Drain circles

Up to the Downs today for a peek at the horses to find, in the area in the middle of the course, a number of what looked like small crop circles. One of them seemed to be just about where the heritage indicator board used to stand, removed in some act of ecological vandalism, an act claiming to restore the downs to their natural condition - for all the world as if such a thing once existed.

Closer inspection revealed that the common feature of the circles, apart from having had the grass cut fairly recently, was their containing either patches of concrete or drain covers or both. We decided that the idea was to mark, to stop some agricultural implement either breaking same or being broken.

On to inspect a string of horses galloping up one of the sanded tracks, galloping up with what looked, to our untutored eyes, like a rather odd action. Perhaps caused by the soft sand. While pondering same, we were warned off by a council trusty for scaring the horses, having driven down from the crest of the hill in his pick-up for the purpose. Which triggered a new round of pondering about the mentality of horses who were spooked by elderly passers-by standing by the rails.

Otherwise lots of crows, seagulls and pigeons, these last tending to flock in the hollows. Some skylarks. The deep black of the crows, with its touches of green and purple in the morning winter light, was rather good. Could an impressionist have caught it?

The grass on the downs was rather patchy, some very short and some rather battered, presumably by horses.

PS: I took my usual dozen or so shots of the big drain circle, with the telephone seeming to alternate between frost green (as above) and lime green for the grass. Maybe one day I will get this tiresome colour feature under control - a bit like those irritating features in MS Word which kick in without being asked and without you having any idea how to turn them off. Perhaps one should not be surprised, since the telephone has moved from its Finnish home to the MS shop.