This is Chad Varah crossing the border (WH Auden's Night Mail updated)

Virgin Trains have well and truly touched our lives. When we had our son we knew we wanted to raise him closer to family in Scotland and it meant moving from the South East of England. The Virgin service on the West Coast Main Line was instrumental in enabling us to make that move while I continued to work remotely out of an HQ in London.

An amazing gift from Virgin Trains

Little did we know that our son would become so utterly devoted to the trains that made that upbringing possible. Virgin Trains gave him an incredible gift: the gift of inspiration and on 30th Nov 2019 they added to that gift with something quite amazing. (see here).

I thought that as a way to remember Virgin Train’s contribution to the West Coast Main Line, and to my son, I would attempt a a rewrite of W H Auden’s famous poem “Night Mail”.

It’s a wonderful, rhythmic poem that captures the essence of the Royal Mail train rushing North through the night to Glasgow. Over and above that it has a poignancy for us because it is essentially “local”.

This is the Night Mail crossing the Border, 
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, 
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

And so it goes on…

Of course, those were the days of steam. In contrast, the staple express of the modern WCML has been the class 390 Virgin Pendolino.

I wanted the poem to be clearly “Virgin Pendolino” and to include a smattering of Pendolino names, since this is what’s really brought the trains alive for my son and indeed is at the heart of recent events.

So, without further ado:

---

Pendolino

This is Chad Varah crossing the Border, 
Passengers happy, all is in order. 
"Welcome to Virgin!" says a voice in the sky,  
"Sit back, relax, this Scouseman can fly."   
Travelling for business, travelling for fun, 
Adventure with grandad, home to see Mum. 

 The shop’s in coach C for nibbles and snacks, 
Mustn’t get hungry while riding the tracks.  
Powering up Beattock, the motors are whirring, 
Past windmills and forest, the countryside’s stirring.  

“Rethink Mental Illness” or true “Virgin Glory”, 
Each one of these locos can tell their own story. 

Tunefully humming as she passes, 
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses,
Birds turn their heads as she approaches,  
Stare from bushes at her sleek streamlined  coaches. 
A farmhouse tilts by, where no one wakes,  
But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes.   

Dawn is behind us, in pours the sun, 
She descends towards Glasgow at over a ton. 
Scotland awaits her, there’s business to do, 
A Treaty of Union from City of Crewe.  

Edan always had a soft spot for Chad Varah (founder of the Samaritans)

People from England, those from afar, 
People asleep in the quiet zone car,  
Lego is scattered across the table, 
Passengers visiting aunty Mable. 
Travelling to weddings with invitations,  
To meet the team or visit relations,  
Interview prep for job applications,  
Off to the wilds to explore new sensations,  
Gossip and chatter from all the nations, 
Twitter and Facebook and all the views, 
The onboard Wi-fi delivering the news. 
Travelling to uncles and cousins and aunts, 
Heading to Scotland from somewhere in France.  
Sadness for some with lost ones to bear,  
Not sure what to say when the train gets there. 
The chatty, the catty, the boring, the snoring,  
The mobile phone guy and his heart’s outpouring,   
Tapping of laptops and tablets and phones,  
A palmful of pixels that everyone owns.  

Let’s Bee Together this memorable day 
Through mountains and cities, speeding our way. 

“To Scotland!” We say, “that’s where we’re going!” 
On Charles Rennie Mac with red silk a-flowing 

It’s better by train, we’d rather not drive, 
But what shall await us when we arrive?  
The hustle and bustle, the city’s heart beating,  
A handshake, a hug, a warm tender greeting.  

This journey is over, heads held with Pride. 
Passengers happy, thanks for the ride. 

(c) Nik Sargent 2019

A lifetime legacy of Virgin Trains

I’m going to have to admit something: it’s quite tricky typing with tears on the keyboard.

And the reason I have tears on the keyboard is I’m still trying to take in what Virgin Trains did for my son, Edan, at the weekend. I think in the world of any committed train enthusiast it counts as monumental.

Edan celebrates his love of Virgin Trains

For those who want the backstory you can read my open letter to Richard Branson here and an interim follow up here.

With just over a week left on the West Coast franchise, we knew that Virgin Trains were kindly organising a surprise for Edan, whose world revolves round trains and the West Coast Mainline.

It didn’t escape our attention that they needn’t have done anything. It would have been easy to do nothing, or send him a signed photo, or something quite low key.

But I suppose that is not the Virgin way. To say they knocked-it-out-of-the-park-and-then-some redefines the word understatement. They created a “once in a lifetime” experience for Edan that he will indeed remember for a lifetime. They literally handed over a part of their legacy that will keep their history alive and he will treasure it forever.

A magical weekend

The day started with a complimentary trip to Blackpool. (Well actually, the day started getting stuck at the entrance to the car park and then discovering there were damaged overhead lines just outside Carlisle. But fate was on our side and it didn’t end up sending our plan off the rails).

We rode on a Pendolino (390141 formerly City of Chester) to Preston and then changed onto a Super Voyager, which gave Edan the chance to explore the whole train and create another “Train Files”.

The trip to Blackpool involved a one-hour turn around during which time Darran, the local Train Driver Manager, spent the whole time showing Edan the ropes on 101 Squadron - the Super Voyager we rode there and back on.

He showed Edan practically everything there was to know about the train and how it operates, including what was behind all the secret cupboards! And he left him with a very treasured and special memento to take away.

We honestly thought, WOW, after that train experience and the chance to give a station announcement back at Carlisle, it’ll have been an amazing experience etched on his memory.

Little did we know what else was planned.

The Pendolino we travelled back to Carlisle on was in reverse car order (which was a first for all of us and pretty cool for an enthusiast like Edan) so when we stepped off, Edan ran back along the platform to see the name plate (of course!)

Being met at Carlisle

As he did so, we were met by a team of Virgin staff and a photographer who had been waiting for us at the other/normal end of the platform. They took photos and waved off a few trains before taking us to platform 4 to be presented with a gift. Amazingly we managed to keep Edan in our sights for once, because his usual modus operandi at Carlisle is to run round the platforms trying to see every single train!

I think it was at this point we were given some branded cookies and other goodies and I was already just overwhelmed at the generosity and warmth of the staff. Then we were asked to wait with the photographer while the Virgin team went off to get something else. I’ll be honest, I was thinking maybe they’d got a cake, or a model train or something.

It was then I saw them coming back down the platform trying to disguise-something-that-was-pretty-un-disguisable and realised what was happening.

I froze inside, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

There was a nameplate being brought down the platform. Onlookers were bemused. Other rail enthusiasts stopped in their tracks; one asked “What’s Happening!???”

Stuart - the photographer - readied himself; Katie on the Virgin team approached Edan as asked if he knew what it was? He knew. She asked what name he thought it was and turned it round to reveal CLIC Sargent. I just filled up inside, I could barely swallow or stem the flow of tears. This is how you reduce a grown man and doting Dad to a crumbling wreck, in case you ever wanted to know. Thankfully my creaking knees held out.

I have to help you understand just how momentous this gift was.

Edan is presented with the CLIC Sargent nameplate

During age 1 - 2 we lived right next to the West Coast mainline. Since age 3 Edan has been devoted to these trains and we’ve been devoted to travelling the length and breadth of the country to help him see them.

They are so intertwined with his existence and knowledge, it’s no word of a lie to say that by age 4 I was fully confident that if he’d ever got lost at Edinburgh Waverely station (which has 19 platforms) he’d have been able to find a train home to Carlisle or Dumfries entirely unaided.

Week after week after week, he has raced to stand in front of the nameplates and pose for pictures. Month after month he has braved the weather on platforms to see them race by and shout out the name, much to the bewilderment and bemusement of other travellers.

He has been so close to all these nameplates, both physically and in his heart, but never once has he touched one. They are a permanent fixture in his childhood but, despite the lure, never once has he crossed that forbidden yellow line.

These are valuable pieces of rail memorabilia and we know that some of these plates will go to raising money for charity. By my amateur calculations, this nameplate has travelled millions of miles - easily to the moon and back several times. The privilege granted to us by Virgin Trains is certainly not lost on us.

And there’s something else that I think even Virgin don’t know: CLIC Sargent is a charity, of which the Sargent half was, of course, founded in memory of Sir Malcolm Sargent, the musician and orchestral conductor. Although we don’t have the full family tree, to the best of our knowledge he is indeed a distant relative.

All of this is swirling in my head as the flashgun starts to fire and snaps me back to my senses.

We take some photos, Edan gets hugs from everyone and then head back to the office where he is allowed to make a platform announcement, toot the horn of a freight loco and is taught to dispatch it by Katie.

Of course, it’s not all over for Edan, he stays another hour on the freezing platform while all the hubbub dissipates and eventually it feels like we’re the only ones there! We’re quite used to that!

Finally, we leave; carrying a remarkable piece of history with us.

A million thanks won’t really cut it

I don’t really know where to begin with saying thank you. Also, I can hardly begin to imagine what strings were pulled to make this possible!

What I do know is that a lot of people - most of them behind the scenes - must have gone way above-and-beyond to make this happen; and they are forever going to be in our memory. (Let’s face it, we’re going to have a fairly substantial permanent reminder on the wall!)

We have to give a special mention to Darran (Driver Manager) and John (Driver) at Blackpool for showing Edan the ropes on the Voyager. We’d like to thank Katie and the team at Carlisle who treated us like part of the family (not forgetting Paul who let Edan take control of the station mic).

And at the beginning of all this is someone anonymous in the social media customer services team (one of whom is only known to me as ^BT), who took the effort to reply and say “leave it with us and we’ll see what we can do”.

Clearly this also couldn’t have happened without being masterminded by Laura from Corporate Affairs who we were delighted to meet at Carlisle. Laura: I don’t know how you did it but it was extraordinary.

You are all very special people.

History in our hands

This is indeed the end of an era, but also the end of a chapter. A new chapter begins on 8th December 2019 and it’s comforting to know that the staff of Virgin Trains (at least all the ones I spoke to) are hopeful and positive about their next chapter. Ever since its creation, the railway has always touched and transformed millions of lives.

Once again I thank the special folk at Virgin in the deepest and most heartfelt way possible and at the same time wish them the best of luck on the next leg of their journey.

And let’s be honest, we’ll still be seeing you on the platform most weekends!

Thank you for making a difference. Thanks a googol !!

Nik x

A heartfelt thank you - because I never once imagined this

Wow! What just happened?

Well, what just happened was that about 10 days ago I wrote (here) to thank Virgin Trains and Richard Branson for the impact they have had on my son, Edan (who is now 6 but has been a lifelong train enthusiast). I got a lovely reply from the brilliant customer service staff at Virgin:

Then I went away on business to London for a few days and had my head down in work and never checked twitter. Once I was on the train heading home (Virgin Pendolino 390037 as it happens - “Virgin Difference” - which is how I signed off my letter. Prophetic?) I decided to fire up tweetdeck and have a peek at twitter.

It didn’t take me long to realise something had happened!

The first thing that had happened was Virgin Trains had asked me to get back in touch - but alongside that, hundreds of people had liked and shared the correspondence, and many others had replied to me with heartwarming messages.

My train ride was 3.5 hours and it took me the whole journey to get through all the tweets!

What transpired over the next few days was quite breathtaking to me. We received so many messages of encouragement and solidarity.

I saw for myself that the “Rail Family” - those who have grown up on the railway, or work on the railway, or otherwise have a passion for it - really is a “thing” and it’s a warm, kind, welcoming family to boot; and that really brought a lump to my throat.

There was an outpouring of generosity including the offer of various “experiences” for Edan. Amongst these was the “chance of a lifetime” to see name plates being made by the supreme experts in the field. Frankly we were just completely bowled over.

We also had a note from Paul who produces “trip reports” on YouTube.

Edan has watched so many hours of his YouTube channel! He’s been there (virtually) with Paul on the first run of the Hitachi 800 in the UK; the first run of Eurostar from London to Amsterdam and so on.

Paul’s reports also inspired Edan to create some of his own videos in a similar vein and you can see his own “Train Files” in the video here from his latest trip, where he talks us through First Class on the Virgin Pendolino.

Our little man continues to cram in the trains.

Nothing can stop Edan’s passion for trains.

With under 2 weeks to go on the Virgin Franchise, last weekend he surprised me with a planned trip from our base in Scotland to Wigan to ride on a Voyager and Pendolino and do some more Virgin Trains spotting!

He’s never been to Wigan before but you can see from the video when he gets off the train it’s like releasing an animal back into the wild! 😂

We’ll do our best to find all the teachable moments in this…

When I wrote my original letter, it was just a heartfelt Thank You to Virgin about unseen consequences, yet it turned into something so much more!

IT’S Train Books OF SOME KIND most nights And Sleeping with VIRGIN train layouts next to his bed (Sorry, CAB)!!

I included the sunflower logo in my original letter and some readers will have understood why. We’re poignantly aware that there must be many “Edans” and young train lovers up and down the country, and he is lucky and privileged to have been on the receiving end of such kindness - which has been, and will be, a big learning experience for him.

As a measure of our gratitude to those that have extended their generosity to Edan, in turn we’ll be donating to Crisis, who do wonderful work looking after the homeless at Christmas (and all year).

And so, once again, our deepest, sincerest gratitude to everyone:

Thank you for inspiring,

Thank you for supporting,

Thank you for celebrating his world!

Thank

Trains Allow Edan to EXpress his personality!

Chasing Child, Chasing Train

How Virgin Trains inspired my child (open letter to Richard Branson)

Dear Mr. Branson,

I would like to thank you, and the teams that work with you, for the world of Virgin trains and the train names that have made such an impact on my son’s life.

That might seem like an odd way to open a letter but I can assure you that not only do Virgin trains have a special place in his heart but their names have a real importance and significance.

Thanks to those names, over the last couple of years we have had discussions about explorers, about wars, about cancer, about diversity and equality, about cities and geography and history. In fact, all the cool things that a 6 year old should be learning about.

He’s probably-definitely not your average 6 year old. Last Sunday he chose to brave 2C degrees temperatures in the winter dusk at Lockerbie station to see his beloved Pendolinos whoosh past. And the day before he planned and costed his own Virgin trip to Lancaster to do the same.

For the greater part of his 6 years on this planet, he has been utterly consumed by trains - particularly Virgin trains, I might add! He self-identifies as a fully-fledged trainspotter (relying, of course, on the taxi- and bank-of-mum-and-dad) and it is almost impossible to convey in writing just how deeply and powerfully this influences his life and learning.

At every possible opportunity he will find a way to see trains, ride on trains, talk about trains, watch trains on TV and youtube, draw trains & routes. And if he’s not doing that, then he’s studying his train network map, making train & station announcements, and listing all the stops of both real and imaginary trains. Not just in the UK, but in Europe too. His bed is always a train, his room usually some far-flung destination.

For his last 3 birthdays he did not want a party - instead he took us to the National Railway Museum in York.

His self-motivated obsession and passion for this subject is part of what makes him special. On many occasions, I have chased him down the platform of Carlisle station where he just bubbles over with excitement to see the Pendolinos and Voyagers. This year and last he was enthralled when East Coast mainline services came through the West during engineering works and he got to see the Class 82 DVT’s and Class 43 HST’s.

He’s ridden on so many of your trains and he knows them - to him they are personal, they are friends, they are individual, they are special.

At times, I’ve stood on the platform with him while he gets lost in his train World, and held back the tears. Because I sense the track ahead for him is not necessarily going to be conventional or easy.

And so, this is what I really want you to know: I want to tell you how inspirational your trains have been for my son, for his growth and development; and I wanted to tell you because I imagine every observer would think the opposite.

It has supercharged his reading and numeracy: all that information, timetables, departures, arrivals, delays, layouts, instructions, signs at a station - at an early age he had already mastered all this, and now calculates anything to do with trains like a mini computer.

Then there’s the ridiculous knowledge of UK geography and cities, European countries and cities, times, dates, speed calculations, Units and measurement, safety principles, energy and mechanics.

His head is FULL of it.

But on top of that, there are the magical train names.

He loves those names, and studies them all. He even has some kind of seemingly-mystical power to read them off a coach as it whizzes past at 100mph. (see video).

Your gurus may not know that when they name a train, that causes my son to grow.

We have conversations about those names, the people or events behind them, their significance and history. We’ve talked about World wars, cancer, history, equality, mental health, explorers & pioneers to name but a few. All this has expanded his World-View in so many ways.

He was recently thrilled to see Virgin Pride, because it’s beautiful, and colourful, and, of course, it doesn’t occur to him that anyone should be singled out or treated differently.

We talked about how anyone can fall in love with anyone, the way he fell in love with trains!

I hope you really can get a sense how your trains frame the conversations and attitudes he is going to have as he grows towards adulthood.

It’s hard to convey how impactful and joyous this is in a letter. It’s just something I’ve come to understand month after month, year after year of chasing him during an afternoon (for Kilometres at a time) round the station while he just runs from platform to platform following what he loves!

He was utterly devastated when Virgin lost the East Coast line, heartbroken he never got chance to be hauled by a Virgin East Coast DVT, and is equally devastated about what has happened on the West. Sadly, he was never able to get a much-sought place on the busy Virgin Rookie day. He’s sobbed his heart out over and over through all of this, and I’m sure he’s not alone.

VIRGIN DIFFERENCE

So, before it’s too late, I just wanted to thank you. To thank Virgin for making a real difference to the life of a little boy you’ve never met. For inspiring a child that loves your trains more than anything in the world, and through them is growing and experiencing the world (literally) through travel, and conversation, and research and passion.

Thank you for that difference, the Virgin Difference (Pendolino car set 390037!)

Yours sincerely and gratefully,

Nik Sargent

(15/11/2019)

ps. His favourite car set is Chad Varah :-) but he was also honoured that Clic Sargent should share his surname. :-) Below is a SMALL selection of Virgin Trains he has chased around the country!

Could it be Aspergers?

An incredible lecture by Professor Tony Attwood.

I have never seen anyone so succinctly and roundly describe the wiring of an “Aspie”.
At the time of this video, 1 in 68 children are considered to have the autism spectrum disorders traditionally associated with Aspergers.

I wish this was mandatory viewing in every nursery, school and home in the country.

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A saga with Virgin Trains Mobile e-tickets

I've often considered myself an early adopter, but being of the nervous disposition I am in fact wary of things like e-tickets because no technology is perfect. Typically I like to have a paper backup of such things, just in case.

So, this also applied when I recently booked the whole family on return Virgin West Coast tickets from Scotland to London. I hesitantly ordered my tickets to be delivered to my mobile phone because I have been let down by the post before, and we have no self-service machine at our local station. (Sure, I can use the one at the main station on the day, which is 20 miles away, but I always feel it's a bit too late to find out something is wrong just before your train; I like to have these things in my hand in advance).

The thing is, Virgin seem to have changed their delivery of e-tickets and their app a few times lately. There was a time when you could download them into your iPhone wallet and display them on your lock-screen, which was ultra handy. And once they were on the phone, they were on the phone (or so it seemed anyway). I had very little issue with this system other than the risk of my phone conking out.

Now, however, tickets are accessed through the Virgin mobile app. The process seems similar: you "download" tickets, then on the day "activate" them. Well, our outward journey was fine, but it started to go wrong on the return journey.

We were sitting in Euston and about an hour before the journey I went into the app and made sure the tickets were "downloaded". All good. I then activated them, to make sure I had everything ready to present. Again, all good.

30 minutes before the journey I checked my phone again, checked the tickets were ok, and explained to my fellow-travellers that we'd have to show them at the platform entrance. All good.

Where did my tickets go?

About 20 minutes before the departure of the train we got the text notification to proceed to concourse. So, down we went.

I told you I was the nervous type, so I checked the tickets again. This time not good. I had been logged out of the app, and was presenting with a login screen. I tried to login with my regular details and it was rejected. Panic started to set in.

Now, I should also add that the week before when I booked the tickets, Virgin had taken it upon themselves to forcibly reject my existing password as not meeting their "new requirements" and so I had changed password. I started to wonder whether I was making a mistake or if it was them. Either way, whatever I tried, I was not getting in: I could not display my tickets.

I raced to the virgin ticket area to seek assistance - massive queues; one member of staff out front assisting and busy with two people ahead of me. Anyway, politely I waited while my blood pressure doubled, and eventually explained the predicament to him.

Now, I had taken what reasonable and available "backup" precautions I could, in the sense i had screen shots of my booking, the reference number etc. I asked would this be sufficient to at least get on the train and then try and sort the problem? He said no - the best he could offer was go over to the corner where there's a phone to virgin central command and see if they can do something like change your train!

A flash of inspiration

By now I was proper panicking, and was trying to do a password reset.

THEN, suddenly, I just had a light-bulb moment. Was this the internet? I realised my phone was showing a public WiFi connection but I'd not been asked to log in. I killed the WiFi, dropped back to 4G, and fired up the app again. I re-entered my login details and -boom- lo and behold I was back in my account.

However, my tickets were not in the app, despite previously having been "downloaded"! I "downloaded" them again, which thankfully worked, and was then able to activate them, before dragging my family at breakneck speed to the platform. We were back up and running.

This was a terrible experience on many counts: poor process design, poor user experience [failing a login attempt because of no internet connection but reporting just a login failure; loss of already "downloaded" tickets for example], poor customer service. It may have expanded my child’s vocabulary somewhat, but it didn’t do my cardiac system any good.

I had a quick look at the Virgin FAQ on e-tickets, and it says this:

Q: What happens if I run out of battery?

A: Ensure your mobile is charged, if you are unable to display your mobile ticket, you'll need to buy a new ticket at the full fare.

In other words: "no-show, no go.."

Obviously anyone reading that FAQ ought to realise that it would include any reason for failure to display the ticket; but what it doesn’t say is that mobile app appears to rely on an internet connection to display tickets. Had I known this at the outset this whole saga could have been avoided. Although, it does then beg the question, if the tickets are "downloaded" and "activated" why is an internet connection required at all after that point?

I suspect the answer is the tickets actually only live on the virgin server, and unless you can display that, you are stuffed.

back to good old paper

Suffice to say, I won't be using this system any time soon again in future unless I really have no option or Virgin introduce some kind of mitigation for device or connectivity failure. And if I do end up having to use the app again in future, at least I will take screenshots of all the tickets and bar-codes from inside the app in advance.

You have been warned.

Create your own Velux Black-Out Energy Blinds

In strong afternoon sun, the leakage is significant

The Original Energy Blinds

In 2015 I installed Velux "Energy" Blinds in our self-build house. Since the house is 1.5 storey - i.e. the upper rooms are in the roof space - it seemed like the extra insulation over and above normal blackout blinds would be a good idea.

Now, the thing is, at the time these blinds, although made of blackout material, did NOT claim to be blackout blinds, due to leakage round the edges. So, all credit to Velux for at least being honest. You can see opposite what this leakage typically looks like. 

Now, in reality, for the six darker months of the year it's not a massive issue (especially in Scotland) but during the summer months, with stronger sun and earlier sun-rises it did become a bit of a problem, to the point where I actually crafted some 'drapes' to stick over the window frame, made from blackout fabric. 

Frankly, it was all a bit of a palava, and actually stopped us using the windows properly; so I had been constantly racking my brains for a better solution. 

Energy Blinds Mark 2

In truth, I don't know if Velux are now on mark 2 blinds, or some other number, but come summer 2018 I was browsing their website and noticed that the original energy blinds had been revised, and now claimed to be full blackout. I emailed Velux to check, and sure enough, they had updated their blinds.  

If you shop around hard enough on the internet you can find them with around 30% off the normal retail price, but they are still not cheap. None-the-less, it seemed like a solution to our problem, so handed over my hundred-and-odd notes in return for a new version blackout blind. The room has two, but I figured I would test one first. 

The New Blackout Energy Blind is extremely effective. 

Sure enough, they work a treat.  And while they don't (can't really) achieve 100% block, it's almost 100% and extremely effective - as you can see from the comparison picture.  In fact it turned out it was quite easy to fit, and I didn't even need to replace the blind, just carefully replace each side runner with the new ones, which now come with a flexible rubber baffle that provides the light blockage. 

This gave me an idea. 

If my 100-and-off notes had essentially just bought me a rubber baffle down the side runner, could I not come up with something similar myself for the remaining window that would save such a large outlay for such a small change?  

Well, I did indeed concoct a plan using some rubber draught-proofing material that I'd bought reasonably cheaply on ebay. For old time's sake, here's another "before" picture to enable a comparison. 

Create your own baffle 

stick the E shape draught excluder down the side channel of the blind, flush with the front lip. 

So, here are some step by step instructions for what I did to save me well over £100 in replacing my second blind. 

You need suitable lengths of rubber draught insulation - both the "E" shape type (it has ridges in it) and also the "P" shape type (usually specified for blocking gaps of around 5mm). Colour is your choice, but crucially the "E" type I have bought has always come as a roll of two pieces joined side by side, which are intended to be pulled apart and used individually. DO NOT pull them apart!

The first step is to stick the "E" type excluder strip down the side of the side-runner, behind the string. See pictures. 

One key thing to note is: only stick down the forward most part of the strip (remember it's a double strip); leave the rear most part with its backing protector on. 

peel and stick as you go - don't try to peel everything off and then stick it all on at once. 

As with all good "sticking-on-a-long-sticky-thing" practice, don't peel the back off all at once. Instead peel a little, stick a little and then align-stick-and-peel as you go by pulling the backing off gently, bit by bit. 

Just take your time, bit by bit, aligning the rubber, and gently peeling the rear off in order to stick it. 

 The finished result - just to get the message home about aligning the excluder first, then peeling off protection from behind in order to stick it. 

Phase 1 complete

This is phase 1 complete - and originally I was going to stop here.  If you look at the photo, you can see that this has produced a significant improvement. Sure, still some leakage at the top, but a hug reduction in the overall leakage non-the-less. 

Leakage result after phase 1 

Phase 2

Apply the "P" strip behind the unstuck part of the "E" strip. 

Phase 2, which I suppose is optional, but in my opinion well worth it, is to apply the "P" shaped excluder, The idea is to apply it behind the unstuck part of the "E" excluder in order to press it against the side of the blind. In the pictures you can see i started by applying the "P" strip with the "tail" of the "P" behind the first strip, but in the end decided/realised this didn't really press it outward enough. So I switched to applying the "P" strip the other way round, with the "head" of the "P" underneath the "E" strip and pushing it further outward. This forms a much better seal against the side of the blind.  

End results

The end result is pretty impressive. The picture is a bit lousy because actually the phone was struggling to focus. While it has adjusted the exposure to compensate for the lack of light, you can see that if you compare it even against the phase 1 result, the strong triangular leaks at the top side of the blind are gone. The leak at the top is rectified by ensuring the blind frame is screwed tight to the window frame. 

The blackout effect is not as perfect as the new style blind, but it is easily 80% - 90% as good and 10% the cost!  It is a massive improvement over the "non-baffled" blind.

The good news is, the blind can still be operated as intended, though i recommend a little extra care as the draught excluder rubber offers up a bit more friction than its equivalent Velux baffles. 

The proof in the pudding is, of course, in the fact my child has slept in longer during the summer mornings than he otherwise used to. A definite WIN result all round :) 

My sunflower

I shed a little tear for my boy yesterday…

We spent the weekend alone together. After a tiring first week of school, On Saturday I took him to our capital city, Edinburgh as a treat.

We spent 12.5 hours in, on or admiring transport. Riding on the city tram, trains (a particular type he had been longing for), buses, and watching aeroplanes. I planned our route and sequence of stops, and then he devised a better one.

I tested him at the main station. It’s big, it's busy. 20 platforms handling 21 million passengers per year. I bought the ticket and worked out what time we would be catching a train. Armed with the information about the next stop and the time, I challenged him to go and read the departure boards, work out which train it was, get the platform number, then find the platform and take us there. He succeeded perfectly.

Then we went to a Chinese restaurant he specially requested - where he ate fries 🍟 and onion rings! It was a buffet, so I had not much choice but to leave him alone at our table while I got my food.

Towards the end of the meal the lady on the next table leaned over and told me what a delight to see a child so beautifully behaved. We're often told that.

And here's what I've realised: the more I allow him to spread his wings and grow, the more beautiful he becomes. He is my sunflower, reaching for the sky. 🌻

Despite an epic Saturday, on Sunday he wanted to see trains 🚂 again at the local station; we ended up staying several hours. He read all the information boards, decided which trains to see, found the platforms. We went over the bridge and under the underpass. We went up the stairs and down in the lift (elevator). He predicted the engine types, and as the trains came passing through the station he read the name plates to me and decided if he'd seen them before. "Sir John Franklin", "City of Manchester", "Treaty of Union" and so on and so on.

He told passers-by all about them, whether they wanted to know or not! He observed all the safety rules, even though his boundless enthusiasm was constantly threatening to break into uncontrollable excitement.

And that's when it hit me. My little boy is only four; he is locked into his passion for trains, but he just keeps amazing me. A tear rolled down my cheek.

I was confused, I didn't really know what emotion I was feeling.
He is my startling, fragile little whirlwind. 💜

My wife pinpointed it later for me: just an overwhelming sense of protection, not just for now, but probably for all that is to come.

Sending smartphone notifications from Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite

Following on from my success of getting my Edge Router Lite to successfully run multiple load-balancing schemes for dual-WAN, and more importantly, assign different devices to different load balancing schemes, the next natural evolution was to send iPhone alerts when any of the links went down.

In principle it is quite easy, because the ERL already makes provision to run an arbitrary script when a link transitions (from active to inactive and vice versa). So, it's really just a question of having the right script. 

If you Google, you'll find examples for sending email, but I wanted something more immediate (and less configuration effort - i.e. to not have to set up sendmail).  Based on another example I considered using the pushover.net service, but wondered if I could use IFTTT to do the same, as I am already a user. (Saves me signing up to something new). 

Turns out you can, by using their "webhooks" service; and turns out it's so simple, it's almost untrue. 

IFTTT Webhooks allows you to generate simple triggers from a single web request

Step 1

First go to your IFTTT account and add the "webhooks" service. This will generate a unique key for you, which you need to make a note of. Annoyingly this is done in a font which does not distinguish between capital I and lowercase l, but you can regenerate the key, or paste into something where you can change the font. 

Step 2

Next, log in to your Edge Router and navigate to /config/scripts and create the following script (I called mine failover-notify) :

A script to generate IFTTT phone notifications. Obviously use your own key.

Don't forget to make the script executable with the command chmod +x failover-notify

Step 3

Return to IFTTT and create an applet which uses the webhooks service as a trigger and the notifications service as the action:

Note how I have called the event "bb_failover". It is crucial this matches the name in your script (it comes in the URL after /trigger/ ). It is this name that allows you to configure many different triggers on IFTTT to do different things. Obviously you could use a different name, providing it matches in both places. 

Value1 will be populated with the Load-Balance group name; Value2 will be the Port (eth0, eth1 etc.) and Value3 will be the status (either active or inactive). 

Also, you will need the IFTTT app installed on your iPhone, to generate the notifications at the device end. (The app doesn't have to be running though).

Step 4

Return to the edge router for the final bit of configuration.  You might want to test your script at this stage. If you type ./failover-notify A B C the script should run and give a success message, and shortly after you should get a notification on your phone. There's not much point proceeding until you can get this to work.

Once it does work, you can come out of the command line and go to the config tree. Here you choose the load-balance group you want the script to apply to.

Now, if you only have one group configured, you will apply it to that group. If, like me, you have more than one group, you might want to only apply it to one of the group to prevent duplicate alerts. This will depend on what your groups do and what alerts you want to get.  

In my case, for example, both my load-balance group balance across both my only WAN links, so in fact I only need to apply it to one load-balance group, as both WAN links will be covered, and it doesn't matter which group I choose. I wouldn't apply it to both groups, as then I'd get double notifications - i.e. one from each. 

Choose the Config-Tree tab and navigate to the load-balance group you want to monitor

After deciding which group(s) to receive notifications from, navigate to it, and put the full path to the script in the transition-script box, then click preview and save. 

And that's it. Test it by disconnecting one of your WAN links, and see what happens!