a 4.30am start and away about 4.45, it is still quite busy on the motorway south even at that very early hour. I sailed down though and was soon on the M42 past the NEC and Birmingham airport and then on the M40 heading to the South East. There were queues very early trying to exit to Oxford despite this I still made good time. It was spotting with rain and cloudy. I got parked up not far from the bus station I think i may have parked there before, amazingly there were still places when I returned later, it wasn't so simple in Reading. Anyway the weather decided to cheer up with sunny spells which was exactly what i didn't need at that time of day in March, it was impossible to get good shots in my usual places the only one which worked for the light was swamped in road works, I did a fair bit of walking from location to location and then it did cloud over so the best solution seemed to be sticking to the cross roads and putting up with the cyclists,pedestrians and taxis. They have also gone for that maniacal scheme of push bikes laying all over the place for people to fall over, I don't know if they pay for them, they certainly take no care for them. I find cyclists arrogant and oblivious to other road or pavement users next to helicopters and motorcycles they are my least preferred forms of transport although if pushed I could probably extend the list, skateboards maybe, BMWs ( sorry Keith). Anyway I did really well after I'd settled down and the morning rush died a sudden death and that was that, I was on my way to Reading and across country following the old Satnav. It was still cloudy but by the time I got there sunny and the occasional cloud. I think I bought shares in the car park, £18 to park up near the station, I struggled like I always struggle with Reading. The buses should look good, everybody else seem to rate them but anybody who falls for colour changing paint , especially green must have a screw loose. It took several hours to get n hour of film, slightly enhanced by a tow away at the station which is the sort of morbid delight that sattracts the enthusiast.Perhaps I'll downgrade reading to an every other year destination, I always end up frustrated trying to cover it satisfactorily, I had a brew in M&S then tried again, the kids were out of school by now but the sun was below the building as they came past the station so the shots were marginal but ok and I got them and paid a shed load of cash to NCP and got the hell out of it before the rush hour traffic got going, the Satnav took me north to the M40 and I arrived home about 7.10pm, the things we do for our hobbies.No sign of the bus from Australia I ordered , it got caught by customs, they wanted £17 in tax for it , after paying Australian VAT and then UK it's a dear do making repeats seldom otherwise I'd have quite a collection. Comments are closed.
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