And badly designed.
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I’ll take your word for that Dave.
Looks good. Where are you going to cut the hole for the driver?
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It’s a big array of 12mm drivers
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Skunk?
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Top effort and lovely views as a reward.
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My legs are totally fecked now tho’ - I need booze to dull the pain I think.
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Good plan. I just put some cider in the fridge to chill.
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Head gardener here agrees
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Yesterday’s walk was mostly east-west. Given the strongish easterly that was blowing I did the westbound stretch on the higher ground - Harwell, then Icknield Way (prehistoric) to Ardington - and the return leg down on the valley floor - north to the GWR mainline, then east close to it via Steventon and home. I’ve posted pics of the Icknield Way before. It’s a few weeks greener now, but otherwise the same, so I won’t repeat them.
First place was the old Atomic Energy Agency site at Harwell, now repurposed as an ‘Innovation Centre’ (I worked for 20-odd years in the lab next door). Harwell is a mix of shiny new buildings and the old WWII airfield structures. These include some on-site housing, boarded up for a decade or more now following a failed plan to demolish them all and build a hotel
The bit of the site that I walked through was quieter than I’ve ever seen it - most business being closed down I guess
Another very slowly moving job is the digging out and decontamination of the old ‘tank farm’. This intercepted all the drains before they left the site and stored both foul and rain water for a few days just in case anything had leaked into it. Heaven knows if anything did, but the scale of the job suggests the place might not have been completely clean. The chain link fence is still the boundary of the nuclear licensed site
West then to Ardington and north to the GWR. The path crosses the line on an uncontrolled crossing. The trains come past at well over 100mph so it’s not a place to linger, even given the extremely limited service running at the moment. In fact the green signal to the west of me meant a train was due, and once I was off the line I had to wait less than a minute for it
I diverted a short way up the old Wilts and Berks canal. The path is very little used there and pretty overgrown
It leads to the very derelict Ardington Marsh lock
It’s not quite as remote as this guy suggests, but if/when they eventually get to it it is going to be a big job for the restorers to put right. The relative lack of habitation and the prevalence of crops over livestock may be why the choppers from RAF Benson come here for low-level practice. I’d seen them going backwards and forwards all day. While I waited for one I snapped a couple of deer, the same colour as the field and not much worried by the deforestation crew, it seems
They weren’t really bothered by me either. That’s them on the right, now the same colour as the grass, chewing as the chopper approaches, banks and hovers
Hopeless pic of the day is two coloured blobs in the grass close to the trees by Ardington Wick Lane railway underpass. I first thought they might be foxes as I’ve seen one there before. But their movement was wrong, and they seemed to have a white patch at the front. So muntjac maybe ?
Approaching Steventon I walked through a couple of fields of cattle. I think these are Hereford calves, despite one being white. They were lying down when I arrived and the white one’s friend or maybe sibling tried to add a bit of colour while I was there by standing over it and shitting on it !
Next was at Steventon mill looking up the millstream with a waterfall in the foreground where the wheel used to be. Eye level is the same as the stream.
In between the last two pics I walked through a field which is a popular strolling spot for the villagers. I must have passed three or four of them. The first was Whispering Bob Harris who lives in Steventon and is known to walk the footpaths. He looked very well given the scare he had on a walk last year
VB
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That looks familiar. Is that where they filmed bits of Full Metal Jacket Graeme?
Mind you I’ve spent more time on various MoD facilities than I care to remember and they pretty much all look the same.
It seems not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Jacket#Filming but I’m sure you’re right - all wartime military sites probably look similar. Back in the mid-80’s all that lot would still have been ‘inside the wire’ and getting past AEA police in the substantial gatehouse took all the right paperwork (I went there variously for a medical, fire training and a visit or two to their laser isotope separation people). It’s strange to see it almost all open now, especially if the stories about what’s buried in unmarked plots are to be believed.
VB
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Death ray stuff? 
I’ve tried to zoom in but the quality degrades too much, so hard to say. I can see a very white patch, but I’ve never seen Muntjac display white patches as bright as that.
Red Fox on the other hand
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No, little (or not so little) accidents mostly.
VB
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French marigolds.
You could be right. There were just two of them, and they seemed to be about the same size. They were moving very slowly through the longish grass, so I’m not sure what they were up to. After ground-nesting birds perhaps ?
VB
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Today, I have been mostly… cutting down a fecking enormous climbing rose. It occupied the entire east wall of the house up to the second storey - about 20m of it end to end. It’s one of those that has thorns on its thorns thorns and produces unremarkable small, white, unscented flowers which last a matter hours never to be seen again in any given year. i.e. - a massive PITA which has to go in anticipation of the repointing, brickwork-repairs and window replacements that are planned to come (next year now, probably).
It is now in a huge pile in the middle of the lawn, plus a wheelbarrow full of the thick bits to go in the firewood store.
It put-up a brave fight, blood was sacrificed. And I hurt, can barely move my arms…
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Only 2m from a boundary. Then it’s 2.5m
Yeah, I sort of guessed that, but you know, I grew up watching the telly with phasers, blasters, the Death Star and all that.