Half a season

Geograph Blog ::

Half a season

My photo season begins in April and ends in October, when I can travel as far as possible in a day to make my map records and collect pre-Worboys signs. Luckily I did two such trips just before the clocks went forward, and means the road signs which I consider a priority as so many are gone if you wait a day too long, are up to date. Each year I list the next trips, using the map to see the next record I can get without being stranded in the middle of the night off the A1 in Lincs . 2020 had three such knowns, SH myriad in mid-Wales on a familiar route before turning off north, the Eurotunnel which won't contribute here except around the Folkestone terminal, and the final four pre-Worboys signs I missed north of Bristol . The reserve is my first ever myriad starting with an N in Darlington which requires up to an hour wait on a railway platform at each end as that is the frequency there. Instead come the end of March we all got locked down to our local areas. There's always something new to discover there but hardly difficult to access, even on the shortest day. So art again replaces geography, looking for new angles and views wherever I am, on my park walks every other day, buildings where I buy food, and people queuing for shops and going about their business.

Currently we are approaching month 2 of lockdown. Two months to the longest day, with the current suggestion we won't be let free this year. The locations won't go away so would have to wait for all of us, and means my collection will return to the first two years when I had a digital camera and recorded all my favourite places with no restrictions for the first time. Like everyone else it also means I can check every single day of the past archive and upload all the hard to locate or similar photos I didn't have time to add at the time as it would have slowed me down. I'm also finally able to add my pre-2007 photos which aren't on my current computer, and can either access from CD or Flickr. I have zero plans for the lockdown photos, as I think of where to go each day based on the weather and where I feel like going. Most are to the parks I am surrounded by here, and once a week or two to the parks a couple of miles away nearer where I grew up near Hampstead. I actually have half the time I normally would as I am now looking after my mother who can't have anyone else working there, so I am definitely not running out of ideas. I expect soon I will choose a specific residential area to cover in depth for my exercise period and walk around nearby roads and look for the usual favourite features such as paths, streams (we have a lot here), railway lines and electricity substations which are always tucked between and behind houses.

I am still straining at the leash to go to Wales. I know the road so well I can almost guarantee no hold ups, and pretty much time it in advance to make the best of the daylight. I missed France last summer, first as I was ill the day I was meant to go, and then the whole system crossing the channel was barely operating the rest of the season due to the heat, and the call centre recommended not going, and on their website. I remember the day I went north instead and hearing on the radio there was a three hour wait each end and was so relieved I didn't risk it. In about 1983 we went to Folkestone to get the hovercraft to Calais (as I would now if there was one, I won't use ships ever again), and there was a gale so we went on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway to and from Dungeness instead . My father was happy to take the ferry as it could cope with the wind speed but not me. In the early 70s my mother was late home from work in court as the session finished late, and we turned up at Southend Airport only to be turned back as the plane had already boarded and had to go back the following day . Now we have this situation possibly for the entire year or longer, and we can only make the best of the tiny level of freedom we are allowed.