Sunday 12th June A stroll by any other name..

0/00

Sunday 12th 60F, 16C, light to stiff breeze, sunny. It is supposed to be cloudy with rain so I shall be seeking compensation for hurt feelings from those responsible for all this sunshine. Any information leading to a prosecution will be very welcome. We are having a bit of a drought over most of Denmark according to the DMI. A recycling center caught fire when garden waste, woody stuff was ignited by sparks from the shovel of a digger used to tidy it up.

With fields usually cultivated right up to the property line of rural homes and businesses a fire in the crops could be very serious indeed. It's no wonder they retain so many fire ponds. A recent combine harvester fire set the grain crop alight around a small house. It [the fire] was finally brought under control by a farmer with a tractor who turned the crop into the ground to stop the fire from spreading further. I remember a similar fire in a field right beside a farm from a similar machine fire. There are still huge numbers of thatched, rural houses.

It used to be commonplace for farmers to burn the stubble after the harvest but that seems to have died down. One chap who used to burn his fields regularly spread smoke over at least ten miles when the wind conditions were perfect. We were choking at home so I went to see what was causing all the smoke. Great pillars of black smoke rising in the landscape used to be a daily sight in summer. With great dollops of Roundup to clean the ground and contaminate the water supply it hardly seems necessary to choke the fields' neighbours these days. We have a new, private source of smoke amongst our neighbors and have just had to close all the windows.

It was a beautiful morning for a walk with mostly bright sunshine despite the sky being filled with gorgeous clouds. I almost caught up with the small, black cat in the woods as it was daydreaming but it ran away when it realised I was too close. It soon took a sharp exit left into the undergrowth when it had had enough exercise for one day.

Further on I met two serious mountain bikers climbing the steepest section of the entire, main track. Soon after that I exited the woods into the more open landscape to join the lane back to the village. I kept snapping away with my camera as numerous rural views presented themselves. Another rest day.

It is amusing to hear the discussions on the 40 question, New Danish Citizen Test for wannabe Danes. I scraped by with a measly 28 with several wild guesses falling either side of the line. I wonder how many Brits can give a date for Trafalgar, the first Carry-on Film, the date of Christianity reaching Britain and who was the king at the time, the topic of an opera, etc. Which inevitably leads to asking the Danish politic-ooze whether any of them can get a perfect score. I bet they have been studying the answers for months from the crib notes just in case a journalist buttonholes them and makes their day. It is, of course, entirely up to the Danes to assess the seriousness level of would-be Danes before each heads off for their respective ghettos to set up their satellite dishes. [The immigrants, not the politicoze.]
  

Click on any image for an enlargement. 

0\00