harvest stops and starts this year

This years harvest seems to have been a bit stop and start this year, the farmers have got going then wet spells have come along putting a halt on things till the next few dry days appear. This week they have been flat out from the look of things trying to get it all in, will they though, the cereal crops are looking blacker and cleared fields are showing where the regeneration of dropped seeds are germinating readily.

I came back across the fen the other day on the single track road and there were at least half a dozen combines of various ages and sizes going at it.

Driving along the single track road amidst farmers working flat out was an eyeopener in another way, or was it, have we got so self centred and the answer is probably yes.

There are passing places and field entrances where you can pull over to let vehicles coming the other way pass. Coming towards me I could see a couple of vehicles and a lorry not too far beyond. Behind me was one vehicle so I pulled off to let them pass, the vehicle behind sat there for a while and also let the two cars past then seeing the lorry was a bit slower decided to go off in a hurry and must have pulled over closer to the lorry still they had made some fast progress eh.

Then a van comes along from the direction I had come and did it pull over where I was, did it even see me sat waiting there, who knows the driver kept on until it got another gateway closer to the lorry before pulling over. The lorry then slowly came past loaded with large bales the whole thing swaying like a fairground ride on the fen road then the van was off like a shot.

Why are we in such a hurry these days, the fen road is not one to hurry on for starters especially if you have got any respect for the vehicle you are driving. Is it symptomatic of the pressure people are under these days to make more money. Whatever I dont like it.

old friends and stories

While at the country fair I also saw and old friend. Neil Lanham was there with a stand selling his recordings of country folk, these are priceless things voices from the past almost as they recall how things were done and how lives were lived last century.

Neil used to tell at Cambridge a few years ago but life moved on, he is has stopped telling but the recording goes. For Neil its the recording of folks real lives that is the thing and those memories as or more valuable than any story from a book.

For you Dad

Fenland Country Fair and as usual the steam roundabout was there, given the rain there were less people but I still enjoyed the event. Collected a bit of the roundabout in action for Dad who would have loved it, I know hes not with us anymore but he still saw it.