Easy to change-over warning signs on the road to Oxlane bridge.

You might have noticed that it’s been raining a bit. While we don’t seem to have it as bad as some areas, the ground has been saturated and Padbury Brook has burst its banks.

At the Medieval bridge at Thornborough, the water on Monday had risen four feet above the level I’d seen in December.

Thornborough bridge on Monday.

Thornborough bridge at the beginning of December last year.

Granborough bridge. But what's that, bottom left?

What’s this strange metal object built into the bridge? It’s an Ordnance Survey Bench Mark, and it was put there for map making. The number 1967 isn’t the year it was installed; it was built into the bridge in about 1914.

The OSBM.

There are thousands of these bench marks in the UK, numbered in sequence on long surveying lines across the country.

(This is the second post about bluebell woods in the North Bucks Wanderer’s stomping ground. The first post is here.)

It was Saint George’s Day. I had already visited two woods that day, this was the third and last.

Hollington Wood is privately owned, and although there are no footpaths through the wood, there are two permissive paths that are nearly always open. The wood is a couple of miles South of Olney, not far from the A509. It has a very nice display of bluebells this year, including at least one albino example.

I drove up the back road to Olney, then came out South from the town and back towards Milton Keynes. I turned left on to the Newport Road, about 250 yards past the Newton Blossomville turn. The Newport Road was the old main road, now bypassed.

By the permissive path.

One of the most English of flowers is the bluebell, and what better day for me to go to see them than Saint George’s Day?

Shenley Wood
In the early 1990s I worked on the building site that would become Woodhill Prison. The main road went no further South than the prison, and one lunchtime I walked over to the woods, which back then were still in the countryside.

It was a sunny day in late April. To my great surprise, the woods were full of bluebells, the flower of Saint George.

By the path, Shenley Wood.

(Edited) My apologies, but I somehow managed to leave the first sentence off this post.  I've just put it back, and so the post should make rather more sense. The Wanderer

Always carry a camera! I try hard to do this so I have a choice of different cameras, according to what I’m doing that day.

There’s the Pentax outfit. It’s big, it’s heavy, and very versatile. When I’m just going out to take photos, it’s the weapon of choice. My K3 is out of production, but there’s now the Pentax KP, and the 16-50mm lens.

The Sony A6000 and 16-50mm lens does most things, and it’s a great daily carry. It’s fairly compact, light, and easy to carry. It fits into a coat pocket or, I would guess, into a large handbag.

The two 16-50mm lenses are different. The Pentax lens gathers between two thirds as much again and four times as much light, depending on the zoom setting, than the Sony lens. But it's also much bigger and heavier. 

The Canon G9 is outdated, worth little, and is far better than I thought it would be. I use it when I’m doing other work that’s not photographic or blog related, and it just goes (in its case) into the tool bag. The case has a belt loop so I can wear it while doing other things.

It’s a notebook camera and you wouldn’t be interested in my photos of old bits of electrical machinery, so there’s no photos from this camera here. But I have used it for blog photos in the past, when I’ve spotted something of interest.

Canon have modern G series cameras. One is the Canon G9 X.

Saturday 6th April. Cloudy. Next time you are in your local High Street, look up above the shop fronts and see what’s there. You might be surprised. This nice timber framed, early 17th century building is 38 High Street Newport Pagnell; it’s 400 years old! You can also see the gable end of the brick built number 40-42; it’s not quite so old, but still 17th century.
Sony A6000 and 16-50mm lens.

Wednesday 10th. Warm, sunny. A great day for drying clothes and for colour photography. I had been eating lunch in the back garden and noticed I had blue t-shirts, blue jeans and a nice blue sky. I popped back into the house, grabbed the Pentax and took a long series of photos, including this one.
Pentax K3, 16-50mm lens.

Well, that was clever. I made a note of the names of these three workmen and what they were doing in the Ouzel Valley Park in Milton Keynes, but I’ve lost the piece of paper. 

Anyhow, the two in the first picture were on their lunch break, but the man with the keys to the pick up hadn’t returned, and their lunch was locked inside the cab.

I took their photo, then when their mate turned up they all piled into the pick up and I got his picture too. He’s nearest the camera in the second photo. If I remember right, they were trimming conifers.