Week 34 was disrupted by a wedding and preparations for a holiday planned for the following week. I needed some suitable shoes for the holiday as we would be doing a lot of walking and trainers wouldn’t cut it as we were going to a rather posh hotel. On the Wednesday I bought a pair of Meindl Respond GTX shoes which Blacks had 30% off in a ‘Closing Down’ sale – I’ve seen the St. Pauls branch ‘closing down’ on at least two previous occasions only to find it still open the next time I passed by so I wonder if the shop will finally shut this time?
The reviews of this shoe are mixed but reading between the lines I think some people don’t read the manufacturers information. These are leisure and everyday wear walking shoes – not for trail and definitely not climbing! I thought they would be suited to a week away on the ‘mountainous’ streets of Madeira but first I needed to break them in. What better test than a day’s trainspotting😅
On Friday I decided to take a trip to Stratford via New Southgate, Highbury & Islington, Hackney Central / Hackney Downs and Liverpool Street. This gave me the opportunity to take a couple of shots at Hackney Downs. Here’s 710258 arriving on a Liverpool Street to Chingford service…
…and 745103 passing through on its way to Stansted Airport…
At Stratford, it was the usual mix of intermodal and aggregates trains amongst the intensive Greater Anglia passenger services. 66724 on the Masborough to London Gateway was the only new locomotive sighting of the day…
…seen snaking its way across the points.
It was a lovely sunny day, so I indulged in some people watching – White cotton was the cool option…
…light blonde hair and black presenting a different type of ‘cool’…
Last freight before I headed home…
…66705 with a Tilbury to Wakefield intermodal. Caught between the train and reflection, a young spotter captures his shot with a mobile phone.
Back via Liverpool Street, Farringdon and Tottenham Court Road. Totals for the day: 154 logged of which I needed 4. I picked up 5 new for haulage. And the shoes? They proved to be comfortable from the off with just a little rubbing in the small toe region. I’ve subsequently worn them on the holiday without any issues and they are now fully broken in. They’ll get used on all my spotting trips henceforth.
Now I have a backlog of photos from a holiday to process🙄😅
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