Easter weekend based in Kendal, Cumbria. Contrasts between Victorian Westmorland and the realities of twenty-first century Cumbria. The high fells of the Pennines and beach at Bootle on the West Cumbria coastline, typical of West Coast beaches anywhere but particularly reminiscent to me of the bleak isolation of Haast Beach on the south island of New Zealand. Daffodils on grass verges almost everywhere - I wonder who plants them. Yes no lakes in my postcard: Cumbria, the agglomeration in the eighties of Cumberland and Westmorland, is more than the Lake District.

Competitive campanology on Easter Sunday between bell ringers at two of the churches added a pleasing soundscape to the landscape as I wandered among the castle ruins and the singing birds on Kendal castle hill.

A fine spring day in Gouda, town that has given its name to the famous Dutch cheese. Nowadays Gouda is a historic destination for a relaxing day out from the steel and glass architecture of Rotterdam. We enjoyed coffee in the sunshine in the market place dominated by the medieval town hall and the weighing hall. Both the town hall and the nearby St. Jans Kerk have chiming carillon clocks.

Bustling Rotterdam is built around its estuary port. The business district has the usual skyscrapers and the water of the Nieuwe Maas is crossed by a modern asymmetric bridge, nicknamed “The Swan”, though the maps show it as Erasmusbrug (“Erasmus Bridge”).

The tourist boat trip took us near the SS Rotterdam, now permanently docked as a hotel, her hull painted fine white rather than North Atlantic black. We continued to the container docks, the huge ships and cranes dwarfing the handful of workers on board.

Postcard of a day trip to Bristol. Traveling just on a regular diesel HST dating from the 1960s but seeing at Bristol Temple Meads number 44932 LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 steam locomotive hauling a charter up to Waterloo. The steam loco is one of the "Black Five" which survived running in service until the last day of steam on British Railways in 1968. Number 44932 was built in 1945 in Horwich Works near Bolton in Greater Manchester. So the steam loco is only 20 years older than the diesel HSTs still in service...

And a snap from just outside London Paddington showing two of the Crossrail Tunnel Boring Machines. TBM are huge machines, dwarfing the concrete mixer lorry nearby in front; behind the drilling plate there is a production line to remove the spoil and line the tunnel. Crossrail will link Paddington with Canary Wharf via Farringdon and is due to open for service in 2017. Crossrail's 21km of new twin-bore tunnels are first major new railway tunnels under London since the Jubilee Line.