I was up and out before the Larks this morning. The high pressure system was shouting large format photography. A left-right choice in Ipswich saw me heading over to Orford to see if the light and lack of wind would be suitable for a large format image of the caravan and sheds plus small boats site. Alas, the light was dire some 20 minutes after sunrise and the prospect did not look good enough to hang around so I went exploring other edgelands between there and Woodbridge. Hinds nibbling in the gloom near RAF Woodbridge were a welcome sight but they are not in my parameters for this series. Another time, another hat for them.
Fate dictated that I take the back roads from Woodbridge to Martlesham on my journey back where the BT Research site offers an interface between what was an airfield and a new village. Any prospect of making any work disappeared as I hit a pothole in the gloom and wrecked the front nearside tyre. Fate did play a part in that I could have avoided this pothole had a car not been coming from the opposite direction. Such is life.
I have to say it looked like a band had turned up as I offloaded two large format cases and tripods from the boot to gain access to the spare.
Both the light and my tyre were too flat to make any work that justified exposing even B&W large format film.
These things happen.
I was surprised when I recorded the pothole on Suffolk County Council’s website though. The standard response was 20 days to look into it. Well Quatermass might have had something to do with this hole if it was left 20 days, so I hung around on the phone to do my civic duty and report it. Who knows how many tyres could be wrecked in 20 days? I spent a fair proportion of my working life involved with the Motorway and Trunk Road network and once a hole is formed it can only get bigger as traffic excavates it granite chipping by granite chipping until something major happens. Prevention is the only cure but with Councils bidding for residents in care homes like pieces of meat in an auction what chance has highway maintenenace got?
Watch out for the pothole on the Newbourne Road at the bottom of the hollow. You have been warned.