The end of the season

Geograph Blog ::

The end of the season

After the clocks went back I thought I didn't have much chance of getting anywhere new till the spring. I'd been Geographing a few years now for squares rather than just submitting random photos, and was running out of anywhere I could get to and wander around in time before it got dark. However, referring to the previous blog entry then the extension I had was a whole month, with a plan being made for Sundays when I knew there'd be hardly any traffic so could add another hour's travel time as I could almost double the distance for the other days. I chose TL0606 as it wasn't a Sunday, and proved if it was sunny (almost half an hour more daylight) and the roads were clear I could do the same during the week, and although the route has a few bottlenecks I was very lucky none were present till one coming back when I'd already finished.

This was a second chance for a square I missed last time as there were two paths, and the one I saw went west not east and thought this one was private so didn't realise it was the one I needed.

I basically worked round the compass points on my map looking for the nearest green spaces and then mapping out a route using the A-Z and pencilling in the squares and writing arrows on the roads to almost (it's not a perfect system) guarantee I got everywhere. That followed the system which had to be perfect of filling hectads, and a few needed two trips as I missed some the first time as it wasn't (which meant walking almost a mile in the pouring rain), especially in large fields although having a map helps . The 'off season' still found me getting as far as Datchet , Hemel Hempstead , Mickleham , and Kings Cross . That was due to the school holidays, making a normally dire journey into London into literally a holiday, sailing through Holloway as if it was the height of summer, and only stopped as the Congestion Charge prevents you crossing the Ring Road and had to cut back up Caledonian Road although I'd rather have gone right into the City where I barely have anything.

Using simple maths it's now a month to the shortest day and means a month or so after it (the start of February) will allow the same amount of time, and the new cameras I now have are able to take photos with any amount of light so add half an hour to the time I had with the original Olympus. I am now writing my routes for 2015, and happy to go into hibernation for a couple of months, as compared to the five I expected is pretty short really. And once I found an unmentioned button on the Lumix menu I could finally take passable night photos as well so if I find myself anywhere unusual at night I can get a red square there as well.