Tag: spray

September 10th – A miserable, wet and grey day with high winds kept me hemmed in until late afternoon, when despite being caught by a couple of heavy squalls, the skies cleared and the sun came out for a while.

I contented myself with a loop of Brownhills and Chasewater and explored some things I’d been meaning to check out for a while, and it wasn’t a bad, but chilly and damp ride.

Some of the views – when the sun caught the spray and the rain sparkled in the light – were gorgeous.

It seems the Indian summer I was hoper for is not to be this year.

July 15th – Another joy of warm summer rides is the overspray from crop sprinklers. Often placed – sometimes I wonder if somewhat mischievously – so they spray into adjoining lanes, cycling through the cold mist is a delight.

Sometimes, it you can’t get caught by one directly, standing downwind can be just as rewarding.

Or maybe, just maybe, if the sun is shining, you can catch a perfect little rainbow…

July 24th – One of the sights of summer I’ve so far missed is the crop sprinkler. Near Shenstone today, one solitary spray, watering a field of fine looking potatoes. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can get a full rainbow in their mist, but my efforts to find one today wee fruitless. 

If you’re even luckier, it’s near the road, and there’s a delicious game of dare as you try to cycle past without getting sprayed.

Wehen I was a youth, you could hear these – and there would have been large numbers of them – for miles, the light rushing sound and the toc-toc-toc of the rotator, but since crops have switched more to cereals, they’re a rarer sight.