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Great smile!
4 years agoGreat job, Caroline!
4 years agoGreat to hear from you again and glad you had someone to ride with you.
4 years agoGreat job, Caroline!
4 years agoEpic ride! What a shame your battery died mid-epic, and before the deer encounter. How are those chalky paths to bike on when they get wet? Seems like they would cake up and make a mess.
And presumably in Harston, Haslingfield and Hauxton, hurricanes hardly ever happen either?
Yes, it's a bit of an obscure one! Another strange (and prohibited) activity is "lamping for rabbits", which apparently involves shining a bright light over nighttime fields: the rabbits freeze (as in headlights) and can then be easily picked off. People sometimes hunt (or "bait") badgers too, though that's seriously frowned upon, even by rural folk.
4 years agoThanks for the lesson! I’ve never heard of hare coursing and had to look it up. Doing this, I came across two other new class words: sighthound and lurcher.
4 years agoFunny town names?! Next you'll be telling me that "Wrestlingworth" or "Pidley" are amusing! Chuckling at "Horton-cum-Studley"? I suppose "Shingay-cum-Wendy" is a funny name as well? What about a solid, no-nonsense name like "Moggerhanger"? I just hope you never have the misfortune to go to "Ventongimps"!
(with apologies to Michael Palin in The Life of Brian) :-D
I’m really enjoying this journal. The outings are great, but I’d read it just to chuckle at the town names.
4 years agoAha, yes what with the colour I did wonder! To my shame I've seen these before around south Devon, and then failed to recognise them subsequently...
4 years agoThanks Rachael and Kathleen, glad you like it! More to come...
4 years agoI am really enjoying this 😁. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
4 years agoAt least you can spell ornithology!
4 years agoNot good at it either, but google searching, it looks like a little egret.
https://app.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob1190.htm
I am fangirling all over this journal, Jon. It's taking me hours of joy to follow the maps and google street view and your photos and commentary. I'm loving every minute of it.
4 years agoYou're doing the kind of riding I loved doing when I was in England in 1985-86 and haven't been able to do much of since. Back then I spent some time in the Reading area visiting my sister who was at the uni there for a year. That's where I learned about ordnance maps and public paths. On one particular ride I learned to figure out the difference between walking paths and bridle paths or just paths when I ended up on a walking path with plenty of stiles. Luckily I fell into step with Sir Francis Drake who was kind enough to help me lift my bike over the stiles. Well, he wasn't really Drake but he was playing him in a play performing nearby. But I still claim bragging rights that I met him. I had some wonderful day rides there and had very interesting conversations with people I came across who were tickled to talk to a Yank in the middle of nowhere.
After that I did a big circle from Reading out to Salisbury and back through Winchester and to London, then out to Dover and the continent. One lane I came across was an approach from the north to Stonehenge. It was the best view of the place I could possibly have gotten, with all the roads not visible but the stones visible right on top of the horizon.
So thanks so much for taking me down memory lane, as it were.