Tag Archives: England

What would a retired couple, a retired couple with a dislike of the noise emanating from children, I might add, be doing visiting the otherwise delightful New Forest in the middle of August, I hear you say? Very good question!

The answer is relatively simple. It is a sad fact that Satan’s Little Disciples are let out of their sanity-preserving prisons at a time that not only hijacks a fair proportion of our potential summer but also holds hostage a good chunk of our dragonfly season. Any Odonata  enthusiast wishing to maximize the season, which may be thought of as relatively brief at these northern latitudes, needs to get out there and mix it with the kids. Carol seems about as enthusiastic about dragonflies as I am these days so we had decided to face our nemesis and take a break in the middle of August.

I am delighted to report that we survived our novel experience relatively unscathed; we committed neither infanticide (most families seemed to have 3+ yapping Disciples), canicide (many families also seem to have yapping dogs in tow) or suicide (which, although still illegal, would probably have been our most honourable escape option).

I actually had a specific goal in mind from this trip. Though relatively widespread, the Black Darter (Sympetrum danae) does not live in our neck of the woods. There are, however, necks of the New Forest where it does live. I was very keen to see an example or two so I made a note of couple of interesting locations from Doug Overton’s New Forest Dragonflies website.

There is a particularly revered “flush” in the New Forest at a place called Crockford Stream which we’d visited on a previous trip. I now noticed that I’d probably missed something of a rarity, the Southern Damselfly (Coenagrion mercuriale). Looking like “just another blue damselfly”, it’s easy for the novice to overlook. One of our first stops was to try and correct my oversight and we returned. Luck and Carol’s hawk-like eyes were with us – just about the first individual she spotted hunkering down out of the wind was our intended quarry, a Southern Damselfly, and here it is. The differentiation is the shape of the marking on the dorsal side of S2 of the male which is said to resemble Mercury’s winged helmet. [Ed: Hmm, what were they smoking?]

At many sites, much of the activity seemed to centre around Keeled Skimmers (Orthetrum coerulescens). We’d nabbed the males on our earlier trip but, unlike the males which strut their stuff over a territory, the females are more elusive, typically lurking about low in the grass. I eventually happened to scare one up and track it to get my first shot, although she is partially obscured by the obligatory blade of grass. Nonetheless, she’s a welcome addition to our catalogue.

Eventually we went off in search of my main quarry, the Black Darters. Two of Doug’s sites, which happened to be very close together, looked favourite. The first pond didn’t look hopeful at first but, either as we got our eye in or as it warmed up a little, we spotted what could only have been a Black Darter male flying sorties from a Cross-leaved Heath (so says Carol – Erica tetralix) plant which provided a suitably colourful counterpoint to the male’s dark elegance. As is usual with a new species, I was captivated and had trouble dragging myself away. Happy camper! We did drag ourselves away, though and went on to the second location where there were many more Black Darter males and where we luckily (once again) stumbled across the female of the species lurking in the pond’s surrounding plant life. Very happy camper!

Finally, Carol did very well with an old friend: on manual focus, she managed to snag this excellent shot of a Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum) in flight beside another of our ponds from a previous trip. Common Darters are really very attractive and can be easily overlooked. If you can get pictures like this, what a mistake that would be.

Having re-acquainted ourselves with the New Forest last September, courtesy of waiting on things medical, we had rather optimistically booked ourselves into a year-round campsite there for New Year. New Year in the New Forest: seems almost poetic. At the time of making the booking, I was expecting some temporary incontinence but I was still thinking stress incontinence. As we now know, the level of it was rather more severe following my prostatectomy on 2nd December. In the light of our more complete knowledge, we rearranged our booking for late March. There was, as it turned out, an additional problem at New Year: snow. Towing a caravan/trailer down to the New Forest in snow would never have been an enjoyable or, indeed, sensible task.

When it came to the re-arrangement we lucked out. We went down a few days early and arrived in stunning (for March in England) weather. Traffic was light and the sun was shining – the journey was a dream. With the exception of one day, the run of glorious weather continued for the 12 days of our stay. Unhappily, I wasn’t the only attendee with a damp problem; our caravan, Billy, has come out in sympathy to show moral support. At his recent service, the “engineer” reported the beginnings of water ingress in his near-side rear quarter. If that wasn’t enough, he’s leaking water back out of the pressurized on-board water system into the external container. I know exactly how he feels! I’d just as soon he wasn’t showing quite such a level of support, however.

I wouldn’t normally think that visiting an essentially broad-leaved deciduous forest in winter would be so enjoyable but enjoyable it was. With no forest canopy, all the ample sunlight was filtering through the bare branches of the trees and hitting the forest floor. Additionally, the forest floor’s undergrowth (largely bracken) had died down for the winter and was dormant so the views through the well-lit trees were very good. Of course, different weather would have produced a different story but it was all very pleasant.

We were there over the theoretical beginning of spring and the wildlife was beginning to wake up to its spring tasks. We had plenty of bird life around our pitch feeding on feeders we had taken with us (for the first time). Expecting the forest tracks to be quite muddy, we had armed (legged?) ourselves with Wellington boots and indulged in several nature rambles of 3-4 miles or so. I wasn’t quite as watertight as the Wellies but any leakages were not severe enough to stop the enjoyment. The nature highlights were the year’s first butterflies emerging in the form of the sulphur-yellow Brimstones and I managed to snag a pair of Pond Skaters in flagrante delicto, poor things. Actually, I didn’t notice that they were a pair in a passionate embrace until I loaded the shot on my laptop back at Billy. It’s amazing how blind I can be staring through a view-finder.

The low point was being attacked by a New Forest pony. Commoners have grazing rights and their ponies, plus a few cattle, wander about essentially freely. The ponies are quite famous and are usually very placid, though tourists are requested not to interfere with them and advised to give them a respectably amount of space. In this case, we were giving the pony in question a wide berth but it took it into its head actively to pursue me. It crossed about 60ft/20m of open ground to get to the path down which Carol and I were walking and followed us down the path before turning its rear-end towards me and lashing out twice with both hind legs. The first kick missed but the second was more successful and made contact with my right hip, fortunately only relatively lightly. Had it been my stomach, I’d have been less philosophical about it, I suspect.

We’d taken our bicycles, too, and tried our first post-operative bike rides of any real note. We started with a quite modest 8 miles but very soon thereafter indulged in a 27-mile round trip to Bucklers Hard, an historic 18th century ship building village. Several ships for Admiral Nelson’s fleet were built here from oak trees felled in the New Forest. Since one galleon required about 2000 oak trees, I began to see why there are tracts of forest with no trees at all. Such were the delights of the unseasonal spell of weather that we also cycled to the south coast to enjoy a seaside ice cream, as if we weren’t taking in enough calories in the form of alcohol. (It’s completely unfair that alcohol contains any calories at all.) Not only did we find a particularly splendid ice cream but we were also entertained by a gaggle of paragliders drifting back and forth along the cliffs of Barton-on-sea while we ate it. Paragliders make a wonderfully colourful photographic subject, especially against a clear blue sky.

So, all in all a great time. Like my caravan, I may not be 100% watertight yet but, if, as I did, I can embark on 4-mile walks and 25-mile bike rides without too much in the way of consternation, then life is definitely on the way to returning to my kind of normal.

One of the reasons I think that we had not been to the New Forest for quite a while, although we know we love the place, is that it is very popular and, consequently, suffers from hoards of tourists. Although the main purpose of our recent 10-day trip was nature and wildlife, one really does have to play typical tourist as well sometimes. Besides, it gave us a break from chasing dragonflies and mushrooms. [Ed: you should see those mushrooms run. ]

Most will know that the New Forest is famous for New Forest ponies. The ponies are not wild but are owned by “commoners” who have grazing rights. The ponies are easy to spot, often choosing to graze beside the road. Actually, they are harder to miss than to spot since they frequently choose to graze from within the road, displaying a complete indifference to the dangers of traffic. The roads within the forest have 40mph limits to maximize the ponies’ safety. There is another safety measure: many ponies wear reflective neck bands because they are apt to wander across roads at night and there are no street lights. [Ed: even if there were street lights they’d be turned off these days.]

Most pony pictures end up as being so-so, rather in the category of “aunty Mabel on the beach at Clacton”. Such a shot is on the left – pleasant enough but unremarkable. This time fortune stepped in and treated us to something a little different. Although playing tourist, I had allowed myself to become distracted by yet another dragonfly – a Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea), since you ask – which was busily ovipositing in a small pond. As I was watching, a white pony, which I’m sure in horsey-speak would be called a grey pony, waded into the dragonfly’s future nursery and began munching the water plants. The pond was deeper than I had imagined and the combination of water and pony made for a much more interesting couple of pictures.

The other typically touristy subject when in the New Forest is, of course, scenery. As will be seen from the first pony shot (above), the term “forest” may seem in some cases a little odd, there being very few or no trees. The New Forest National Park is actually a mixture of woodland and heath land in (I’m guessing) roughly equal measure. Most folks think of a forest as a serious chunk of woodland but, in fact, the term “forest” originally referred to a hunting ground. In this case, the hunting ground was William the Conqueror’s. So, not only does the New Forest not look much like a forest (these days) but it isn’t new, either. Be that as it may, the New Forest it is and here’s a couple more typical touristy landscapes to complete the collection.

We have both now become complete iSpot addicts, so much so that there is a definite downturn in the mood when we have nothing to iSpot. [Aside: Carol has turned turned iSpot into a verb – very American – the past tense of which is, apparently, iSpat. Example: “I iSpat my Black Widow Spider yesterday.”] By following iSpot’s latest observations, the changing seasons really get hammered home. In the summer, such as it was, there were large amounts of insect observations including dragonflies and butterflies, despite this being a terrible year for butterflies, in my view. Now, as we head into autumn the fruiting bodies of mushrooms and toadstools are springing up all over the woodland floors and many folks are iSpotting fungi.

Fungus season was under way when we were in the New Forest recently trying to maximize the back end of dragonfly season. On one dragonfly excursion, as we were exploring this particular area, a friendly local happened along with a very nice camera and lens (Canon EOS 7D with a Canon ‘L’ series 100mm IS macro lens) together with a supermarket carrier bag. He happily showed us his haul: four quite large, highly sought after Ceps (Boletus edulis). He clearly had a particularly fine tea in store though we were impressed by the fact that he was also clearly a very conscientious gatherer, picking only sufficient for his own consumption and leaving most to spore, thus ensuring future harvests. An introduction to some New Forest fungi ensued. Splendid fellow!

Carol’s eye had been taken by some dinner-plate-sized fungi in the area. Spurred on by our introductory natter, she left me to my dragonfly hunt and went of to snap them. For some scale, our OS map is included; it is 9ins/23cms long. We had never seen the like before and our local said it was a Funnel Cap though mushroom-loving  friends, Mike and Linda, have since further qualified it as a Giant Funnel Cap (Leucopaxillus gigantius). This, we are told, is a modestly sized example; they can reach 16ins/40cms across.

Despite Mike and Linda being mushroom fanatics, most Brits differ from other Europeans by avoiding wild mushroom hunting. We are no exception. One really has to be careful with identification and we find it much safer to buy our mushrooms from Waitrose. Here’s a classic example; looks really appetizing, doesn’t it? It would make a fine omelette, one might think. Regrettably one’s kidneys and liver would then begin to fail. It’s a Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) – there’s a clue in the name.

Though I do actually think of wild mushrooms as being edible, I’ve never thought of fungi as being artistic but I was about to be proven wrong. Having gone off in search of the Death Cap (which seemed to quite excite our new acquaintance), Carol found a group of very delicate, almost pure white fungi growing on a fallen beach tree. Since the beech tree had fallen across a gulley, a picture looking up from below was possible with the light filtering through them. I think it’s a fabulous picture – bravo! They are Porcelain Mushrooms (Oudemansiella mucida) and are always on beech, according to our guide. The guide also says they are edible but the unappealing slime on their surface must be removed first.

I think I’ll continue to stick to Waitrose, thanks.

As summer wanes and autumn thinks about waxing, since we were unable to return to our beloved France for September, we took ourselves down to renew our acquaintance with the New Forest. Billy was very excited to be trying something new; we had booked him in to the Forestry Commission’s campsite at Setthorns Inclosure.

The New Forest was declared after 1066 by William the Conqueror so it’s probably getting a little long in the tooth nearly 1000 years on. Still, New Forest it is and New Forest it shall remain. Much of it is more like heath land than what most of us think of as forest; there are no trees in some areas. The term “forest” actually referred to a hunting ground, though, originally. There are various smaller subdivisions of the forest, I suspect fenced off (though that’s a guess), all going by the name “inclosure”.

The New Forest is a well known stronghold of Odonata and, since the season is drawing to a close, I was keen to see what I could. Carol found a very helpful man, Doug Overton, who has a website called New Forest Dragonflies and who, when prompted, recommended a couple of locations for us to go hunting. What a nice man!

We were there for 10 days and, though the weather could have been kinder, our trip was what I would call v. successful. We saw three new (to us) species of Odonata, though one, the Golden-ringed Dragonfly (Cordulegaster boltonii) did not cooperate with the camera and settle. A Keeled Skimmer (Orthetrum coerulescens) was much more helpful as was a Beautiful Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens). Actually, we’ve seen Beautiful Demoiselles in France but not in England before and they are a different subspecies.

Though not a new species to us, we did see something else new in the form of a female Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea). Our first view was of one female ovipositing in a small pond near some New Forest ponies we were watching. Naturally I had the wrong lens with me but managed to snag a couple of half-way decent shots, despite her being in a rather inaccessible location. A day or so later we saw another fly into some tall grass and come to rest, hanging motionless. That’s a very rare state for a hawker to be in. It took us a while to see her but eventually we did and …here she is.

Whilst hunting the Odonata, we also bagged a new butterfly in this terrible year for Lepidoptera. (Not only were there hardly any butterflies around this year but there were hardly any moths, either. Our open windows with lights on have attracted very little.) However, I saw a blue and snapped it. Though the picture isn’t very good, when I looked closer back at Billy, I knew I had never seen one before. It is a Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus).

The New Forest was delightful; we will have to return next season for some more wildlife excitement.

Some of Carol’s ancestors are from Hereford so we’ve brought Billy Bailey, our caravan, up for a long weekend so she can rummage around in the dusty archives. A day for Carol in the records office left me footloose and fancy free until I was due to collect her from Hereford at 4:00 PM.

Billy is on a Caravan Club site built on the grounds of an old station of a now dismantled railway. Has the dismantled railway been turned into a footpath or cycle track? No – darn! However, we’re about 2 miles north, as the crow flies rather than as the rambler walks, of a section of the Wye Valley Walk. That sounded quite promising. I togged up, slung the weighty camera rucksack on my back in case I bumped into any interesting critters and set off. My first mile had to be on roads but they were relatively quiet side roads so no problem, then I’d be onto bridleways and footpaths.

Finding the bridleways and footpaths marked on OS maps should be easy. Sometimes either it isn’t or I’m not very good at it. I failed to find my first choice, a bridleway. The hedges where it should have been seemed far too thick for any horse to find a way through. As an alternative I came across a footpath junction about ½ mile further on – further in the wrong direction, of course. Fortunately I didn’t want to take the northern footpath; there was a sign announcing it’s existence but you’d have needed a machete to get through the overgrown hedgerow. The southern branch, however, heading towards the Wye Valley was in a much better state of repair, clear and open, so I took it.

After about 3 miles of indifferently/inadequately marked footpaths and a few resultant leaps of faith helped by combining OS map detail with Garmin eTrek satnav data, I finally reached my goal and joined the Wye Valley Walk. Hopefully this would be better signed. It was but only just. Were I marking a track, I’d put signs where the path actually changed direction rather than 50 yards after the change of direction. I had a short detour because of one such situation but managed to correct myself. The signs – two discs, one declaring “Wye Valley Walk” and a second bearing a direction arrow – are there but some required something of a search. Unfortunately most of the direction arrows are either partly or completely worn out. The partly worn out ones are particularly dangerous because the remaining part of the arrow can easily be misinterpreted. Naturally I took the opportunity to misinterpret one such and took a little more exercise covering an extra mile in the wrong direction before I returned and corrected myself once again.

After seven or eight miles, probably six of which had been the correct miles, I was still some three miles from base and was looking for a suitable return route. On the OS map, I spotted what appeared to be a useful track, cutting a corner, that would get me back to the quiet country lane heading home. Half a mile got me to the start of the track. “Private Road”, it declared. “Bother!”, I said and retraced my steps for a third time. It was another three mile slog along tarmac back to Billy.

My timing was much better than my route finding, however – after 12 miles of dry weather, just as I turned into the camp site, it started raining. As I was refreshing myself prior to collecting Carol, the heavens opened.

After some traditional refreshment the rain ceased and I fought my way through the Hereford traffic – Hereford traffic is an absolute nightmare – and started looking for somewhere to park to rendez-vous with Carol. The first two car parks I tried were pay and display. Did I have any change? No, of course not. Could I pay with a credit card? No, of course not. I’d spotted a multi-storey car park on the way in; multi-stories are usually “pay on exit” jobs so I fought my way back through the nightmarish Hereford traffic and drove into it. “Pay and display”. Arghh! I was about to phone Carol and tell her that Hereford wouldn’t allow me to park legally when I remembered an old and probably fake £1 coin (it feels wrong and had been rejected a year or so ago when trying to park in Devon) lurking in the car. To my relief, the Hereford machine accepted it. I had an hour to find Carol.

Do not drive into Hereford expecting to be able to park without a good supply of £1 coins. In fact, my advice is not to drive into Hereford at all.

Carol had had a relatively fruitless search in the records office, too. I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised:

• Our pitch number at camp site: 13
• Carol’s assigned microfiche reader: 13
• Carol’s locker at records office: 13
• date:  Friday 13th.

So, as I said, on Wednesday we spun over to Harwich to drop Keith and Marlene at the port where they were due to embark on Jewel of the Seas for their cruise through the Baltic Sea to Russia and back. They’d have been happy to go by train but Carol was keen to visit a first cousin once removed so we forced them to endure a cross country 2½ hour trip in our car. It’s gotta beat lugging four pieces of luggage though London.

We saw Jewel of the Seas long before we saw any of Harwich. The land around Harwich is pretty darn flat and this vessel towered above it. It wouldn’t look out of place orbiting Jupiter. It’s huge! It has (it says here) 12 passenger decks for 2501 passengers (and 1?) served by 859 crew. It looks like several decent sized hotels bolted together and sat in a hull. We managed to drop Keith and Marlene off with little in the way of ceremony – there was no waiting – and left them to embark and search for their cabin. This is where a satnav system could truly come in handy – key in the postcode of your suite/cabin, select shortest route, and off you go.

Off we went to investigate Harwich, once we’d found it hiding behind the Jewel of the Seas. ‘T was an interesting little town in a threadbare sort of way. It looked a little worn at the edges. Come to that, it looked a little worn in the middle, too. I did, however, sample the finest jellied eels that I can remember tasting; they were quite superb. We also got an education about “leading lights”. There are two lighthouses: the higher and lower lighthouses. As an approaching ship, the idea was to position your vessel in such a way that the higher lighthouse’s light  could be seen directly above the lower lighthouse’s light. This alignment led you into the harbour channel. Simple but effective, I would imagine. Not as much fun as a satnav, though.

Harwich also makes a big deal about being the original home of Christopher Jones, master of the Mayflower of pilgrims fame. We found his house on the Harwich heritage trail but it didn’t make an enticing picture.

Having killed enough time being thoroughly educated – I also learned that a pint and a half of Hoegaarden could set one back £7.90 – £7.90 for Chrissakes! – we went to visit Carol’s cousin on Shotley peninsula, the opposite side of the harbour. When Jewel of the Seas began sounding off, we all repaired to where we could watch the ship leave and wave goodbye to our friends. As we waited I practiced panning with TheBeast (handheld, IS mode 2) and managed to grab a reasonable shot of a black-headed gull which was cruising by the harbour wall in the early evening sun. They have such beautiful white eye-liner, black-headed gulls.

Eventually the floating moon of Jupiter approached and Carol grabbed a shot of it dwarfing Harwich. We waved. There’s no way Keith and Marlene could have seen us waving but we did it anyway. Well, you have to, don’t you?

Bon voyage Keith and Marlene!

I really should know better. On Monday we set off on plan A with Keith and Marlene. I can’t remember what plan A was but I do remember thinking that my camera would not be required. After a mere 5 minutes or so my navigation officer switched to plan B. We ended up driving round some of our typically English village and local countryside locations such as Ivinghoe Beacon and Ashridge.

En route from Ivinghoe Beacon to Ashridge are a couple of stunning bluebell woods, one of which attracts an almost constant flow of admirers; so many admirers that an ice cream van stations itself opposite and does a brisk trade, even in our currently wintery airflow.  However, what made us slam on the brakes was the other, less popular wood which, this year, seems to have come of age and eclipsed its more popular neighbour. What set this wood apart was a lack of other people and a lack of dead wood spoiling an otherwise good line up. Keith and Marlene, hitherto unfamiliar with bluebells, clicked away with their pocket digitals while all I could do was pick out shots I’d like to take had I been sensible enough to bring my camera. Lose 10 points. Marlene kindly let me try a shot or two with her camera but I failed to hold the small camera steady enough in my klutzy hands. We continued the tour.

K & M had expressed an interest in the stunningly yellow rape fields that are currently turning our countryside into something out of Vincent Van Gogh’s notebook. We thought we knew just the spot for another photo shoot. I again borrowed Marlene’s camera with only slightly better results.

On Tuesday afternoon, while others decided to relax at home under the occasional glowering cloud, I corrected my original oversight and returned to both the bluebell wood and rape field armed with camera, lenses and tripod. After only 5 minutes or so I had the bluebell wood to myself and did two circuits merrily re-using pixels as though they were going out of fashion. Eventually a couple of other tripods arrived with their owners and began doing likewise. Our tripods compared notes before I took mine off to the rape field where I managed to grab a single shot before one of the glowering clouds obliterated the celestial spotlight. I’ve tried rape fields before and always been disappointed but at last I seem to have something with which I’m satisfied.

Isn’t spring a colourful time of year and shouldn’t I know by now always to travel with a camera? Dumbo!

I’ve been before but so many bottles of wine ago that I can remember hardly anything about it. Our visitors, Keith and Marlene from Richmond, Va., had never been but it was high on their list of places to see, and quite rightly so. ‘T was advertised as a mainly dry day and it was not a weekend so off we set. Given my recent troubles attempting to use our currently unusable motorways in these parts, and the fact that Windsor is a mere 40 miles distant, off we set across country.

Having let rush hour disperse, we were doing quite well until heading down towards Amersham from Wendover. Close to Great Missenden our progress was halted by a stationary queue of traffic the end of which was out of sight. My navigation officer suggested a diversion through Great Missenden and into Beaconsfield via a rather more circuitous, more cross-country route.

We were off again and things continued well until, following the signs for Beaconsfield town centre, we ran across a “road closed” sign. It rather looked as though a fair was being set up. Was there a diversion around the obstruction? No! Not a word, nada, rien, nichts!

Some traffic was turning right so we followed hoping that they were local enough to know what they were doing. Apparently they did because eventually we came to the A40, the major road running through Beaconsfield. Somewhat relieved, we turned left towards Beaconsfield to get back on course. After about half a mile my jaw fell open as we ran across another “road closed” sign. What?*! Was there a diversion sign? No! Not a word, nada, rien, nichts! I was beginning to spot a pattern. This is the A40 for Darwin’s sake. You surely can’t completely close the A40, a major trunk road between London and Oxford running through the centre of Beaconsfield, without a word about how to circumvent the obstruction? It seems they could. The few vehicles ahead of me began doing U-turns in a handy garage forecourt. I followed suit and tossed the problem back to my navigation officer once again.

Eventually, after nearly two hours of being foiled by traffic jams, closed roads and single-track roads with passing places, we arrived at Windsor and managed to park in a long term car park for our visit. It was a good job we decided to go today and not tomorrow – tomorrow the car park would be closed for the Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo preparations.

It had also been nearly two hours of being constantly pounded, jolted and jarred by our now utterly pathetic road surfaces. It is a mark of how green we have become when we are “in residence” – we really do not use the car that much at home these days – that I didn’t know just how universally atrocious our road surfaces now are. Get off the pot-holed (or inexplicably closed) main roads and, in addition to pot-holes, there are frequent over-severe speed bumps with which to contend. We felt battered and drained after a mere 40 miles. It’s a wonder that our vehicles don’t all fall apart.

Unfortunately Her Majesty was not "in residence" so our guests didn’t get to see the Royal Standard flying but Windsor Castle was great, especially with the audio tour now included in the £16.00 entrance fee. I couldn’t help but be amused, however, as we paid to see the Queen’s primary residence. In common with many establishments, UK tax payers can Gift Aid their entrance fee. If I understand Gift Aid correctly, this would reclaim from the Queen’s government the tax paid on our entrance fee and gives it back to the Queen. But doesn’t the Queen’s government give a chunk of our taxes, currently £7.9m, to the Queen et al for official public duties in the form of the Civil List? Curious.

Don’t get me wrong, I have always been, and remain, a Royalist, it just seemed a strange situation given the money flow. The Crown Estate generates, after all, almost £200m in revenue for the government … or should I be saying lack-of-government given the result of last week’s general election?

The end of what can only be described as a absolutely perfect two weeks in Dorset. Our track record for weather thus far this year had not been good; our earlier two weeks in Spain were damper than we’d hoped and our week in Devon was, to all intents and purposes, nothing but wet. All change for Dorset. Not only did we not have any rain but we had almost constantly blue skies – bluer than usual, in fact, courtesy of a lack of vapour trails thanks to the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano. To be completely accurate, it did finally rain a few drops during last night but that didn’t count; we’d had a stunning two weeks.

‘T was time to leave so we hitched up and hit the roads. As we approached the A34 on the A303 a sign greeted us: “A34 closed north of the A420”. That’s between the Oxford ring road and Bicester – exactly where we wanted to go. Sod! No big deal, though, we’ll head north on the A34 up to the M4, then head east on the M4 and cut up north bypassing Marlow to High Wycombe and Princes Risborough, we thought. After a comfort break, off we set again with plan B.

As we approached the Marlow exit of the M4 another sign greeted us: “A404(M) closed between junctions 9A and 9B”. Where are they? Exactly, on the road we wanted to get up to High Wycombe. Arghh! By now we might as well keep going on the M4 and spin, in a manner of speaking round the accursed (ja)M25. Plan C swung into action. At least the (ja)M25 was actually flowing, albeit through miles and miles of yet more road works.

I know we want our roads repaired – they are, after all, in a deplorable state – but to close two of the major routes north of the M4 corridor at the same time seems a little heavy-handed. It’s in the same vein as shutting down UK airspace for six days.