Back on the Bike

I haven’t been on the bike for over a week, partly because the weather has been beyond atrocious – ludicrously awful with gales, sleet, snow, fog, bucketing rain and at least half an inch of hailstones yesterday. Partly also because I’ve been trying to get my driving going again which meant some practice sessions in the new car with the other half. These did not go particularly well: the best that could be said for my first outing was that I didn’t hit anything. As for the rest – well by the end the other half was only going ‘Jeeeeesus Christ’ three or four times a session, which I count as an improvement, although it could have been because he had his eyes covered and was cowering in the back. But anyway, I have done the driving that I needed to do and today, it being fine and breezy, I was back on the bike to the relief of all concerned.

My route took me past the scene of the mysterious pipe and bucket combo, and I can now report that there have been developments. The bucket has gone and been replaced with …

mystery (partially) solved

… a water feature.

Now you might think – given that this – rather impressive – construction is effectively in the middle of nowhere and certainly nowhere near any house or garden, that the mystery continues. But, having had to give directions around here it makes perfect sense to me. You see the landscape around us, while beautiful, consists of the same few elements – drystane dyke, church, cottage, farmhouse, barn, field, plantation forest, bridge, stand of trees, hill – repeated over and over. The roads are almost all un-named and un-numbered and the signposting tends towards the erratic. If you see a sign to where you’re going at one junction then you can be fairly certain that at the next junction, there will be no mention of your destination, and half the little roads around here get no sign posts at all. Directions tend to be of the ‘go 3.8 miles along the road until you come to a track, go up it and take the ninth left, and if you reach the sea you’ve gone too far’ kind. A couple of weeks ago, in the fog, we had to go out and rescue someone who had got so lost trying to find us that she had almost given up. And she had lived in the area for years…

So if you live down an un-named road, off another un-named road, off a third un-named road, in the land that signposts forgot, then building something like this at the end of your road makes perfect sense. Because with ‘Turn left at the big water feature’ there’s  no chance of there being another one of those around. Or at least until the idea catches on, and everyone has one.

I still don’t think it adequately explains the bucket, though.