A 45 mile (1hr 20min) journey took us north-east from Sooty cat in Hall Green, Birmingham to our next charge, Gypsy cat in Loughborough, Leicestershire for 10 days while owner Peter has a holiday in Anglesea, Wales.
Peter greeted us on arrival, cooked us dinner and we had a splendid evening over wine and G&T swapping various stories, while getting to know 17 year old Gypsy cat. It's Friday now, we're halfway through, we've got to know Gypsy cat (who sleeps for what seems like 22 hours per day), had several half days out in Loughborough and a day out with my sister Denise and husband Paul in Loughborough, Rothley and on the Great Central Railway, more on that later.
Gypsy cat awake...
Gypsy, when she's awake, likes company, often following us around and sitting with us at mealtimes, likes strokes and early morning breakfast. Peter gets up much earlier than us (5:00am) so Gypsy is used to early breakfast so wanders into our bedroom at that time meowing with her raspy voice until Jackie gets up and feeds her (I, of course never hear this, pretending to be asleep!). Peters house backs onto the Grand Union canal, so it's quite nice looking out over water and seeing the odd narrowboat pass by, but it's not that easy to get to the towpath to take a walk. I've never really thought about it before, but living on the wrong side of the canal towpath means a long walk to the nearest bridge, unless you have a boat to take you across, so that realisation came as a disappointment.
...and most often how we see her
Gypsy cat asleep in the conservatory
Anyway, 10 minutes walk takes us to the towpath in one direction or into Loughborough town centre in the other. It's a nice enough town, very good university, pedestranised shopping area with lots of restaurants and pubs to suit all pockets, a few interesting old buildings (the town hall and the NatWest building to name but 2), some nice parks, good local walks and the Great Central Heritage Railway, severed from the main London line in 1966 and now the UK's only double track heritage railway and the only place in the world where full sized steam engines can be seen passing each other. (see: http://www.gcrailway.co.uk/)
The canal at the bottom of the garden, towpath on opposite bank
We'd finally managed to arrange to meet up with my sister, Denise and husband Paul, only the second time we've seen them this year and they came up here so we could go out for a walk, followed by a beer and a pub dinner. Where to take them? My thoughts went to the local Beacon Hill, the highest point in the county with great views and I looked at a walk through woods and up the hill of about 8 miles. That'd be nice I thought, until I saw a message from her saying 'I don't want to go too far, not too fast and I don't do hills!'. Mmmm, something else then. Nearby Swithland reservoir looked good, great views, flat (fulfills one of her requirements) and with a viaduct carrying the Great Central Railway, but a long 11 to 12 mile walk round, mostly on roads (not fulfilling her other request).
At Loughborough Central Railway station
Canal walk out to Charnwood Water then back into town? Bit short really. In the end, as it was a holiday period and the heritage railway was running, we planned a canal walk to Loughborough Great Central (the start of the heritage railway), only about 2 miles away, a steam train ride down through Quorn station, over the Swithland reservoir viaduct to Rothley station, a bit of a walk back to the reservoir, catch the last train back to Loughborough at 4:00pm and then a walk into town for a beer and meal. Perfect! The trains were every hour, it was just after 11:00am so we would catch the 12:00 and have plenty of time to amble to the reservoir and back before the 4:00pm last train.
At Charnwood Water
Tea and chat meant it was 11:25 before we left and, coupled with the fact that we weren't entirely sure where the railway station was and ended up on a parallel road with 2 minutes to go meant that the leisurely walk quickened markedly in pace, culminating in us all running the last 100m after we heard the trains horn hoot. Yes, I can confirm, I saw my sister running, an event rarely if ever seen (I suspect the last time was at sports day when we were at junior school!). The brutal truth was, we missed it! the very nice man at the ticket counter told me that one was only a diesel anyway, the one at 1:00pm would be a steam train. 'Only a diesel!' That happened to be a 'Class 37' and the class (of then 300 of them) I designed and supplied a fan clutch for in the 1980's, I have intimate knowledge of its working!
Buying tickets in the foyer of Central Railway Station
Never mind, lets walk to nearby Charnwood Water to pass the hour (the miles are ticking up!). It was a little further than anticipated but a nice lakeside walk and by the time we'd chatted a bit more and taken a few selfies time was getting on and we needed to go, so back to the station with 10 minutes to spare and still only about 4 miles walked. Feeling a bit peckish we ordered very reasonably priced sandwiches and drinks in the buffet car, which needed making so we sat down in a carriage, the train pulled out and in 9 minutes we were in Quorn & Woodhouse station with no sandwiches and only about another 10 minutes before we reached Rothley. Sandwiches arrived, train pulled out, we munched very nice sandwiches very quickly while going over Swithland reservoir viaduct and had just finished in time to get off at Rothley. So much for the leisurely day!
The lovely Loughborough Central station
We watched the train head on to Leicester where, according to the station master, it would turn round and return here in about 40 minutes (I spent time telling him about the fan clutch I designed for the Class 37, but he didn't seem impressed!). Well, we've got time to walk to Swithland reservoir viaduct and get a photo of the train perfectly reflected in the reservoir, I said to much complaining. Off we went at a reasonable pace, along roads, through fields and, eventually into Swithland town where there was a pub, The Griffin.
The Royal Mail waggons that we think were used in the film 'Buster'
Denise and Jackie wanted to stop and have a beer and with only 5 minutes before the train and a longish walk through another field it didn't look good, but my powers of persuasion won through and we all marched off across a field up hill with a promise to return for a beer after capturing the perfect shot. High hedgerows obscured the view but, running I ran through a gate, heard the hoot of the train and saw it passing in the far distance through some trees. I tried to enthuse them to continue the walk through to Quorn and catch the train back from there, but it was no use, we returned to The Griffin and had a beer (walk distance: 6.5 miles).
Our train at Rothley station
Studying the map I could see the road passed over the reservoir by the viaduct only a mile or so away and we might be in time to get a perfect shot of the Class 37 reflected in the reservoir and we had 10 minutes to spare - more complaining. Another brisk walk and with 30 seconds to go to get a view we heard the hoot and sound of a train passing by! Blast! However, in 10 minutes the steam train we were to catch back would be coming out over the viaduct on it's way to Leicester so, on the third attempt we were ready and positioned and....got the perfect shot! Result finally! (walk distance: 8 miles). Now only a walk back, catch the train and then walk into town for another beer and dinner.
THE perfect shot!
We were back at the station with 20 minutes to spare so time for an ice cream at the cafe and a piece of cake cooked by Steph and carried by Denise, a pleasant ride back, walk into town and a great beer and dinner at The Three Nuns pub in Loughborough (it was supposed to be called The Three Tuns, but the name was mis-heard and wrongly registered). Total walk distance: 11.5 miles. In all I didn't fulfill Denises requests very well, it was much further and much faster than she wanted, but at least it was relatively flat. However, she went home with a smile on her face, it was a particularly good day. We can really recommend a day out on the Great Central Railway, very reasonably priced, friendly people and a real trip down memory lane. The other interesting thing about this railway is that scenes from the 1988 film 'Buster', starring Phil Collins and about the 1963 Great Train Robbery, were filmed here and we passed some Royal Mail waggons that we assume were used in the film. (see:https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/loco-in-great-train-robbery.40679/ and: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094819/locations)
Our route (including train journey)
Having our tickets clipped by a very nice guard
So, since then we've spent much more time with Gypsy cat, been shopping in Loughborough, been to the excellent Thursday market (amazingly cheap fruit, veg and meat), been to a museum and Queens Park and Jackie has been cooking fabulous dinners using up marrows and courgettes given to us by friends. We're enjoying it here, what will we do for the next five days....
Oh, forgot to add that, on our way back from the park today, a young boy leant over the brick wall in his house adjacent to the road and said 'excuse me', when Jackie looked he said 'no, not you, him'. He asked me if I knew how to fix gates (I thought he asked me if I knew how to fix skates), I said 'possibly, let me have a look'. He invited me up the steps to the gate but said not to go in, his mum won't allow it. He had a bolt in his hand, some tools and screws and, on the gate was an old bolt he was trying to remove. I couldn't go in and, of course, the bolt was on the inside, so I had to do it by leaning through. He was very interested and passed tools and screws, often telling me to keep my voice down so his mum couldn't hear. I fitted the new bolt and took the old one off showing him waht I was doing and how to do it and then we wished him well and left as we heard him calling his mum. I bet he told her how he'd fixed the new bolt on the gate! Well, if you can't help people what can you do. He was very polite and very grateful!
The beautifully preserved memorabilia at all of the stations
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