Monthly Archives: August 2010

Why I like country routes

I think that this explains it all (if you don’t like swearing turn the sound off and just watch the video). I admire the coolness of the driver who just sits there looking in the mirror as if he was watching for someone to sit down before moving off.

Any ideas?

A regular commentator, Jeff, wrote a couple of days ago “You must have too much time to spare on the 68 route !!!!!!! only joking, like the photos keep them coming”. Here are a couple more dedicated to him! What are these blue flowers? As you can see from the close-up photo the blue flowers are mixed in with some cabbage, some yellow flowers and what’s not in the close-up, but is evenly spread in the field, maize. The field was bare earlier in the year having been ploughed and prepared and then this mixture of plants started to grow. If you look carefully at the close-up you can see soil between the plants and none of the usual weeds you’d see in a field not deliberately planted for a purpose. It’s a huge attractor of butterflies and bees but there are no hives in the field. Any ideas about this field?

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Disabled Parking Bays

The number 11 route in Winchester is a 12 minute loop from the Bus Station around a residential area. The area is mixed housing, some ex-council houses and some older, turn of the century, terraced houses. What strikes me every time I drive the loop is the number of disabled parking bays relative to the number of homes. I can’t think of anywhere else where the density of disabled parking bays to homes is so great. Here’s the first couple of hundred yards of the loop, click the ahead arrow and just look at the disabled parking spaces (it may be clearer if you click on View Larger Map.


View Larger Map

The Ermine Moth Hedge

Back in June I posted this picture of a hedge covered in the webs of the Small Ermine Moth.

Under the protection of the webs the caterpillars strip every leaf off the plant to the point where it would seem impossible for the plant to survive. However, only 6 weeks later the hedge recovers! Here’s a picture I took today of the same piece of hedgerow. Sorry about the poor quality, it was taken using my mobile ‘phone as I didn’t have my camera with me.