29th August 2017 Not my boy!

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Tuesday 29th, 60-74F, 16-23C, cloudy but bright with quite a breeze blowing. Tomorrow is looking decidedly damp underfoot. So today is the day, if I'm to be allowed out.

The Danish coalition government is arguing about how much to reduce taxes for buying retro, diesel "smokers" to reduce the burden on city pensions. They badly need the money for a fourth, coal fired battleship to impress the world with their global, military aspirations against a common foe. 😉 But I'm saving up my precious "fuckwits" for another news story:

It seems another copycat terrorist has thrown a rock at a car on a motorway. Fortunately it hit the car roof just behind the windscreen. The police are still no nearer a result on the murder and crippling of a German couple on holiday in Denmark. Their car was hit by a massive concrete slab dropped from a quiet, rural, motorway bridge. But, it seems, the terrorist's basic human rights must not be violated by having cameras watching their activities on quiet motorway bridges. It seems that no [illegal in Denmark] dash-cam videos were available as evidence.

So we shall just have to wait for a "fuckwit selfie" from these same terrorists. They're good at that sort of thing. Meanwhile other terrorists [in all but name] are shooting at innocent people in their kitchens in Copenhagen.

How do they tell them apart? The "terrorists" I mean. Is it because real terrorists are better shots because they've had much more practice at shooting innocent people? So one-offs and stray bullets don't really count on the terrorism scale? Four foot swords count over gang banger Uzis?

I'm still waiting for the "fuckwit video selfies" on YouTube or Facebook:  

"To all our loyal followers: This us us missing yet another gang banger [drug dealing] competitor target by a mile and hitting a petrol tanker driver instead. He swerved into pedestrian street before finally dying in the ensuing conflagration along with 300 collaterals and a dozen historic buildings. Sorry for the all long words but our drug dealing, gang leader has political aspirations as a future world leader.

Don't forget to Subscribe or Like our video down below!... 

Wow! 90 million views in three days! Our Google advertising account is making the gang an absolute fortune! We shall be able to afford shiny, new, heavy machine guns next time! I wonder if we should do burning kitten videos as a sideline? That should be a nice little earner too! 

But remember, YouTube fans, we're not terrorists! We just look like them! Boom boom!"

So that's alright then. Thank goodness Denmark will soon have four [coal fired] battleships to fight the scourge of "gang [gun] violence." Just as long as it's not called terrorism we'll all be safe in our kitchens.

Our meandering "hero" enjoyed another circuitous route over the stubbly, hilly fields thanks to the recent harvest. A pair of tractors was loading big bales onto a trailer as they moved steadily uphill towards my retreating figure. I ploughed on, capturing new views of familiar and favourite scenes for a rainy day. A chocolate brown White-headed eagle flew over and didn't like the look of me at all. So I continued across more fields fighting the stubble or wading ankle deep in slippery chaff on deep, harvester tyre tracks. You would not believe the sheer number of swallows around at the moment. Day and night they swoop overhead putting innocent lives in danger. Yet they never avail themselves of their superior flight technology to attack us.

It is already feeling very warm at 68F with a high of 75F threatened. I wonder whether they can call it a disaster area so they can claim EU emergency farming aid? Well, all that fawn does look a bit like a desert. [From the safe distance of a nearby, blind corner on the road. Or from the Brussels Bottomless [taxpayer's money laundering] Pit.]

Headed north with a tailwind helping me to a cruising speed of 19mph for several miles. The shopping village was empty. Hollywood alien mass abduction scenes have more extras! No cars [at all] in any of the supermarket car parks? What's that about? Coming home was a real slog at 8-10mph. Only 15 miles.

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28th August 2017 Misty-eyed lansdscape photography.

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Monday 28th 52F, 11C, woke early to a quiet morning. Blue skies are decorated by small clouds. A wonderful mist hangs low over the newly harvested fields but is thinning rapidly. Yesterday's machine roar and movement are now safely stored on my computer for posterity. It's really quite exciting to see these huge machines so close to home. The dust they spew out the back is unbelievable but the light wind was perfectly placed to carry it well away from us. A large tractor and trailer accompanied the harvester to gather the grain and ferry it away at intervals. Leaving the soil littered with finely shredded straw and seed husks.

Of which I saw a great quantity today as I took the unique opportunity to cross harvested fields. My boots brushed through the stubble as I hopped over moraines of hay waiting to be baled. Everything looked slightly soft focus in the misty, morning sunlight. Only such gentle elevations would show such change when the crop is absent. Suddenly distant vistas are clearly seen for the first time in months.

Just having access to the fields offers new insights into the layout of the land. New opportunities for photography present themselves. The problem is choosing which images to share from the hundreds I have taken. Resizing them robs them of sparkle and the sheer scale of everything.

The moment I raise my camera the landscape is squashed down into a tiny box and never really expands back out again. I can never capture the 180° and occasional ten mile depth of the landscape at the same time. Zoom in and everything is foreshortened and squashed further into the limitations of a screen.

Then it all has to be shrunk in the wash as I prepare my images for the blog. Too large and people complain that they can't view my blog because it takes so long to download. After years of high speed fiber-net I have to keep these slow connections in mind.

I'd like to have the freedom to almost fill the page with an image, like they do in magazines, but can't. I usually resize down to 1000 pixels max dimension and keep the image size on the blog to no more than Large. There is the option of Extra Large or Original. So it all ends looking like a currant cake to me but what can I do? 😎

I expect my regulars will be sick of the sight of harvest scenes before I am finished. They're probably already hoping for a new rant about McSlob's litter or vehicular 'nutters' driving me round the [blind] bend. Well, you'll just have to be patient. It's my blog, so there. Start your own blog if you want to see something else on your own screen. I highly recommend it if you have anything to say. Or are burning to share images of your life and hobbies. You can never have enough blogs. Even if nobody ever reads them.

I had a nice email from a chap who's bought a long wheelbase, delta trike. With an electric assist front hub and disk brakes he's enjoying his new found freedom to roam. The nice thing is that the styling denies the narrow-minded the ability to auto-label the trike as suitable for the elderly and infirm. It looks like a smart and sophisticated recumbent and that is precisely what it is. I wouldn't mind one myself when I retire from perching high on a Brooks saddle with my nose on the front tyre and my bum in the air. Well, that's how it feels these days. Even though I rarely move my hands from the Campag brake hoods.

It's a perfect day for a ride, with light winds. I wonder if The Head Gardener will let me out? Nope! I was let loose on ornamental shrubs instead. Emphasis on the mental degree of attention to detail. She really needs a remote controlled drone with a hedge clipper attachment. It's called an "Under Gardener" in the gardening world. I don't have the attention span to qualify. I'm more your navvy, lopper and tree feller than arboriculturalist. More at home with a chainsaw than a dibber. 😇
 

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25th August 2017 Gotta stack a bale or three [hundred].

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Friday 25th 64F, 18C, breezy and cloudy with bright intervals. Walked along the lanes and then cut back across the harvested fields. Too busy for a ride today. In rare, positive cycling news: Laura [ex-Trott] and Jason Kenny have had a baby boy. Congratulations! 😎

Saturday 26th  60F, 16C, dead calm, rather cloudy, slightly misty and humid. I took advantage of the harvested fields to make a serious tour of No-Man's Land.  I crossed and circumnavigated the huge fields to reach distant spots which take ages walking along the lanes. Lots of Skylarks hiding in the fields which would rise and move away. A buzzard sailed over just above my head after crossing a wood. The wind turbines were still again.

The difference in the efficiency of technology was very obvious as two farmers loaded small bales onto a trailer using small tractors under a blue haze of diesel smoke. Their vast field dwarfing their activities. Nearby, hundreds of big bales were already neatly stacked by big machinery. A statement of power over the corrugated landscape.

I remember visiting small, mixed farms, in my childhood in England. Where the bales were literally lifted and thrown up onto the trailer by gnarled hands, by wiry men and tough women. Stooks of hay [sheaves] being stood up, leaning against each other for support, to dry in the wind and sunshine. With all the family and friends helping with the exhausting harvest. That would have been back in the 1950s. When farms were full of dusty clutter, amazing timber buildings and the most wonderful, or awful smells. Little had really changed in decades or centuries. Now it's all vast, corrugated steel sheds and giant machines and the timeless magic has gone. Solitary drivers and GPS toil mechanically in the fields, these days.

I was allowed out for my traditional, Saturday shopping run to a more distant village. It wasn't long before the first sociopathic bully homed in on my position and overtook me. Brushing just past my elbow at high speed. As the only car in sight, along the two mile straight, approached. A skill no doubt honed and practiced throughout an interminably long childhood, for all of their countless victims. Now they rely on their silver grey, vehicular anonymity to escape censure. Small people in big cars. Where once they were big people in small environments with smaller victims.

Rotten to the core and incurable of their disease. As they wait to meet their Master in the burning basement. Meanwhile, they can tick off regular new 'wins' against those they despise as utterly inferior. Exchanging their former lives as slave drivers and torturers and minor Nazis for lower management in sickly, uncaring businesses. Where anything goes as long as it doesn't badly affect the bottom line too much.

As the talented staff soon see where the land lies and take off early into their expanding careers. Leaving an ever poorer personnel, shuffling through their day and constantly watching over their shoulders for the next verbal assault. Or the invasion of their private space. Where encouragement is as out of place as an offer of help with the ever rising workload.

I have seen it so often it must be a terminal disease for many businesses. Most despots will happily settle for less. Provided the small personal "rewards" are satisfying enough. Feeding off the dread as they gleefully lash the dwindling oarsmen of a slowly sinking ship. Nationalized industries are riddled with both types of failure. I suppose you could call them people sinks. Somewhere to loose a large but inefficient workforce of ne'er do wells where they can do least harm between fires and major accidents.

I was shocked to discover my tyres were only holding around 40 PSI despite feeling rock hard to the wrinkled MkI thumb. The track pump soon righted that lack and was instantly noticeable on the bumpy drive as I left. Going quite well in the light winds. Enjoying my remote-controlled freedom to roam.

Intensively reared cannon fodder.

They must have brought in the emergency flooding pumps to clear the fly fishing ponds on the stretch of newly resurfaced highway. We have similar standing water problem on a local corner. They left the only drain high and dry when they resurfaced with thumb sized rocks instead of using the traditional pea-sized gravel. Thereby adding 20dB[A] to the passing traffic noise which once went largely unnoticed. Another 'win' for some small but evil despot working away well above his pay grade due to a lack of real competition for the empty post. 15 miles.

Sunday 27th 55F, 13C. A light, northerly breeze and a few smudgy clouds. Famous last words! It rapidly became overcast from the north. Where's my sunshine gone? The sky seemed in a hurry today with constantly changing conditions. I walked to the village and back. No ride as I was busy on my project again.

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