For driving fast in Scandinavian forests

Sophie, my Volvo XC60 car, is bristling with sensors of one kind or another. So it was no surprise to discover a pair of little horn-like devices half-hidden in the front radiator grille. This was one of them:

The rectangular housing off to its right in the picture hides the front radar, and naturally I supposed that this small horn-like device was itself scanning the road ahead in some way, especially as there was another just like it on the other end of the radiator grille, so that they formed a symmetrical pair. I dismissed both from my mind: I didn't know what they did exactly, but if they were part of my Volvo's external equipment they must fulfil some important function.

So when one broke off the other day, while I was cleaning the front of the radiator, I was immediately concerned that I'd damaged a sensor that mattered. No doubt it wouldn't affect the actual running of the car, but it might rob me of some useful hazard detection. I did rely quite a bit on my car's sensors and what they warned me of. With a long holiday looming, it needed sorting out urgently! 

I examined the thing. 

Well, for a start it wasn't wired in. Odd, that: how could it send any electronic information? Or was it some kind of slave unit, activated by the adjacent radar? The two lugs seemed to have snapped. It had been held to the radiator by a plastic bracket. Odd again: that seemed too flimsy for a factory-installed Volvo part. It had two holes: one at the front, and a larger one at the side. Surely a sensitive device wouldn't be designed to draw in rushing air (and insects)? Ah, maybe it was for 'tasting' the atmosphere in some way, for air quality or temperature perhaps? There were external light and temperature sensors on the door mirrors. Why not elsewhere, on the front radiator, for instance?

I consulted the online handbook. No joy there. I went online. Nor there. Either I was looking for the wrong kind of information (i.e. it wasn't a sensor, but something else) or it was a part that ordinarily never failed and nobody had seen fit to put anything online about it. But the Volvo dealer would surely know. 

I wanted to go out for the afternoon. I might as well head for Eastbourne first, and drop in at the Volvo dealer there. Which I did. Happily I saw the same young chap I saw just a few days earlier, when calling by to arrange Sophie's annual service and MOT, and to ask a technical question on the wisdom/feasibility/cost of an auto gearbox fluid change, since one wouldn't have been carried out before, and I did a lot of towing. 

I showed him the broken-off object. He too wondered what it was. I took him outside to Sophie and showed him the other one, still in place. Yes, it certainly looked like some kind of sensor! But offhand he didn't know what it did. However, another colleague might know. He went off to consult. A little later he returned, with a twinkle in his eye. Yes, it might well be an important little device in certain circumstances. It depended where I intended to take the car. It wasn't a sensor. It was a deer whistle, for driving in forests where deer might be around. A warning device then. It worked when air at enough speed was forced into the front hole. It then emitted a high-pitched sound that deer would hear, and be warned of my approach in the car. 

Really? I'd never heard of such a gadget. 

This and the other whistle were attached to the radiator grille with a sticky pad. They weren't Volvo parts. There were plenty to buy on the Internet. 

It seemed that I had been a bit daft. But I didn't feel that way: why should I know what the thing had been? He hadn't. Besides, I was now spared the expense of getting a new sensor fitted - quite a relief!  (Although on reflection it would have been covered by the one-year Volvo Selekt Used Car Warranty, which had two months left to go) 

Happy ending then. I went off to Bexhill, and enjoyed viewing an art exhibition (Barbara Kasten) at the De La Warr Pavilion. 

While in the car, I had a fresh look at the broken-off deer whistle.

I blew through it, and it sounded just like an ordinary whistle. I could hear it clearly, and I don't make any special claims for my elderly hearing. So much for it emitting an ultra high-pitched noise that only deer could hear! 

If I could make it sound by blowing through it with no special force, it must be sounding all the time as the car sped along, if going fast enough. How irritating for others. Why couldn't I hear it inside the car? Obvious answer: it wasn't audible above the noise of the diesel engine. Then why should any deer up ahead pay it any attention? 

I began to think that the previous owner had fitted a gadget that couldn't do what it said on the tin. Once home, I removed the other whistle. It came off very easily. I was glad to be rid of it. I disliked having useless extras on my car.

I also looked up 'deer whistle' on the Internet, discovering a host of examples for sale, generally for not much money. This one was very like my two whistles. Click on the screenshots to see the detail:

It was more expensive than most. Look at the claims made. The whistle will activate at speeds over 35mph. Neither humans nor pets inside the car will hear anything. It will alert deer a quarter of a mile away. Huh. I think that's a load of phooey. I can't see how a tiny toy-like plastic device like this, that relies on driving fast enough, can send out a 'ultrasonic' shriek that any animal a quarter of a mile ahead will notice above the sound of my engine.  

Deer still abound in the countryside, more than one might think. And rural Sussex, with its woods and hedges and remote tracts of lonely farmland, may well have more deer than most Southern counties. Certainly Ashdown Forest, which I drive through every few weeks, is home to plenty of deer. I sometimes see them when coming home in mid-evening, crossing the road ahead of me, usually in pairs though occasionally there's a herd. Yes, the odd animal will dart out suddenly, but it's far more usual to see deer from a distance, and they are well gone by the time you pass the crossing-point. It's a dawn and dusk hazard mostly. During the day they must retreat to the deeper forest. 

The thing is, I am deer-aware; and after sunset, or in mist, I am anticipating an encounter. Besides, in such conditions I probably never go fast enough to activate a whistle like this. I feel it's a superfluous gadget. If deer were a constant and very pressing danger to driving, as they might well be in Canada or Scandinavia, I would fit something likelier to get their attention and make them move away in good time. It would be powered and substantial and very noisy indeed. And not make of flimsy plastic that could snap off.

If you would like to give me feedback on this post, or make an enquiry, please email me from my Blog Profile.

That lovely smell has gone

Now - as I finally have the opportunity - three little posts.

The first laments a lost smell of the nostalgic kind that was there in my schooldays, and right through my adult life, but seems now to have disappeared. I speak of the smell of black Parker Quink ink. 

I have always used fountain pens that fill from a bottle. Yes, it has become terribly old-fashioned to do that. Since the 1960s, children and students - if they use fountain pens at all - or any pen for that matter - have embraced ink cartridges to save themselves the fiddly ritual of bottle-filling. Only fountain pens enthusiasts have been buying bottles of ink in adulthood, lately online, as proper 'pen shops' (as opposed to pen and pencil sections in art and stationery shops) have become a rarity. 

Fountain pens themselves have not died. They nearly did. They nearly became curios at 'antique fairs'. But there were always individualists who stubbornly or defiantly clung to old things and outmoded ways. Besides, the posh end of the fountain pen market was never likely to vanish: how else would world leaders sign trade or peace treaties? There were in any event calligraphists who loved their pens, and were prepared to experiment with nibs and exotic inks. And diehards (myself among them) who preferred to write cards and letters and shopping lists with a proper fountain pen, rather than a despised ballpoint of some sort.

There is much modern enthusiasm (among some in the youngest generations) for any 'analogue' device that recreates a retro experience. Or feels as if it does. This is why such things as vinyl records and turntables, and more lately old cameras from the 1990s and 2000s, have become cool objects of desire. I don't know whether this actually extends to things to write with, like a classic fountain pen, but flourishing a fountain pen in the right company is surely an instant talking-point in 2024. Like wearing a vintage watch that ticks. 

In a world of soulless electronic gadgets that have only a short lifespan, a device that might be many decades old inspires respect and possibly awe. My own fountain pen, Water Dragon, a Parker 51 (now there's a classic!) was made in Parker's Newhaven factory - not very far away from me - in July, August or September 1955. It's therefore sixty-nine years old, just three years younger than me. But it still works perfectly. And I love the weekly ritual, every Monday morning - whether at home or on holiday - of filling my fountain pen. It has to be done carefully, just so, but it's not hard to do, and I never spill any ink. My 'reward', if you can call it that, is to smell the ink in the bottle before I screw the top back on. 

Ah, that smell. Until I started the latest bottle - they last for ages - the ink always had a chemical odour, hard to describe, but pleasant. You imagined a secret formulation that had stood the test of time. A formulation that was good for the pen: it did not, for instance, clog up the tubes inside, nor attack the rubber sac containing the ink. I reasoned that an ink as benign as that couldn't be harmful to one's nostrils! 

But something has happened. The ink in my latest bottle is different. It has no smell. It's just as black; it writes just the same; but that slightly acrid whiff has been lost. Parker must have been forced to reformulate. Perhaps in response to some EU regulation. (The ink is made abroad now) Or perhaps one of the ingredients has become too expensive, and a substitute has been used. Whatever the reason, my Monday morning filling ritual is now missing a key element, that lovely smell. Parker Quink has lost an important part of its character.

Oh well, change is inevitable and one must just adapt. So far as writing with it is concerned, Quink is still a good ink, and I'm not going to fill up with something else simply because Quink is no longer quite the same. But this could now be the time to experiment. There are many alternative inks I could use, available online, and reviews on Websites or YouTube to guide me. Maybe they smell good too!

If you would like to give me feedback on this post, or make an enquiry, please email me from my Blog Profile.

Orkney, here I come! (For a week this time)

It's not that I'm seriously feeling my age - I'm only seventy-two - but I am conscious of things taking more effort than they used to, and it seems to me that it would be wise to take, sooner rather than later, all the long-range holidays that I want to experience. Better to spend the money now, and enjoy what I get for it to the full! 

Two years ago, in September 2022 to be precise, I had a brief taste of Orkney, those islands off the far north of the Scottish mainland. I took my car (it was Fiona then) over on the ferry from Scrabster to Stromness, and stayed one night. I packed an awful lot in. I drove around the west part of the main island (called Mainland) twice; I had a good look at Kirkwall, Orkney's main town, visiting the Cathedral and Bishop's Palace; I bought Starfishie at Alison Moore's jewellery workshop in Dounby; I ate a very good dinner at The Foveran; I visited a couple of the major archaeological sites (the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness); and saw the Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm. I also had a quick look at Orkney's other town, Stromness, while waiting to join the ferry back to Scrabster, giving the famous Pier Arts Centre most of my time, but still making a point of checking out the Point of Ness Caravan and Camping Site at the south end of town. 

I was most impressed with the West Mainland, and loved Stromness. But I saw much elsewhere that needed a closer look, and I certainly didn't have time to see it all, not by a long chalk. I knew I'd have to return, and probably for several days.

Well, I've now booked a full week at the Point of Ness site, arriving 6th May and departing 13th May. This week in Orkney will be the centrepiece, the jewel, in a five and a half week caravan touring holiday, most of it in northern Scotland. I've booked it months ahead because in the second half of May there's the hugely popular Orkney Festival, and getting a pitch will be hard or impossible if I leave it too late. Given that, I don't think booking nine months in advance is ridiculous. Anyway, I'm in now, on a definite pitch, with the cost fully paid. How much? £205 for the seven nights. About £30 per night.

Of course, there's the return fare for car and caravan on the Scrabster-Stromness ferry to pay as well. I expect that to cost over £200. I'd book that now, for the 6th and 13th May next year, but it seems I must wait until Northlink Ferries publish their 2025 timetable in November. 

But I can still go ahead and make a string of site bookings with the Caravan and Motorhome Club. I've already worked out dates and places. Basically it'll be a dash to Scotland, and then a dash home again. I may be able to meet up with a couple of friends on the homeward leg, but the prime object is to maximise my time in Orkney, Caithness, and in the Inverness area. Who knows, I may never go so far north again, although Scotland south of the Grampians will remain within my ordinary range from Sussex. 

This is obviously going to be an expensive holiday, but the hit will be less if I can pay for part of it at 2024 rates. Also, I'll make a significant saving on five and a half weeks' electricity, gas and water at home. That will also offset some of the overall cost.

Orkney is a long way from Sussex. It's about 800 miles by road, just to get to the ferry terminal at Scrabster. Roughly the same as driving to the south of France.

Here are some location maps - tap on any of them to see a magnified view:

The Point of Ness Caravan and Camping Site is bottom centre in the map section just above. Here are some aerial views of it, taken from the website gallery:

The pitch I've chosen is along the edge nearest the sea. So, facing the sea,  I'll have a fine view of Stromness to my left. Off to my right will be the huge expanse of Scapa Flow:

And behind me will be the hilly island of Hoy:

So I really do get very good sea views from my plum spot! Of course, there's no shelter from strong breezes and cold winds. I should think springtime in Orkney comes late, and will have barely started in May. I must expect it to be rather cool and wet. This said, with the electric heating on, the caravan is a cosy place to be. And completely weatherproof. I've just had the caravan checked for dampness: nothing at all was detected.  

Stromness itself is full of character. There's definitely a flavour of a Cornish coastal town about it - Fowey mostly comes to mind. Here are some of the shots I took in 2022, in the space of an hour:

The street you see is actually the main high street, and cars do go down it. There is however a much wider parallel back road, which I will take the caravan along. There are many narrow side-alleys or wynds, some with glimpses of the sea. Narrow to keep out the wind, I'm thinking.

The blue building above is part of the Pier Arts Centre complex. This is a stylish modern gallery of international repute, very much on the lines of the Tate St Ives. And in fact the lady who endowed it knew the chief members of the St Ives School of artists, and some of their work is exhibited. Hepworth, Nicholson, Frost, Heron, and others such as Wallis. (But not Wood - I did ask why not) Plus also many other fine painters and sculptors. I will probably have a second, more considered look. The seaward windows of the gallery frame some harbour scenes very nicely:

Bustling Kirkwall also has its attractions, and better everyday shops, but correspondingly less charm. But as with Stromness I will explore it much better on my week-long stay in Orkney. It's a chance to really nose around and find out what the locals do. Likewise with the other much smaller settlements. There's always more going on than you think. 

I will have time to visit an outlying island. If I possibly can, I will spend a few hours on Hoy. Here's a map:

You really need a car on Hoy. The ferry from Houton (south-east of Stromness) comes in at Lyness, and if only on foot you can view what remains of the former naval base there (Scapa Flow was a vast fleet anchorage in both World Wars), including a museum. But otherwise personal transport is necessary. I'll want to see Longhope, especially the old lifeboat station there, the scene of a dreadful lifeboat tragedy in 1969. I can now make my little pilgrimage. I can catch a glimpse of Melsetter House. At the north end of the island I can inspect the Dwarfie Stane, a huge rock with a cave-like interior fit for hermits, and Rackwick Bay, shown in this shot I took as the ferry passed by in 2022:

Those stupendous sandstone cliffs in the left side of the shot extend unbroken for miles, and standing in front of them, not far from Rackwick, is the Old Man of Hoy. I managed to get only these poorish shots of him in 2022...

...but now I'll have two more chances to secure better pictures. (And with the right camera this time!) It is perfectly possible, for the fit and able, to climb the steep hill out of Rackwick and trek across the moorland to the cliff edge, and then look across to the top of the Old Man. But I'm not fit and able enough for that.

Well, you can probably sense that I'm excited! The first (and most important) site booking has been made. Step by step I will now make this holiday happen. But then that's one of the pleasures and satisfactions of caravan holidays: the personal research, planning and work necessary to get the holiday literally on the road. And then the rest of the effort, every day until home again. It's nothing like an easy-peasy largely passive package holiday. It's relentless self-catering on wheels, and all the intricate arrangements made must go just right. Thank goodness planning is one of my better skills! 

I'm off to Scotland, on a different holiday, in early September. The drive north, with the trusty caravan in tow, starts just over two weeks from now. I haven't yet finished editing the 2,500 photos I took on my last holiday to Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, let alone getting down to writing about what happened. I'd better get a move on. You can have too many holidays, you know, but the car and caravan both beg to be used. And, as I say at the start of this post, there's that inner imperative to undertake long journeys while one still has the stamina. 

If you would like to give me feedback on this post, or make an enquiry, please email me from my Blog Profile.

It's official: the first mammals were Wombles!

Scrolling through the BBC News app the other day, I came across this science article. They have found rare and perfect fossil skeletons of a small shrew-like mammal that thrived (mainly underground, presumably) during the Dinosaur Age. 

This made me sit up. Good heavens! All was now clear. These weren't mere shrews. These were Wombles. Here's a typical Womble - Orinoco:

It's so obvious. Long nose or snout, just like the fossil. Such things as hats and scarves (and tidy bags) wouldn't get fossilised, of course, so their absence doesn't matter. And Wombles live underground! 

I'm so pleased. We first heard of the Wombles of Wimbledon Common in 1973, when they began to appear on children's television. Or possibly - if a parent - one might already have discovered the children's books about the Wombles written by Elizabeth Beresford from 1968. I read one of them once. Full of authentic detail, such as a reference to the number 93 bus route, which in 1978 - when I was living in the general area and working in Wimbledon - ran between Putney, past Wimbledon Common, through Wimbledon Village, and down the hill to Wimbledon proper - past my office in fact - and then onwards. Presumably this bus route was exactly the same ten years earlier, when she began her series of books. And looking route 93 up now, I see that it still does. Astonishing how some things never change! For all I know, bus route 93 ran alongside Wimbledon Common in the time of the dinosaurs, when the place would have been a hot steaming jungle, and dangerous for anyone intent on wombling. Doubtless Great Uncle Bulgaria, the oldest Womble, can recall how it was, and put us right on particulars. 

Anyway, it's so nice to have firm evidence not only that Wombles exist, but have been around for a very long time. 

I've always had a soft spot for Wombles. In 1978, when I moved to London, began working in Wimbledon, and needed suitable things for the flat I'd bought, my step-daughter A--- presented me with a colourful Womble lampshade, featuring all the main Wombles. I used it for years. Later on I bought an LP, The Best of the Wombles - the very flower of Mike Batt's musical genius - and those wombling songs are now on my phone in mp3 form. I think they stand up extraordinarily well in 2024, and have more substance and relevance than most of the stuff now churned out by Taylor Swift, tortured rap and brat artists, and similar lost souls.  

If you would like to give me feedback on this post, or make an enquiry, please email me from my Blog Profile.

Beautiful new pylons

I speak of the T-Pylon, a new design that won a competition organised jointly by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the then government back in 2011. It was to replace the tall, unattractive, skeletal design we have had since the 1920s. Ever since 2011 I have been looking out for these sleek new T-Pylons, and finally spotted a line of them last month at Mark Causeway, when driving between Wedmore and Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset. I stopped to take a shot or two.

They reminded me of a line of wind turbine posts, but with a crossbar at the top, rather than a propeller and generator pod. Plus a neat diamond-arrangement of wires and insulators. 

It was part of a section carrying power from Hinkley Point. The ones I saw became operational early in 2023, and point the way for new installations in the years ahead, if new electricity cables need to be routed over land and not (for instance) put inside tunnels underground. They may also replace the old-style pylons, but only very gradually: I imagine those will be with us for decades to come.

The new government has of course just made its Green Energy announcements. And it's not simply a case of building a few more offshore wind farms. The power generated has to be taken to where it is needed, generally a long distance overland, and new cable capacity will be needed. That means pylons. But pylons like this will be much less of a blot on the landscape than the unloved old ones, such as these at Akenham in Suffolk:

No contest, I'd say. In fact I think the new T-Pylons look pretty good. No, I wouldn't want one at the bottom of my garden; but a line of them half a mile away - and part of the bucolic scene - would be OK. The T-Pylons look nicely-designed and futuristic in a good way. They are less visible than the old sort, and don't use up so much farmland. No doubt they are aerodynamic and can withstand very high winds. And their maintenance should be easier.  

If we are going all-electric to save the planet, I am not going to protest. Pylons are a necessity, and can be regarded as a Good Thing. In any case, the ugly old infrastructure will gradually be dismantled, which will be a gain.

If you would like to give me feedback on this post, or make an enquiry, please email me from my Blog Profile.