An afternoon out for the boys

With Caryn at university full-time and Lukey at school part-time, there's some entertaining to be done. Yesterday it was easy. 'Oliver Cromwell' - a huge, spitting, hissing, noisy steam train, one of the last engines to be in service before steam bit the dust in 1968 - paid a visit to the station it was based at after an absence of 40 years.

As some of you will know, my dad quite likes his steam trains. I've never really got it (think that was belligerence than anything else), but I seem to be catching on now. And so every time a steam engine comes this way (and it seems to be quite often), he tells us about it and me and Luke inevitably have to go and see.

It's hard to believe these behemoths were so commonplace. They are truly impressive machines. Looking at the driver and fireman on the footplate, completely covered in soot and dirt, you can understand why train driver was the coolest job in the world. That must have felt like a proper day at the office.