Watching the printer . . .

. . . is mindnumbing. I'm printing out 2 copies of each of the 5 parts of Limelight, plus 2 copies of the score, which I've promised to the rest of the gang, even though we haven't actually settled on the date of our next practice. You sit and watch it going chugga chugga chugga, page after page, and start wishing you had one of those mythical printers that never goes wrong, so that you can go away and make a cup of tea while it's working. That, of course, as we know, is a recipe for disaster.

This time I'm using a nice gold coloured foolscap, from Sharon's stash that she left me before decamping for Kiwi-land. PH are used to it by now, but I love the puzzled look that appears on people's faces the first time I hand them something printed on foolscap.

Now, talk of the devil, as they say (well, talk of the minister's wife, actually . . .) just as I was typing her name, Sharon appeared on Skype, so I'm typing this and having a conversation with her at the same time, hearing about her hot and sunny NZ Christmas. Funny old world.

WORKINGTON DOCKS

Having been chatting with my mate Russell on UKLC about Workington's industrial heritage, I decided to take a quicky shufty round the docks area this afternoon before venturing to Tesco. Lovely wild and stormy day to be in an area like this - wish I'd worn the same gear I had on my photographic tour of the Maryport coastline last week.

I get the feeling that a lot more went on in the old days. Everything looks delapidated and rusted. This curious little building in the photo is a tide-watcher's building where, as Russell tells me, " . . . he would, ahem, raise or lower his balls to warn mariners of the state of the tides." All the doors and windows are bricked up, presumably to prevent unspeakable things from happening inside.

The next thing is to investigate the mill stream, which was cut from the Yearl or weir further up the Derwent, and crosses the Mill Field where it used to power a water wheel at the mill (now converted to a dwelling house). This artificial watercourse flows in a deep channel in front of Tesco's, and I've always just referred to it as The Stank, not knowing what it was. It re-enters the Derwent just before the river flows into the sea, at the point where I photographed the moored boats the other day - at that point it's wide and tidal, but the rest of it's narrow.

Depending on your interests, gentle reader, this is either fascinating or deeply boring.