Road signs, footpaths and barley

click photo to enlarge
We were heading for the south of Northamptonshire to do a little walking and the signs were not good. In fact, the signs themselves were fine, but the trees had grown so that half of each one by the side of most major roads could not be read. Northamptonshire County Council or the Highways Agency or whoever is responsible for making sure road signs can be clearly seen hadn't been cutting the trees back and so, a couple of times, we went astray.

Had I thought more deeply about this I'd have realised that this was a taste of things to come, and in fact, the signs were definitely bad. The realisation that Northampton isn't "walking country" hit us after we'd ventured only a couple of hundred yards into some fields on a footpath. The council's waymarks were old, inaccurately placed to indicate the direction of the route, frequently missing, and invariably so faded that any information they once held was no longer legible. Those faults dogged us for several hours as we tried to follow paths marked on the Ordnance Survey map. The fact that many routes showed no sign of anyone having walked them before us didn't help. Occasionally we could see that a solitary walker had passed the way we were going, but such signs were rare.

I can't account for what we discovered in this part of the country. Yes, it is farmland, but it is varied, hilly, wooded, and visually and historically interesting: a more attractive area in which to walk than some that we know that are better waymarked and more frequented. Today's photograph shows my wife, map in hand walking up a hill one evening through ripening barley. This path was unusual in that other people had walked it, but all too common in that the farmer didn't appear to have cut the way of the path - walkers had trampled down the line of the route. Reflecting as we walked, I could only surmise that the absence of walkers is due to the fact that in many people's minds walking can only be undertaken in recognised "walking areas" - the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, Dartmoor, the Peak District etc when in fact it is a pleasurable, informative and photographically rewarding undertaking almost anywhere in Britain.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Time of the signs

click photo to enlarge

Near my house, at the entry to a short, scenic lane, with old houses, fine gardens, sturdy trees and a stream alongside it, there is a sign on a pole. It says "Unsuitable for heavy vehicles". Despite the fact that any driver of such a vehicle would have to have the visual acuity of a mole in sunglasses and the intelligence of a dead ant NOT to notice that the lane was unsuitable for his lorry, someone, somewhere, felt it needed spelling out in the form of a permanent sign that disfigures the locality.

The modern world seems obsessed with signs, particularly those designed to be read by drivers. We must have long passed the point where it is impossible for even the most diligent and alert person behind the wheel of a vehicle to take note of every piece of information that highway engineers have put before them. Indeed, there must be an increasing number of locations where to attempt to do so must surely impair your ability to drive safely. In other words they risk becoming counter-productive, encouraging that which they are designed to prevent. When the present government came to power one of the minor policies it gave voice to (and one of the few that I had any agreement with) was the desire for a reduction in the number of signs along our roads. But, they seem to have failed to achieve this goal just as they they are failing with many others. I recall a survey a few years ago suggesting that a large percentage of motorists had forgotten what a significant percentage of the road signs mean, so anyone thinking that a reduction in signage would be detrimental to road safety needs to factor that into their calculations too.

Today's photograph, taken on the beach at Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, has two signs, and I'm not ashamed to say that I don't know what they mean. If I were a sailor then I would make sure I did know. However, I have no interest in boats small or large, so I endanger no one with my ignorance. The fact that they are two different colours means, I suppose, that they must do more than simply mark the position of the groynes. From what little knowledge I have I think the green sign may be one of a pair (with a red one) marking the deep water channel. However, the purpose of the yellow one eludes me. By analogy with road signs they are probably warning markers because they are triangular. But I could be wrong, and beyond that, and despite a search I made, I'm clueless.

Of course, it was those green and yellow triangles, stridently coloured to make them noticeable, set against the blue of sea and sky that prompted my photograph, illustrating once again that the nature of something doesn't necessarily preclude it from being the subject of a photograph.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On