Saturday 24/02/07

The Cumbria traincrash has sadly claimed one life, a lady aged 84. Rescue services had quite a job reaching the stricken train. Helicopters had to fly in to floodlight the scene, local farmers used their tractors to tow fire-engines and ambulances to the crash-site. Passengers were taken to local farms and given cups of tea amidst the cows. Initial reports say that the train appeared to hit something at 95 mph, then it swayed violently before toppling over. Up here, it’s a quiet morning with little wind. A powercut occurred at 3 am. The weather is cloudy with a little drizzle around lunchtime. Mrs B selects 20 out of my 6,300 pictures. I have picked 37 which I have printed off at the photographer’s. Mrs B goes for a flutter on the horses; I stick to the lottery. On La Reunion, an orange and later red alert is declared as cyclone Gamede approaches. Winds up to 125 mph are expected. The stream of viewers on the TC blog continues, and I relay warnings for both Mauritius and La Reunion. Head out for papers and the April edition of a computer magazine – full of Windows Vista. Mrs B entertains a relative this evening.