There was a very pink sunset last night, and I expected today to be rather better than in the forecast in the screenshot above. The latest revision has swapped a few dark clouds for lighter coloured clouds, but  apart from a possible single hour of sunny spells, it would seem it is going to be a dull day.....but maybe anything is possible. In the latest revision to the forecast the sunny spells have been moved from 10am to midday. If nothing else it proves that the forecasters are really only guessing, and reality could yet throw up a few surprises. The temperature forecast is generally correct, and it still shows 18° C, or similar to yesterday. The temperature tomorrow should be similar to today, and it will be another duller day, but with one big difference - rain later in the afternoon.
  Yesterday was a good, but rather tiring day. It wasn't until late in the morning that I decided I was definitely going to go out, head towards Cockfosters Tube Station, and take some photos along the way. Several things made it a very tiring day, and one of the worst was a "one under" - a tresspasser on the line, near, or in Alexander Palace station was hit, and killed by a train. All trains through the station, including trains that don't even call there, local services or long distant services, came to a halt.

  I started out later than intended. I was originally aiming for the 12:05 train to Blackfriars station from Catford station, but I got the 12:35 instead. It was an interesting journey for one particular reason. I was sitting on the left of the train, and between Loughborough Junction and Elephant & Castle, the train was diverted* to run on the left hand track. Until yesterday I had never seen the view to the left of the tracks, or at least not such a clear view.

* It was not that long ago that a train I was on also used the left hand track, to call at Platform 1 (I think). Maybe this is now standard practice, but prior to the change the train would call at platform 3.

  The change at Blackfriars to the Peterborough or Cambridge train is a simple job of just crossing the platform - unlike going in the other direction, but more about that later. The reason for catching a Peterborough or Cambridge train is that they stop at Finsbury Park station - an interchange with both the Victoria and Piccadilly tube lines. It is also a fair place to do a bit of train spotting - except for the intercity trains that speed through the station. I did manage a couple of snaps of slower, or stationary trains.

  One day, when I am feeling in a relaxed, but energetic mood, I must explore the underside of Finsbury Park. I know, or at least I think I know there are lifts down to the tube station platform levels, but I didn't feel the need to use the lifts. I hoped there might be escalators, and maybe there are somewhere, but all I could find were spiral staircases in what may have been old lift shafts. On stations that retain spiral staircases as "emergency stairs" there is usually a sign warning how many steps there are. I saw no warning at Finsbury Park. I don't know how many steps there are, but it felt like there were at least 3, and possibly even 5 complete turns to get from top to bottom.

  The tube to Cockfosters, on the Piccadilly line was almost empty - at least it was on the back of the train where I was. Maybe there were more people in the front - which is the end nearest the barriers. Cockfosters station itself is a classical design using cast concrete to give a sort of very modern, even futuristic look, and one that on reflection may have influenced many buildings in the future as envisioned by Gerry Anderson - Thunderbirds and other "Supermarionation" TV series.
  I probably should have taken a closer view of the station building as seen from one of the platforms. In the distance can be seen the rhomboid shape of the building that forms a shelter over the start of the platform. I feel sure that shape cropped up in many Thunderbirds episodes, and possibly even it's predecessor "Stingray".
  The outside of the station is less futuristic, but was probably considered so when first built. I am a bit jealous of the version of this picture as used by Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfosters_tube_station). It is a night view that cuts out all the bright sky allowing the station frontage to be brighter, and even better illuminated by it's own lighting. My picture looks drab by comparison.
  After looking around Cockfosters (the station itself is interesting, but there is not much around it) I got on the next train, and went as far as Bounds Green. It is a rather traditional deep level station. It has escalators, and warmly lit platforms. Where "warmly" equates to slightly yellow looking, and not very bright. It is nice, but unremarkable except for one thing. On the tube map, and particularly on the line maps inside the tube carriages, it is noted as being only a 540 metre walk to Bowes Park national rail station. That was an opportunity to be taken - particularly with the tube train being really full of people - which seemed odd at 2.30pm.
  It was here that my troubles started. Bowes Park station is accessed from the bridge shown in my pictures. It is hump shaped, and in the middle there is a staircase down to an island platform between the two running lines. I thought it odd that there was a train sitting in the platform apparently doing nothing. A quick look at the departure screen showed it as "delayed". 5 to 10 minutes later more information was added to say there had been a fatality on the line, and nothing was moving.

  I sat on the train for 15 or 20 minutes with the idea that it would have to move some time. Eventually the driver took a walk through the train to explain to the few of us sitting on the train that someone had been killed on the track at, or near Alexandra Palace station. He suggested walking to the tube station - where I had just come from. I did so, and when the "approved" route which may have been 540 metres. The route I took there may have been slightly longer.

  I took the tube back to Finsbury Park. By that time it was like rush hour travel, although it was still at least an hour or two from the traditional rush hour(s). Back at Finsbury Park I hoped to find an alternative to the spiral staircase I had used to go down earlier on. I think I found a different staircase, but it was still a spiral staircase. I was quite surprised, and rather pleased, that I went up it non stop, although I came very close to stopping to get my breathe back at the top. In fact I did stop long enough to utter "phew" before carrying on walking.

  It was only 10 or so metres on the level before I had to go up another, straight, staircase to get to the platform for Thameslink trains back to St Pancras, and trains back to Moorgate. I had decided I would go to or to St Pancras depending on which train arrived first. The problem was that NO trains arrived. I was surprised that all lines through Alexandra Palace station were closed because that station has something like 6 platform faces, and it seemed unreasonable to me that all lines had to be shut (although of course it is possible that the body was splattered across all the rails outside the station.
  At the top of the stair onto the platform was a nice young lady who was turning everybody back because no trains were running. It would have been better for most people if she had stood at the bottom of the stairs ! After the general warning of no trains she saw my camera (Canon 600D with 200mm zoom lens on it) and said "ah, but you are obviously a trainspotter. There is not much to seem but carry on". In fact there was a lot to see. There was one of the intercity trains that normally pass through the station at speed just sitting there posing for me. I only had just one picture of a class 91 loco, also taken at Finsbury Park some time ago, before I got this nicely posed picture above. It is a shame that it was quite dull at the the time I took this picture. It makes it look a bit lacklustre.
  I had taken one of my fixed lens with a large aperture for taking pictures in tube stations, but in the end I only took this one single picture of the southbound Victoria line platform at Finsbury Park. I was rather pleased with how well it came out because it was not very bright down there, and the lighting can be a funny colour. I suspect that the strip lighting down the centre of the tunnel roof may be high efficiency LED lighting - which while it was a better colour, was still not very bright because the walls, floor and ceiling were mostly very dull. Note how the red signal light at the end of the tunnel seems to be casting a brighter light than the other lights.

  To get down to the Victoria line platform meant coming down one of the spiral staircases, but this time at least I chose the right one that opened out straight onto the wanted platform. Considering that it was still only 3.42pm, and I only had to wait a few minutes for the next train after just missing one very full looking train, I was surprised at how busy that next train was. Luckily it is not many stops to get to St Pancras station because by the time we got there the carriage was getting very full !

  There was one more problem I hadn't counted on when taking this route to St Pancras. The so called Kings Cross Victoria line station is actually in Belgium, and it is a 4 day walk through the subterranean tunnels until you come out at the wrong side of St Pancras station. After walking to the right side, down the escalators, around the corner, up the corridor, and down more stairs because  the escalators were closed for maintenance, I finally ended up on the Thameslink southbound platform. There was a train already in the platform which I should have got on, but hesitated to try and see where it was going.

  Ultimately it's destination wouldn't have mattered because it would call at Blackfriars where I could, and did change trains. Getting the earlier train would have made the change at Blackfriars a lot easier. The problem is that at Blackfriars, except for a few trains later in the rush hour, all the Sevenoaks trains (calling at Catford) start from platform 3. That means walking to either end of the very, very long platforms. Take the stairs or lift at the south end, or the escalators at the north end. Go down, and then under the tracks, and up again to platform 3.

  I made the silly mistake of going toward the back of the train I got from St Pancras in the mistaken belief I would get off at Blackfriars somewhere near the escalators, but it was only an 8 car train, and I got off in the middle of the platform. I opted to walk to the south end of the platform, go down the stairs, and then go up the stairs to platform 3. It was then a longish walk to the front of the Catford bound train, but I had chose that route because I wanted to be near the front, and thus near the stairs at Catford. I managed to do the change of platforms in a little more that 3 minutes, and just made the train.

  The train soon filled up on it's way to Catford. It was a relief to get out at Catford, and start making my way home. I arrived at home at roughly 5pm buzzing with exhaustion. I was also hungry and thirsty. There were several things I could have eaten, and most of them would probably have been healthier than two lots of instant noodles, but maybe not as nice. After eating I really wanted to lay down and have a snooze, but I also wanted to see how my pictures had turned out.

  I also wanted to see how many trains I had photographed that I had not done before. There were at least half a dozen new trains to add to my huge spreadsheet cataloguing all my train pictures. With those pictures edited, plus the ones I have used here today, I could finally relax and watch a bit of TV. By 7pm I was feeling peckish again, but I didn't fancy having the dinner I had had precooked the day before, and ended up having 4 rice cakes with salami and cheese on them,

  I tried watching a whole episode of QI last night, but I was feeling so tired, and it had Johhny Vegas on it, that I gave up after maybe 15 minutes, and went to bed. I think I read for 10 or 15 minutes before falling into quite a deep sleep. I think that I generally slept very well last night, The only problem is that maybe I had slept too well. I know I got up to pee several time, as usual, but I think I fell asleep within seconds of getting back to bed. The only time that went wrong was from about 4am. For the next couple of hours I seemed to find it difficult to keep asleep.

  It was just after 6am when I gave up and got up. As usual, one of the first things I did was to check my blood glucose reading. If I had had yesterday's noodles several hours earlier I think I might have got a very low reading, but the reading I did get, 8.3mmol/l was still very good, and under my typical monthly average. I did get a minor shock when I looked at the cumulative average for to month so far. It was extremely high, but fortunately I had seen this before. For some reason when I copy and paste last months spreadsheet page as the template for a new month, is seems to change "Average" to "Sum" for the average figure. A 2 second edit fixes that, and now my running average for these first few days of the month is 8.53mmol/l  - which is very typical of almost the last two years of monthly averages.

  I did have ideas of going out again today, but that thought seems to have evaporated now. For one thing, it has taken so long to write all this today that it has taken up most of the morning. A second thing is that while we did have a very short sunny spells an hour or two ago, it is looking very dull and miserable out there now. If I do go out now it will only be to get some shopping, and there is nothing essential I need, and so I probably won't.  I'm sure I can find things to do at home. I still have some more pictures from yesterday I might show tomorrow, and/or just add them to a photo album.