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chrisswan.bsky.social
Teacher of teachers, geek, computer scientist, family historian, traveller of trains. Cat lady. Blog link: https://awfulrigourswretchedpay.com/
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This week's blog post is another reflection on my recent stay in northeast France - awfulrigourswretchedpay.com/2025/04/25/o...

submitted 10 hours ago • 0 comments

@suecowley.bsky.social How about these tulips in the Dutch Garden, Holland Park?!

submitted 10 hours ago • 1 comment

Round pond, Hyde Park yesterday

submitted 17 hours ago • 0 comments

Legs absolutely exhausted this morning. I'm now doing the "kicking sash" ( purple) in Kung Fu after a busy day yesterday. Was planning on walking from Paddington to Hammersmith (3 miles) today. Might not happen.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Looking for a carpenter .....or a joiner.....To be honest, I probably should know the difference, but I don't. Is the job inside or outside? It's both. I'd just someone who turns up and actually does the job, as opposed to the last one, who turned up, measured up and then sent someone else's number.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

This week I travelled to Tourcoing, the home of my ancestors, the Ferré family awfulrigourswretchedpay.com/2025/04/18/t...

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Taken yesterday in my garden. You could smell the apple blossom and the bees were all over it. Their buzzing sounded like a swarm but there were just a large number but not in one place.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Update: Eurostar agreed that my train was 99 minutes late and given me a credit note. After receiving an automated:"If you don't respond to this email, we're closing the case you raised." I insisted on a human response. They knew the service was late but funny how their computer said no.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Back home. Not much of an itty bitty kitty welcoming committee

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Oh well, one international adventure ends, time to start planning the next. Somebody in the amazing French Huguenot Facebook group I belong to, deciphered the home of Bartholome Six. Apparently, it's now the town in Germany where they distill Jaegermeister!

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Was thinking about the "St Pancras at capacity" issue. There are pinch points, where there doesn't seem to be enough space, and then there seem to be loads in other places. For example, the seating area fills and empties regularly every 20 - 30 minutes but it's the mad "Euston Rush" each period.

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Eurostar delayed by an hour 🙄

submitted 11 days ago • 2 comments

Tourcoing is equally interesting, and worthy of a visit. This is the Hotel de Ville

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Today I return to England after my ancestral fact-finding/ hypothesising, in North East France. I visited Tourcoing and Valenciennes, two places that, together with Lille, were home to my ancestors in the late 1500s/ early 1600s.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

#Lille est une très belle ville

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

I've wandered around #Lille this evening - what a beautiful city!

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Bon weekend à tous! This week I wrote about the Ferré family from Tourcoing, which I visited this afternoon. In this blog post I travel back twelve generations, and I wrote it in preparation to walk in their footsteps: awfulrigourswretchedpay.com/2025/04/12/t...

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments