please empty your brain below
During the day someone has started to remove the peeling white paint from the old wooden panels along the side of the eastbound stairwell. About time too.
Thursday 11th November
The paint has now been stripped right across the edge of the bridge, but not yet right along the stairwell.
Friday 12th November
11:30pm, and a crowd of at least ten workmen are standing around outside the closed station doing nothing.
Saturday 13th November
Workmen are present in the station during the day. Maybe this is finally getting serious.
Sunday 14th November
I peered behind the blue wall on the westbound platform. A lot of metal ducting appears to have been bolted to the wall (which remains unpainted).
Monday 15th November
The stripped paint on the bridge now stretches part way up the window casing.
Tuesday 16th November
I peered inside the station supervisor's office at the top of the eastbound stairwell. She has a nice vase of flowers in there.
Wednesday 17th November
Workmen were seen standing outside the station, on a weekday. Still not quite sure what they're actually doing.
Thursday 18th November
Peering through the gap in the door in the blue wall on the westbound platform I saw a lot of bolds on a trestle stand, plus a box of screws.
Friday 19th November
I also saw yet more (ugly) metal brackets bolted to the old unpainted Victorian platform walls.
Saturday 20th November
At 1pm, workmen were seen walking up the westbound stairwell discussing the PDP.
Sunday 21st November
Announcements about engineering works can only just be heard over the intercom because there's a noise like a pneumatic drill in the background.
Monday 22nd November
The stripped paint on the bridge now stretches all the way up the window casing.
Tuesday 23rd November
One corner of the tarpaulin covering the big box of building materials at the front of the station has been fastened to the railings, obscuring the poster that tells passengers how to make alternative travel arrangements when the station is closed.
Wednesday 24th November
New strips of silver sticky tape show that five new cameras will be installed up the eastbound stairwell.
Thursday 25th November
Cam 14 is going at the foot of the stairwell, Cam 13 halfway up, Cam 12 round the corner at the top of the stairs and Cam 11 and Cam 10 together a few steps further along at the entrance to the ticket hall.
Friday 26th November
According to another strip of tape, Cam 43 will be installed at the foot of the westbound stairwell.
And £3bn on ID cards. *weeps*
Cui bono?
No sign of any of these new cameras yet, just the old ones.
A new poster is on display in the ticket hall apologising that the station will have to be closed more often at weekends over the next three months in order to complete all renovation work to schedule.
Instead of the two remaining planned weekend closures, there will now be seven weekend closures during the next three months, including all three weekends in the run-up to Christmas.
Conker tree update: half of the leaves have now fallen off, mostly from the top half of the tree. Of the leaves that remain most are yellow, but some (particularly the lower leaves nearest to the station building) are still mainly green with yellow edging.
A silver sticker labelled Z2-5E has fallen off the wall and is stuck face-up to a stair in the eastbound stairwell.
The writing on the silver sticker is now completely illegible.
The previous silver sticker has disappeared, and the sticker reading Cam 12 is now stuck to one of the steps on the eastbound stairwell instead.
A new leaflet being given away at the station apologises that "modernisation work will involve more closures than originally anticipated." This weekend sees the first of the additional closures.
I saw a few workmen standing on the platform of the closed station. If they were doing any work, it wasn't on the platforms.
After the weekend closure, it appears that:
a) lots more cables have been coiled across the ceiling of the ticket hall.
b) strips of red and white tape have been stuck up the walls of the two stairwells, perhaps to protect the tiles (or where the tiles used to be).
c) strips of black and yellow tape have also been stuck up the walls of the eastbound stairwell, and also stuck to the wooden panels above the two ticket office windows in the ticket hall.
A cross made out of yellow and black tape has appeared on four of the windowpanes above the eastbound stairwell.
New fluorescent light fittings have been attached to the grey cabling boxes suspended from the ceiling along the western half of the eastbound platform. The lights are not yet functional.
Four of the pillars in the middle of the westbound platform have been painted grey, then covered by transparent plastic sheeting.
Some of the new cabling is a light shade of mauve-y purple.
The station is closed for yet another whole weekend.
Still closed. The station is closed every weekend this month, actually.
After the weekend closure, it appears that:
a) there are loops of thin white cable in various locations around the ceiling of the ticket hall and up the stairwell.
b) cheap wooden boards have been placed over most of the rotten wood on the bridge.
c) there are irregular areas of brown cement daubed on the walls of the ticket hall
All of the pillars on both platforms have now been painted grey (except for the very top of the easternmost pillar on the westbound platform which remains green and yellow).
A giant reel of one-inch thick rubber cabling has appeared in the fenced-off area on the pavement in front of the station entrance.
The brown cement on the eastern wall of the ticket hall has been plastered over. The brown cement on the western wall of the ticket hall has been covered by orange plastic sheeting.
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