New Swing Bridge

Liverpool get's a new swing bridge - however it's one time only.

This is the return leg of it's one and only swing. They're raising the footbridge at Princes dock to allow canal boats to pass underneath so that the Leeds-Liverpool canal extension can now take boats all the way to the Pier Head. It was swung out to a temporary resting point a few weeks ago. They've built supports to raise the bridge, and now they're swinging it back.

I've always liked this bridge, with it's whale-bone look, so I'm glad they're keeping it. I think that it cost a lot to build in the first place, which is why they're conducting this feat of engineering, rather than demolishing it and making a new one.

They just started to swing the bridge back in place at 15:00 today, as I was leaving work to go and pick up Frodo from school. I persuaded one of the builders/engineers to let me leg it across the temporary footway, moments before the bridge started swinging, otherwise I'd have been really late if I had to walk the long way round. (Hope he didn't notice me pausing to take the photo's).

Another Place (Again)

Brother, his family and Sister paid us a visit yesterday - prior to Samwise' Birthday. We went for a trip to Crosby beach for another viewing of Antony Gormley's Another Place (we've seen it before, but they hadn't".

Despite the day starting with a couple of showers of hail, the sun came out by the time we got to the beach in the afternoon.

Took a couple of snaps of Brother, Sister and an Iron Man (plus an artistically placed branch, that someone else had planted earlier). Brother and Sister are the one's who look like they're dressed for an expedition to the Gobi Desert.



They insisted on posing for the second snap, but I think I prefer the first one.



The kids enjoyed the beach - despite the big windmills in the sea that were making the wind blow - at least that's what I told them ;-)



Samwise' cousins gave him a remote controlled crane for his Birthday present.



It has a working winch which can be moved back and forth along the gantry, it also rotates. You also need to add counterweight ballast, as with a real crane, to stop it from toppling over with a heavy load.

Samwise, Frodo and his cousins quickly got the hang of it, but they must have been giving it some abuse because today the winch stopped moving back and forth along the gantry. Frodo initially got the blame for this, since he'd tried to move the winch along the gantry - had to apologise to him later as although he'd done the wrong thing, it wasn't his fault.

I spent about 3.5 hours this afternoon dismantling various pieces, and tracing the fault. I discovered that a weak solder joint on a connector in the rotating base had caused a wire to snap off from the connector.

I took my trusty soldering iron to the rescue, and now it's fully functional again.
I can now add crane repair man to my skill set :)