All at sea - or possibly not!

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I should have been in Hamburg this weekend, along with Mrs PBT’s, enjoying a short cruise on Cunard’s flagship, the Queen Mary 2. Instead the QM2 is moored offshore in Portland Bay, and I’m stuck in "sunny Tunny" as the local sometimes call Tonbridge, contemplating what job needs doing next in the garden.

When the current strain of novel Coronavirus began its slow, but inexorable creep across the world, I was still thinking, like many of us, that somehow it wouldn’t be too serious and that we’d escape the worst of its effects. How wrong could I be, but even in early February, as Mrs PBT’s and I journeyed back from a short visit to South Wales, I was still fairly optimistic that our cruise would go ahead.

We’d booked the holiday at the start of the New Year, and whilst there were reports coming out of China about a novel Coronavirus that might have jumped the species barrier, like many in the western world I paid scant attention to them. After all previous viral-related conditions, such as SARS and Avian flu, had not really come to much, but now, four months later, here we are shut up in our won houses with the world economy at a virtual standstill.

So not really knowing quite where we go from here, I’m just glad of the fact that we’re all safe and well, with enough food to eat and plenty of tasty beer to drink. We’ve a garden that’s large enough to exercise in, should the need arise, but we’re also located on the edge if town and sufficiently close to some attractive countryside in which to enjoy a walk.

I’m waiting for the lad to get himself ready, so we can head out on a stroll shortly, then there’s a Sunday roast to look forward to which, today, will be cooked and delivered to our door by the excellent people at the Nelson Arms, Tonbridge – more about that later.

The sun isn’t shining today and now, as I finish this short post, a little light rain is starting to fall. I’m going into work tomorrow and it’s nice to get a little normality back into my life, even though because of social-distancing measures, we’re running with a reduced level of staff.

As for our Sunday dinner, well three tasty roast pork meals, complete with all the trimmings, were delivered on time to the Bailey household, along with a two-pint container of Shere Drop, from Surrey Hills. I also ordered a two-pinter of Hacker-Pschorr Helles for the boy - as you have to spoil people sometimes.

That’s it for now; the cruise can wait until happier times return, but rest assured I’ll be back with more lock-down ramblings, soon.

Cameras, photography and me

This post came into being on the back of another, but as I continued writing, it became increasingly obvious that the article below was worthy of a place of its own. To elaborate, the piece I was originally writing, concerns an event that took place nearly 40 years ago. 

I began by advising readers that I didn’t have any photos to illustrate the post, because four decades ago, people just didn’t take photographs in anything like the numbers, or on the occasions that they do now. What’s more the event in question was a business trip, so taking my camera along and acting like a tourist on holiday, was not particularly appropriate either.

The camera I had back then was a pretty decent one, but not the sort of thing to just slip in your pocket. It was a Pentax 35mm SLR, and whilst it took excellent photos, it had several drawbacks. The main one was its bulk, coming as it did two interchangeable zoom lenses. These might have been great for focussing on and composing that perfect shot, but they made the camera heavy, cumbersome and tiring to be lugging about.  

People also seem to forget that apart from Polaroid film, which produced rather poor results anyway, there was no such thing as instant photos. Instead, each fully exposed film would have to be handed over to a shop such as Boots, or an outlet that specialised in film processing, for one’s lovingly created “pics” to be turned into proper photographs. 

There were no second chances, which was why professional photographers would often reel off several rolls of film at a time. Professionals could afford this luxury, whereas the cost of such extravagance was the beyond the reach of us lesser mortals. 

The increase in popularity of compact cameras, still film-based to begin with, but latterly moving into a digital format, revolutionised photography, and brought it to the masses. Suddenly, photography was within the grasp of many more people, and when cameras began to form an integral part of people’s Smart Phones, then everyone became a photographer, as phones accompany their owners everywhere.

These days the numbers of digital images captured daily, must run into hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and with phone cameras becoming more sophisticated, and even idiot-proof, photography is within the reach of most people.

Just pointing and shooting does remove much of the skill, but the act of composing a decent photograph of necessity involves a degree of artistic flair, along with practice, which is much easier with a digital camera.

But let’s look back at some of my earlier cameras, where I have my father to thank for sparking my interest in photography. Dad was a keen photographer when he was younger, and I remember him having quite a posh looking camera. It wasn’t a Leica, but it was still a good model. I believe he acquired it whilst stationed in Germany, on National Service, back in the early 1950’s, and after clearing out my parents bungalow a few years ago, I uncovered a real stash of old photos – some of which date back to dad’s army days.

My first camera was a Kodak Box Brownie. It used 127 roll film and with only 12 exposures per reel, one had to be quite economical when it came to shooting photos. Dad’s camera used 126 roll film, but apart from the negatives being larger with the 126 format, I still have no idea what these numbers referred to. Black & white photos were also the order of the day, as colour was prohibitively expensive. 

All of dad’s early photos, including ones of my sister and I, were black & white, and most of them were what was known as “contact prints.”  This meant the prints were the same size as the negatives – tiny in the case of 127 film, and not much larger with 126 film. If you wanted enlargements (“blow-ups”), these were more expensive. It was only towards the end of the sixties that colour film started coming into its own, and it was probably around then that my parents bought me a better and lightly more upmarket camera. I’ve been trying to find an image of it online, but I’m fairly confident it was also called a “Brownie.” What I do know is it also took 127 film. 

In the early 1980’s, I splashed out on a Pentax K1000 35mm SLR. It was a brilliant camera, capable of a wide range of shutter speeds and aperture settings. I enrolled with an evening class on photography, whilst I lived in Maidstone, where I learned all sorts of useful tips for taking photos, as well as the basics of photography. We were also shown how to develop black & white film and learned how to make enlargements.

I’ve still got that Pentax today, and over the years have used it to take some excellent photos. I went through a spell of taking transparencies (slides), which when projected, are a great way to bore unwanted guests, or those who outstay their welcome.

Nowadays, I either rely on a little compact Nikon Coolpix 16 Megapixel, or the 48 Megapixel camera on my Smart Phone. I’m not quoting the number of megapixels to impress you, as ultimately, it’s the quality of the camera lens, the shutter speed that make the difference. 

Megapixels is all about light-capture, which obviously does play a roll, but when you think about it, why do professional photographers still use single lens reflex (SLR) cameras – albeit digital, rather than film versions?

We'll leave it there for the time being, as photography is a subject that could be discussed for hours, but I trust I've jerked a few memories and left the door open for future discussion on the how the world looks when viewed through the lens of a camera.

A boy can dream, can't he?

Sometimes there’s nothing better than losing oneself in total randomness. Going off obliquely at a complete tangent and seeing where you end up, and when I say randomness, I mean randomness!

It was like that on Friday evening after the culmination of a busy week at work. I’d gone into the office for four days, which is something of a record since the lock-down started, and whilst I took a break midweek, in order to get my car serviced and its MOT renewed, I was feeling quite tired come the evening.

Mrs PBT’s treated us to a rather nice Indian meal, delivered to our door by a local curry house, so feeling rather stuffed after my lamb biryani I nearly dozed off, sitting in front of my computer screen. I clicked onto YouTube and selected a random mix that began with Queen of Dreams by the Strawbs – how many people remember that one?

A little later Glen Campbell’s country classic Wichita Lineman was emanating from the speakers, and it’s here that the randomness starts. “Wichita” the very name conjures up visions of vast sweeping plains, way out west, heading off into the distance, so with curiosity getting the better of me, I resorted to Wikipedia. 

Disappointment set in when I read that Wichita is the largest city in the state of Kansas – whatever happened to Kansas City? So, with my illusions of an outpost on the windswept Great Plains shattered, I turned instead to a railroad map of the USA, just to see where Wichita is, and if the city is reachable by train.

It isn’t, as whilst several important freight lines run through Wichita, passenger services ceased in 1979. No problem, as there are plenty of other places, with romantic sounding names nearby, which really set my imagination rolling. This map fixation also brought back into my mind a long cherished, bucket-list desire to travel, by rail, across the whole of the United States, from east coast to west.

Some of you might recall that back in the summer of 2018, I took the overnight train from Washington to Chicago, riding on one of Amtrak’s famous, named, long-distance passenger trains - the Capitol Limited. 

Arriving in the "Windy City" left me convinced that I’d now completed half of my planned trans-continental trip, but a glance at that railroad map indicated that Chicago was only one third of the distance between America’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and there was still over 2,000 miles worth of travelling before arrival in San Francisco. 

Being in the midst of an unprecedented and unexpected lock-down means long-distance travel is off the cards for some time to come, but a boy can dream, but whether long-distance train services survive in the US, is open to question.

Several years ago, when I mentioned my planned coast to coast rail trip, a friend who has travelled extensively by rail in the United States, warned me to book it sooner, rather than later, because if Trump was elected President, he would shut the whole network down. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened yet, but there’s still a danger that a coalition of fanatical GOP supporters, and God-fearing, redneck US voters will give the “Orange One” a second term as POTUS. 

Amtrak isn’t reprieved yet, and two years ago the organisation was being forced into making a series of cutbacks, just to stay afloat. One example was the switch from proper table service in the dining car, to airline style, pre-prepared food. So instead of a properly cooked, and nicely served meal, passengers were presented with something vaguely edible that was just shoved in a microwave, and handed over, still in its plastic packaging!

Upon learning that I was from England, one fellow diner told me I should write and complain to the head of Amtrak about this drop in standards. She had a point, but as I was just a visitor, and the fact that the sub-standard meal never really impacted on my whole North American train experience, meant that I never put pen to paper. So how was that short (by American standards), train journey from the capital to Chicago? 

It was enjoyable, although I won’t go into too much detail as I wrote about my trip at the time, and if you want to look back on that, you can do so here. What the trip did allow was an opportunity to see a little of rural America with views and vistas you wouldn’t see from hurtling along the highway, or from 30,000 feet up in the air. 

So, after boarding the train at Washington’s Union station, the stretch out of DC along the valley of the Potomac river, was the most scenic section of the whole journey. The line follows the route of the historic Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, up towards West Virginia and gets itself into civil war territory. 

I was particularly interested to see the settlement of Harper's Ferry, where the raid on the federal armoury, by insurrectionist John Brown, was one of the contributory factors leading to the secession of the Southern States from the Union, at the  start of the American Civil War. I nearly missed this sight, as I was busy talking to a fellow passenger, and it wasn't until we crossed the River Potomac, at a point just upstream from where it is joined by Shenandoah River, that I realised we had reached Harpers Ferry. 

The line continues along the Potomac valley, climbing steadily with the hills slowly becoming steeper and more prominent, as it reaches the Allegheny Mountains. I was tucked up in bed long before then and slept right through as we travelled through Pennsylvania. 

I slept right through even missing our stop in Pittsburgh where the train changed crews. By sunrise the following morning, we were passing through the comparatively un-interesting flatland's of northern Ohio and Indiana.

As the train neared Chicago, we passed through what can only be described as the mid-west "rust-belt." With blast furnaces standing empty and silent, and massive gantries quietly rusting away, this was an eerie landscape, but it wasn't long before I could make out the "Windy City's" towering skyscrapers in the distance, glistening away on the horizon.

So, what next? If I am intent of completing my coast to coast journey, I need to do so within the next five years, before I reach the grand old age of 70. Travel insurance for a visit to the United States is already expensive, given the astronomical costs of access to the nation’s healthcare system. As an example, two years ago a single trip policy, covering my two week stay, cost the same amount as the multi-trip, annual policy which covers the whole family for travel anywhere in Europe.

My train of choice would be the legendary Californian Zephyr, which operates daily between Chicago and San Francisco. The 2,438-mile journey takes three days/two nights and a journey time of around 66 hours. It follows a route via Denver and Salt Lake City, along one of most scenic and historic of all Amtrak’s routes across the United States. 

Passengers are certainly treated to some superb scenery as the train journeys through the Rockies, across the arid country of Utah and Nevada, followed by the snow-capped Sierra Nevada in California, and on into the Bay Area of San Francisco.  

For my Washington-Chicago journey, I booked a "roomette," where daytime seating converts to beds at night. Electrical outlets, climate controls, reading lights, a small closet and fold-down table are all within easy reach. "Compact and bijou," as the saying goes, but if I’m honest there wasn’t really room to swing the proverbial cat! Toilet and shower facilities are also shared with other passengers travelling in the same coach. 

This doesn’t bother me, but is a definite no, no for the "lady of the house." A better option would be one of the "bedrooms," which are furnished with a large sofa and an easy chair next to a large window. At night, the sofa converts to a lower bed, and an upper bed folds down from above. They also feature a sink and a private, enclosed restroom with toilet and shower.

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Despite this, I’m still not certain that Mrs PBT’s would be up to it, as there are steep stairways connecting the upper and lower decks of the train, and when the train is swaying from side to side, it’s difficult for a sure-footed person to keep their balance. 

I’ll see if I can talk her into it, but in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, it's all very much “pie in the sky” at the moment. Still, as I said earlier, a boy can dream, can’t he?