Busy weekend with the first pre-season football match so, once again I’m posting for Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge on Monday🙄 None of the players came near enough to be considered close-up, so there’s no Football. Having spent most of yesterday processing photos and watching a fascinating stage of Le Tour de France, I needed to do some quick shots around the house today for this week’s post.
Covid introduced a new item into most of our lives, the face mask. I took the decision to wear one in shops and other enclosed environments early on, before they were made compulsory. One of the biggest issues early on was deciding what sort of mask to wear while later on it more about getting one that you’re happy to wear. Most of the more colourful ones were clearly aimed at female wearers with males being offered the Model T Ford colour option🤣 Of course, you could design your own and there were some places offering this option – Fellow Wingate & Finchley fan Tom has a couple of black ones with the Wingate & Finchley badge on them👍 I did look at making a trucking one for myself but couldn’t get it to appear as I wanted. Then, one of the train companies, LNER, began offering some masks featuring symbols of destinations they serve. They were quite expensive but all the profits from each sale were going to go to a charity called CALM – Campaign Against Living Miserably. LNER are supporting this charity in an effort to reduce the number of suicides that occur on the railway every year – it’s become an epidemic. I decided to purchase 2 to begin with. Here is one of those first masks…
This one features Thistles, symbolic of Scotland.
We’ll visit masks again at the end. Here’s my Fitbit…
…and a bit of sunburn from Saturday’s football match – must remember to put on the sunblock🙄 Still, it enhances my Redneck credentials ready for when SCS Software release the Texas DLC for American truck Simulator😂
Bubbles… My Bubbles…
…I was walking past the sink on my way to feed the birds when I realized there might be a photo to be had 😎
Finally, back to my face masks and this one was produced by LNER to celebrate their new Azuma trains…
…I’ve got three of these and I always carry one when I got trainspotting – while they’re no longer compulsory, I’ll put it on if I think it will make my fellow passengers more comfortable. Once again, the profits went to CALM.
Images from Finchley 
Now I should get a new Fitbit.
This one’s getting a bit long in the tooth now 😅 Thanks for popping by 😎👍
Terrific post. Good to see you got some sun 😀 😀
🤣 Fortunately I’m old enough for it not to hurt 😂👍
I like your face masks. In the beginning I was really interested in the colors and patterns, almost thinking they were at least fun to look at, if not so fun to wear. I think I may need to shop again. I’ve grown very bored with my stock.
Is there really a high incidence of railway suicides, Martin? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that statistic mentioned in my own country, but I may just not be in touch.
To quote from a tweet by Thameslink – one of my local rail companies – “It is with great sadness that we report a person has been hit by a train between Bedford and St Pancras.” That was on Monday this week. I generally see 3 or 4 similar tweets from the companies that serve my area over the course of a week. One week earlier in the year not a single day went by without someone being struck by a train somewhere on the network. The alternative version is trains being stopped because of trespassers on the track.
Not all of these are suicides – some are accidents where someone has made the misguided decision to take a shortcut across the tracks or didn’t pay attention while using a footpath crossing. But there has been a marked increase during a period of Conservative government that has resulted in poverty for many. Similar increases have been seen when there is a major financial crash. At the moment the combined effects of Covid, Brexit and the Ukraine war are making life difficult for many in the UK.
After any such incident, the rail companies usually follow up with a tweet along these lines – “We work closely with @samaritans and support the work they do. If you or someone close to you has been affected by this or any incident, there is always someone to talk to.
Contact Samaritans on 116 123 free at any time, on any phone. Help & advice is only a phone call away.”
I hope I’ve explained the situation adequately Debra?
My goodness, thank you for such an excellent answer to what was a serious question. I know that suicides are “up” in our country, too, for many of the same reasons you mention, but except for the occasional railway crossing accident I don’t hear much. I’ve mentioned before that my husband is a retired railroad switchman, but he was a conductor and brakeman for a few years, and had many engineer friends. I was told several times over the years about the trauma the train crew experienced when a life was lost on those crossings. It’s a sad subject, but I’m glad you took the time to give me a picture of how it is in the UK. The suicide prevention messages about contacting the Samaritans is strong and clear. I hope it has saved lives, as intended. Thank you, Martin.
np Debra 😎👍