Once, long ago, in the Beforetimes, I worked in an office in Holborn. Occasionally, my lunchtime walks would stray far enough East to take me over Holborn viaduct. The viaduct is an impressive affair: dark red paint, the arms of the City of London, and a large number of painted statues of dragons.
Recently, my office (sort of same job, different company) relocated. I’m currently auditioning different commuting routes, and today saw a twenty minute stretch of walking which took me under Holborn viaduct. The viaduct is held up by beautiful stone pillars, complete with gilded capitals, and ribs that are carved into curlicues, flowers, and dragons. The red paintwork at the sides is a mass of detailed gilding, and more dragons. You can get a decent view of it on Google Streetview.
The viaduct was built slap-bang in the middle of the Victorian Twiddly period. That’s probably all there is to it.
Probably.
A couple of people have asked what the easiest way of keeping up with drabbletober’s drabbles is. There’s a few options: if you use RSS feeds (which basically no-one does if they are not over 40 and a geek), then you can get a feed of this blog. I post links on Twitter and Mastodon. Or you could visit this link at your convenience to see all the drabbles-so-far on one page.
If none of those suit you, and you trust me with your email address, drop me a line through the comment form and ask to be added to a daily mail when the day’s drabble is cooked. This will be an unofficial drabbletober-only affair, and I will forget your address and eat all the evidence on November 1st.
I do also have a proper mailing list, which obeys all the GDPR rules. That gets used for exciting news like new stories published in real magazines, so please do sign up to that if you’d like to hear such things!