit over the lid’s label. I glued that down. Not quite yet satisfied, I spied the pack of gift tags and cut apart one of the stars and glued it to the center of the lid. I outlined the star in glitter glue. Spying the ribbon, I decided to glue some ribbon around the carton to give it some “class”. Still not quite satisfied, I cut apart another star and glued it into the center, again outlining it in glitter glue.

And here’s my project:

No clue what I’m going to do with it at all, but it was a fun and cheap project!

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I’ve made 100 posts to this blog!

(click to make bigger)

Wow! Now, if only more of you would comment so I know this is being read!

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Ugh, I’m sick.

[The rest of this post is not for the weak. I discuss my cold in detail.]
Read more

One of my favourite foods is homemade mac & cheese served with stewed tomatoes. I’m not sure if this is a regional thing (my family is from central PA) or just a family thing, but we always tend to serve them together. We generally buy a can of stewed tomatoes and just open it up and heat the tomatoes to put on top, but around here I haven’t been able to find any. So….I had to make my own.

Because I love the crock pot, and because it’s hard to coordinate cooking on Tim’s two-burner stove (that only can use one burner if you have the oven on), I decided to figure out how to make these in the crock pot. I looked at a few recipes online for both crock pot versions and stove-top versions and created my own.

Crock Pot Stewed Tomatoes

Ingredients:
14 small tomatoes
basil
oregano
bay leaves
salt
sugar

1. Peel tomatoes. I read on a few websites in order to peel tomatoes you put them in boiling water and immediately put them into cold water. That didn’t work for me. What did work was cutting a small slit in the tomato, then putting it into the boiling water for about 5 minutes or until the split started to grow. The skin should at that point just peel right off, but watch out because it will be super hot after being in boiling water!
2. Cut tomatoes into quarters and cut out the seeds/membrane. I didn’t remove all the seeds, just the ones that were attached to the core.
3. Place tomatoes in crock pot, and cover with about 1 cup water. Sprinkle with oregano, basil, and pepper. Add 1 tsp sugar and 3 bay leaves.
4. cook on HIGH for 3-4 hours, or LOW for 6-8.

My tomatoes aren’t as tomato-y as they are out of the can, so I think if I make them again I’ll be adding some tomato juice to flavor them. Either that, or the tomatoes I had weren’t ripe enough and didn’t have that full tomato flavour I was looking for.

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It’s December! That means Christmas and Christmas decorating! I asked Tim what he had for decorations and he told me “a small tree and some tinsel”. He dug it all out, and it turns out what he was calling tinsel is what I call garland. His tree reminded me of the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. It was a silver colour and looked a bit sparse. Unfortunately (or is that fortunately?) Tim couldn’t find the base for the tree, so we headed into town to Wilkenson’s to buy a new tree.

Tim picked out a small four-foot tree and we grabbed some fairy lights (US: twinkle lights or just Christmas lights) and a few packs of generic ornaments in red, gold, and silver. Tim also had a light-up train his aunt had given him one year. We decided to put the train in the upstairs window and the tree in the living room. We wound the extra string of lights around the banister for the steps with some garland, and it actually gives more light than the regular light did!

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Tim’s dad had been in the Leicestser hospital, and while his mum was driving back and forth visiting him she heard on the radio about an event at the National Space Centre called “Exterminate 45“. Since she knew we are both big Doctor Who fans (okay, I’m probably a bigger fan than Tim), she made sure she told us about it.

Unfortunately, Tim had to work that day from 2-10, so we originally planned to head out in the morning, and then he’d leave for work and I’d make my way back on the train. I posted on a Doctor Who community to see if I could find anyone to hang out with, and I met C of the Leicester Doctor Who Club, who invited me to spend the afternoon with her and the rest of the club. Unfortunately, Tim and I had to alter our plans again, as a neighbourhood kid who looks to Tim as a mentor needed his help Saturday morning, so Tim and I decided I was going to make the trip by myself by rail and bus!

The trip really wasn’t too bad, and the train was a straight journey from Lincoln to Leicester. The trip took two hours because of all the little station stops, but I’m used to that with SEPTA!

My problems began when I got to Leicester. The Space Centre’s website tells you you can take two busses from the rail station and mentions the street names where the stops are….which was fine, but they didn’t give you any directions on how to find the streets. I had foolishly assumed the two streets were streets bordering the train station (I was sort of picturing 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, where you can get to 4 different streets from within the station)…they didn’t, but I did see a sign that said “bus station”, so I started walking towards it, pulling out Tim’s copy of the Leicester A-Z map to see if I could figure out where to go.

I got lost in the marketplace area. Many city centers have a pedestrian-only section of town where all the shops are, and there are loads of side streets and alleys with shops. I’ve gotten pretty good at navigating Lincoln, but Leicester confused me. There were streets that weren’t on my map, and streets that had two different names at an intersection. Confusing, right? I finally saw a bus, and I walked up to it and asked the driver if he knew where I could find bus 54, and he directed me to the correct stop. I finally made it to the bus and paid my £1.80 for a return (US: round trip) ticket.

I was expecting to get dropped off right outside the Space Centre, but the bus actually drops you off about a half mile away. I asked the driver how to get there and he told me to “cross the street and you can’t miss it”. Well, I crossed the street and couldn’t see the Space Centre through the fog, but I DID see the top of the Abby Pumping House Tim and I had gone to in October. The Pumping House is next door to the Space Centre, so I headed in that direction.

I got in line to pay my admission, £12. The person behind the counter wasn’t quite prepared for my American debit card, so I wound up with a complimentary ticket. Not bad at all. I walked around a little bit, and then shortly after met up with C and she and I wandered around until we found the rest of the Leicester Doctor Who Club.

We had a great time goofing off and checking out all the Doctor Who stuff AND the Space Centre. About half of us rode on the “Europa Simulator”, which was a small 3-D ride to “prepare” you for being an astronaut sent to Jupiter. The ride had one of those lap bars they pull down and the guy doing it just kept slamming it down. We had to have it done several times because one of the bars wasn’t going down fully, so I kept having this bar jammed into me over and over. At one point I told C if he slammed the bar down again I might have thrown up on him, it was that jarring.

At Exterminate 45 they wanted to try to beat the world record for people dressed as Daleks, one of the monsters of Doctor Who. None of us were in costume, but we headed outside to look at all the costumes and things ranged from the incredibly accurate to small children wearing cardboard boxes carrying a whisk and a plunger (the two “arms” of a Dalek look similar to those items). We even saw a child dressed as “The Empty Child” with another kid dressed as Captain Jack!

We wandered back inside and started making our way through the exhibits – both the Space Centre exhibits and the Exterminate 45 exhibits – and kept “running into” assorted Daleks, and I even shook hands with one of them!

There was loads of other Doctor Who related things there, too. Several people had brought along versions of the TARDIS, there was at least 2 versions of K-9 (aka “the tin dog”), one that was super accurate, and a club member dressed as an Ood!

When things started to wind down, the group I was with decided to head to a pub in town for a few drinks and asked me to tag along. We boarded bus #54 and I went to hand over my return….but what’s this? It seems I rode OUT on one bus line and was riding IN on another, and they don’t take each other’s tickets….but BOTH buses were Bus #54 and went to the Space Centre and even stopped at the same place. *shakes head* So I had to hold up the line while I dug out an additional £1.50.

I forget the name of the pub we had gone to, but we found a table in a corner and chatted. One of the guys in the club, N, and I started discussing words that mean different things in the UK vs. US. I’ll have to write up a blog entry about that at some time, because it was a really fun conversation.

I left the group around 6 to get back to the station. I was told it was really easy to get back – and it was! I boarded the 1830 train, and headed back to Lincoln.

Tim kept texting me telling me where I was (on the route) and I was really confused until I realized that he could monitor my train from his signal box, though I didn’t pass the box he was working at.

We got into Lincoln at 8:30, where Tim’s mum (and dog!) picked me up since the bus to the village stops running at 6.

The Leicester Doctor Who club invited me to come out for their December meeting, and if the train schedule can be coordinated, I just might, I had such a great time with them!

view overlooking most of the displays

(Photo taken by C) Members of the Leicester Doctor Who Club (and me!)

More photos: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/exterminate-45/

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I still didn’t know what we were doing on our last day of Tim’s long weekend until that morning, when Tim told me we would “drive home the long way” and go to Stonehenge. When I first planned my trip, Tim had me make him a list of all the places I wanted to see and things I wanted to do, and Stonehenge was right there at the top of the list.

It was a pretty long drive from where we had been staying along the coast, but we soon found our way and spotted the big “Stonehenge” sign…then imagine our surprise when it was straight ahead!

Stonehenge is so surreal. It’s just there, in the middle of a field, with lots of sheep and rabbits wandering around near it. Not hyped up at all, no fancy museum, just the stone circle with a small gift shop/cafe across the street. They even offer “free” audio guided tours (which Tim and I declined, as I already knew the history of Stonehenge and Tim had been there before).

We took our time walking around the stone circle, taking lots of photographs and just being in awe of how long Stonehenge had been standing, and the role(s) it may have taken in early Druid life. I would love to go back during the Solstice, when they actually allow access down to the stones, but I doubt we’d have time to do it.

Tim and I timed our visit “just right”. We arrived with enough time to walk fully around the circle, then head back across to the shop to purchase a few souvenirs, and then walked back over to the circle to take some photos of the sun as it started to set. The grounds officially closed at four, but there was one other photographer standing with Tim and I, and fortunately, the workers allowed us an additional 20 minutes to take photos of the setting sun before they finally told us we had to leave.

I purchased a Christmas present for my friend Miss M while I was there, because I knew she’d appreciate having something from Stonehenge, and I bought myself a reusable shopping bag that has Stonehenge on the side, so whenever I do my shopping I’ll always remember my trip.

Collectively, Tim and I took over 200 photographs of Stonehenge and the surrounding area, and you can view them all in the gallery here, but here are some of my favourite photos from that day:

Tim and I

My current desktop wallpaper (comment if you want a full-size copy!)

Sheep!

By daylight

And, don’t forget my vlog if you haven’t seen it yet:

And, as I posted above, more photos can be found here: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/uk-trip-2008/stonehenge/.

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Tim had been given one “rule” for places to take me – I didn’t want to go to any military museums or see war stuff. I wanted history, but not war history. Tim asked me if I’d consider going to look at ships as “war stuff”, and then explained what he wanted to take me to. He wanted to go to Portsmouth and go see the Mary Rose, a ship ordered to be built by King Henry VIII in 1509! The Mary Rose sank off the coast of Portsmouth in 1545, but over half the ship remained intact and was recovered in 1982 by divers. I agreed to see it, as I’m a sucker for Tudor history, and we headed back to the train station and into Portsmouth. We got tickets that included entrance to the Mary Rose, the Victory, another warship who’s name I’ve forgotten, and several museums. Our ticket also included a boat tour around the bay, but they don’t run in the winter months. The nice thing about our tickets though is that they are good for an entire YEAR, so if I come back in the Spring and we go to Portsmouth, we won’t need to pay for admission again.

Seeing the Mary Rose was incredible. They managed to recover lots of artifacts from the wreckage as well, giving us a glimpse of life as a seaman in the 1500s. You can view the ship as it’s being treated with a wax drip. The hope is that the wood will absorb the wax to protect and seal it, so that the ship can eventually be walked up to and touched by visitors by 2016. While we were in the museum, they were doing a hands-on experience, so I got to hold an actual piece of the Mary Rose!

We then boarded the HMS Victory, the oldest naval ship still in commission, for a guided tour. The people running the tour warned us to be careful of headroom as we headed down into the lower levels of the ship, because the ceilings got lower, but even on the lowest level, I had no problems! I enjoyed the Victory, but not as much as I did the Mary Rose…and I also had a good giggle over it being called the Victory.

We headed into a few of the museums after a quick lunch and got to view the original Trafalgar sail. This was the sail used on the HMS Victory in 1805 at the battle. The sail has over 90 holes in it from cannon fire!

We also went into a museum showing ship figureheads, and experienced the “reenactment” of the Battle of Trafalgar.

I also found out that the story of the ship captain who had his body preserved in a barrel of brandy so he could be buried at home was the true story of Vice Admiral Nelson, who died during the Battle of Trafalgar.

I vetoed going into the other naval history museums, and Tim proposed an idea for the rest of our afternoon. If you’ve ever seen some of the Monty Python sketches, then you might be familiar with the line “my hovercraft is full of eels”. There’s also a website out there that translates that phrase into well over 20 other languages, including Welsh. Tim was trying to teach me how to pronounce it one day via Skype (I failed miserably) and I had asked him what a hovercraft was…

There is a company that goes between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight using hovercrafts! Tim suggested we ride over to the Isle and take a trip through part of the island via train, have dinner on the Isle, and then head back. I agreed and we booked ourselves on the next hovercraft.