28th March 2017 Misty eyed misgivings.

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Tuesday 28th 38-54F, 3-12C, grey, with thick mist and almost calm. If the traffic had slowed for the mist it was not readily apparent. The routine urgency of their journey heard in their roaring engines. Visibility was down to 100 yards for the sudden, complete and total invisibility of the speeding vehicles! Including a vast tipper truck, absolutely festooned with small, dim, red lights. It, too, vanished abruptly into nothingness like some low budget, Hollywood special effect. Only a few yards more visibility was gained for those rare vehicles which actually had their bright red, rear fog lights lit. The air was full of bird sounds as the trees dripped huge droplets onto otherwise dry roads. Leaving dark patches beneath and streaked further by the passing tires. I protected my binoculars with an arm draped modestly across my upper chest and plodded on. Head briefly bowed to avoid drips running down my neck. A a small chevron of geese passed over and instantly vanished from sight. Spooky.

Just a short ride for seven miles in bright sunshine. 18-20mph going through the woods. 12 mph crawling back unaided.

Wednesday 29th 39F, 4C, dark grey, breezy with some rain promised.

Another rant/

I was just reading that the Brits are going to install average speed cameras on a dangerous section of road in Scotland. Isn't that a silly term? Roads are not dangerous. They are just passive stretches of asphalt. It is the incompetents, the deluded, the psychopaths, the senile and the drunks who are dangerous.

Rather than  causing a short bottleneck where the usual speed cameras are sited, they will register vehicles speeds over some distance. So the hard braking, leaden-footed cheats are in for a bit of a surprise. Those responsible for the cameras claim a halving of accidents using average speed monitors. Prepare for the usual furore as the psychopaths have no excuse for their antisocial and dangerous behaviour. It will all be the cameras' fault, of course. "They made me do it!" What were the camera's voices telling them to do?

Now we just need a camera drone which sends out a robotic arm, smashes the side window and wrestles the mobile phone from the iron grasp of the texting psychopath. If lorries can have cameras watching the driver's behaviour then why not monitor every car driver? The data would remain untouched, in the Cloud, until an "accident" occurred. Then the "horror movie" would surface to ensure the removal of that last, most basic, human right. The totally untouchable driving license of the cold hearted, casual killer behind the wheel. The Brits suddenly have an answer for this too. Six points on their license and a hefty fine. What took them so long? Were they hoping that Broxit would cover their slight of hand? [I can't be doing with Brexit because it sounds like a sugar coated cereal.] All the research shows that an idiot with an active mobile phone behind the wheel is an even worse idiot. If that were possible. I see lots of "worse idiots" on my travels. Many lorry drivers are so afflicted. The "professionals of the road" have no more sense of shame than the poor commuters.

Rant\

Walked to a more distant lane, lined with mature oaks, to capture a bit of the misty atmosphere.  I took one hundred shots! It is difficult to balance the mist against contrast when preparing the image for the blog. Increased contrast and reduced gamma sharpen everything up so that the melancholy mood is lost.

I was listening to the deep 'bock-bock-bock" of a woodpecker in the woods and thinking I hadn't seen a hare for ages. A distant, protruding rock volunteered itself as a token hare. So I lifted my binoculars to check. It was only a lichen covered rock, after all, but in the background, almost lost in the mist, was a large hare. It was lolloping across the bare and open field, quite invisible to the naked eye.

I need to go to the city but am unsure whether I am ready for a longer ride. I have been getting upper chest pains when I exert myself and start panting deeply. Probably the remains of my forgetting to take a toboggan while sliding down the stairs on my back. I have also been working on a project in the garden involving rather a lot of heavy lifting. 40-45 miles may be too much, too soon. Particularly when my mileage has been much lower of late.

It was lucky I did not ride to Odense. I would have been struggling against a gusty headwind all the way home. Despite reaching 49F today it felt much colder than the last few days. Recently I have been working out of doors in 54F and bright sunshine and could easily have ended up in just my shorts and socks. My rides earlier this week had been in fingerless mitts with an internal discussion over naked knees. Today I wore a jacket, scull cap and normal gloves. Only 7 miles.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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