4th March 2016 Van spotting.

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Friday 4th 35F, 2C, light breeze, increasing to 20mph gusts. heavy overcast. Should remain dry, unlike tomorrow which looks foul from this distance.

Apparently, many Danes are so sick of speeding motorists passing  their homes that they are offering their gardens and parking areas to the police camera vans. The combination of public and private speed controls is approved by road safety experts. Police camera vans on the road or verge must advertise their presence to give illegally speeding drivers a chance to slow down for a few yards. [Only in Denmark?]

Not so, with hidden vans on private property. Unfair! Claim the illegal speeders. Camera vans hidden in gardens will be almost impossible to spot before the driver can stop [routinely] breaking the law for a few moments. Must the police advertise their presence, in advance, when [say] bank robbers pull up carrying assault rifles? How many innocent family members die or are maimed as a result of bank robberies in Denmark? Or anywhere else for that matter? [Just askin'.]

Imagine if a hardened, drunken criminal took to the public spaces with a 1.5 ton baseball bat, sledgehammer, mace or sword. Then wielded it indiscriminately at all and sundry outside a local school.  How long would it take for the police to arrive? Would they need to advertise their presence, in the local papers, or with roadside signs, in advance of making an arrest and carting the "raving nutter" off to jail? Or even shot that 'hardened criminal' to death for public safety reasons? Just askin'.

Walked a pleasant and quiet rural loop coming back past the big pond. There were at least fifty Shelducks sharing the water with the noisy Mallards. I disturbed another flock of Fieldfares foraging on short grass. An Audi driver proved, once again, that arrogance and ignorance are usually found in equal measure. He sped back and forth in the narrow lanes without the slightest attempt to slow for completely blind corners. Nor even to place his vehicle remotely correctly on the road. Engage ignition. Disengage brain. The only amusing part of this clown's "performance" was having his company name plastered all over the vehicle. Sadly I am, by law, unable to advertise his company nor share any images or videos which might help to identify this "complete loser."

I often wonder whether losers are put on this planet as an example to the rest of us. Everybody has their part to play on the stage of life. If we cannot learn from them then what other purpose do they serve? Why was there ever more than one Heroin addict, for example? Or more than one murderer or thief? Even when the penalties are harsh, and known to all, there are still criminals and prisons. As if by some fluke of nature, probably related to the social class of early ownership of private cars. There exists a parallel legal and moral universe as far as driving is concerned. My clumsy examples hardly touch the surface concerning the countless crimes committed on every stretch of public road around the globe.

"He/she died on the road," is no news unless it was a celeb film star or famous sportsperson. Yet the headlines clamour their peals of bells to the slightest sign of "foul play." Vehicular murder? The perfect crime goes completely unnoticed. Have you noticed that there is not even a direct reporting system for drunken or dangerous driving even in our age of "Information Technology?" The top three levels of management, where I once worked, were all legless alcoholics by lunch time. For years they all drove home [early] in luxury cars suitable to "their high rank." How were they able to get away with it when they could hardly walk to their cars? Was it the responsibility of the lowly minions to break ranks and report them? Or all the other "middle ranks" who knew implicitly what was a daily occurrence? When is collusion guilt by association. When does it become corruption? What tangled lives we lead!

Just a short ride under more grey skies into a cold easterly wind. Cruising at 16-18mph coming back and hit 21 mph climbing a hill. Still practicing climbing out of the saddle. Only 7 miles. 

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3rd March 2016 Gone, but not forgotten.

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Thursday 3rd 33-40F, 1-5C, light wind, overcast clearing to brightness. Enjoyed my usual walk up through the woods. Thanks to the light frost making the surface crispy the ground was just firm enough to walk on the mud. Two deer were grazing on the crops but seemed unmoved. Too far away for a decent shot [with my camera.] A Yellowhammer, a Skylark and a Great tit were singing their little hearts out. Definitely official approval of spring having sprung. With light winds it should be a good day for a ride.


A late morning ride in grey, but almost still conditions. I seemed to be going quite well but not particularly fast. Quite hilly on the way back with a very long, but enjoyable drag up out of a valley. I keep trying to extend my climbing range while standing up on the pedals. [Climbing, out of the saddle. Or "honking" in past cycling parlance.]

Yet more old farm buildings have been completely demolished. Leaving only a large area of clean but rough soil. It must be a huge burden to have re-thatching, hanging almost literally, over one's head. The old place had been on the a market for years with emergency tarpaulins having totally disintegrated over time.

This image is from 1988 and the latest of a series from the free online aerial photograph archives hosted by the Royal Danish Library. Called "Set Fra Luften" means "seen from the air" and is remarkably comprehensive with many tens of thousands of images going back to just before the War in many cases.  Most of these, once commercial images, were in B&W but this later one is in colour.   

Syremosegaard  means "Acid Marsh Farm" in English and lies in the foreground. The long, thatched Stuehus [Farmhouse] is on the left of the very typically enclosed yard common to very many old farms. Re-thatching would have costs many tens of thousands of pounds equivalent for a building of that size. The much smaller, thatched farmhouse in the background is still standing and still thatched. I have darkened and increased the contrast of this image using PhotoFiltre free image handling software to bring out the detail.

The image on the right is modern and from yet another Danish free online service called Grundkort. [Ground map.] The waterproof wrapping on the farmhouse and dilapidated condition of the old outbuildings is clearly evident. The [optional] yellow lines indicate the ground area owned by any property. Just one of the many online services available to the Danes. The quality of the more recent aerial images is often far better than the standard Google Earth and has very many options available to be laid over the image.

The aerial images on this service also go back many years. Though not always of the same high standard seen here. On a casual note it can be amusing to see which car or caravan was parked outside one's home when the older images were taken. Trees and hedges grow and buildings come and go over time. One's memory of the past often plays tricks and can be confirmed or denied by the dating on the images. All hope of the neighbour's not seeing the mess behind the hedge is lost.

Anyone can view the complete details of any building in Denmark. Including the owners, the building's size, valuation going back for years, number of times it has been sold, when and for how much, construction materials, number of rooms, heating system, bathroom or toilet, land area, outbuildings, valuation for rates [local taxes] etc.etc.etc. Which may all seem slightly odd when one cannot legally take images of people on private property without their permission. It is illegal to allow one's home or business security camera to capture the pavement or car park outside or to monitor other's private property. Taking images of a crime is also illegal and has even resulted in court cases for victims of a crime while the perpetrators have walked free. Camera drone use is also very strictly limited.

I was definitely tiring towards the end of my ride so it was lucky I didn't try for a much longer route. Perhaps I was merely hungry from having ridden well past lunch time. 21 miles.

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1st March 2016 Spring has sprung [a leak.]

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Tuesday 1st March 32-35F, 0+2C, light wind, heavy overcast. The forecast is for the grey skies to continue with snow arriving late afternoon to fall all night and tomorrow. The wind is expected to gust to 12m/s [25mph] later. This is officially the first day of spring. Perhaps somebody should have emailed the weather gods?

The skies remained heavy as I collected muddy boots up on the fields overlooking our home. My insignificance in the grand scheme of things was my complete invisibility to the Head Gardener while She was staring out of the window. I shall take my blinding, Cree LED front light next time to see if that helps. This all started when She expressed the idea that she should be able to see me on my walks in front of the woods which crown the ridge. Unfortunately the shoulders of the hills and intervening hedges block the view for most of the time. I am also but a tiny fraction of the height of the soaring beech trees in the nearest woods. My drab green jacket doesn't aid my visibility either.

Short late afternoon ride straight into a bitterly cold wind. It was gusting to 25mph at 34F [+1C] and just stepping outside the door was enough for a quick rethink. On with my warmest jacket, my GripGrab medieval winter scull cap and my fleece neck sleeve. The latter is superb when one doesn't have a warm balaclava which actually fits comfortably. Mine squashes my ears and hurts where the sunglasses are crushed against my head.  A lot of palaver for only 7 miles.

Cruising at 16-17 coming home amongst the psycho, early finish commuters. GTGP does not make them any faster. It just means got to get past to the back of the next car in the gridlocked queue even when it means they try to drive between your rear wheels! Get a [real] life people! It's not all about you!

Tuesday 2nd 37-41F, 3-5C, heavy overcast, breezy and very wet. The overnight snow has largely been washed away by the rain. Promise of better weather after lunch. I'll try not to hold my breath that long... Three o'clock, pm, and the rain is only now, beginning to ease off slightly.

Traditional long farmhouse. Many Danish, rural buildings were thatched in the past. Part of the same building would usually be reserved for farming tasks. Though this area has often been converted to more domestic use when funds allowed. 

I was looking at the horribly kinked, rear gear cable and realised that the strands must have exceeded their yield point to have taken on such a permanent 'detour.' Only a carefully matched reversal of the local bending would undo the [frequently] untold damage to its former, perfect linearity. Life is too short even for this cable. It has become an ex-cable. It is is no more. Gone to the cable afterlife. I can't even exhume it as a front changer cable because the kinks are right behind the BB. They would find themselves on the vertical run between the BB guide and the changer. Oh, bøøger!


And now, in breaking news: I tried stretching the black sports bag on the rack but it was much too generous in the bum department. Overhanging badly it lacked any useful support from the rack. Perhaps that is why Carradice make their Bijou Camper Longflap so much shorter than their published spec? I could not bring myself to adding a plywood base to either rack, nor bag. Bøøger indeed! It never did stop raining. Nor did we get the promised sunshine. Another rest day.

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