Tim Peake, meet Timothy Hackworth

We've reached the last few days during which Soyuz TMA-19M, otherwise known as Tim Peake's landing capsule, is on show at the Locomotion railway museum at Shildon, so durham_rambler and I took the morning off and went to have a look. There's am optional Virtual Reality experience, and valydiarosada enjoyed it, and thought it worth the extra charge (the museum itself is free), but neither of us was tempted. We just wanted to see the thing: an actual Soyuz space capsule, which has been in actual space, and hurtled down through the atmosphere in actual flames (just look at that corrosion):

I hadn't expected the Rapunzel's silky braid that tethered the capsule to its parachute, and had to keep reminding myself no, the parachute doesn't open until after the hurtling in flames is over.

( More pictures under the cut )

We had planned to visit J, and to give her a bookcase rendered surplus by the grand shelving of the spare bedroom, which durham_rambler has taken to calling the library. But it was too big to fit in the car, so we couldn't - she gave us lunch anyway, which was very generous of her!