On March 2 the Daily Express published (yet another) article about the best place in which to live, this time Twyford in Berkshire being the choice. One plus, apparently, is that it is "a quick carriage ride from the Princess of Wales’s childhood home in Bucklebury". It's unclear what sort of carriage that would be, as Bucklebury is four miles from the nearest station, and I can't see a horse drawing a carriage being very happy in Reading's traffic. (Could it use the town's controversial bus lanes?)

Eventually a local news website picked up the story, and though it retained the very tenuous royal connection (as  well as the town's proximity to Windsor), it wisely omitted the reference to quick carriage rides.

The same local website has also published a comparison of taxi fares. The full article may be behind a paywall, but it notes that "the average cost for a 4km journey in Reading is £18.06 ... with the average cost per 1km in the town being £3.39. " Four times £3.39 equals £13.56.

My friends must be lucky. On their last five taxi rides to my house from the station, they've been charged an average of £15.10 for a journey that is, at best, 5km, though drivers often take a longer route to avoid snarl-ups in Oxford Road and road works. Curiously the fares are much the same as before Lockdown.

When I consider the cost of keeping my three-year-old Fiesta on the road and weigh that against my modest mileage (9,300 miles in 44 months), and then reflect that nearly all of that is to get me out in the countryside for walks, I do wonder whether I need a car.  I live close to Tilehurst Station, so have excellent access to a number of rail routes -  and, indeed, I have used them all in the past for walks.

The current unreliability is one deterrent. On Thursday I drove to Pewsey and left my car (for free) in the main town car-park. (Years ago, I'd taken the train there and walked alongside the canal to Hungerford, where I took a train home.) After a six-hour walk, I diverted into Pewsey Station and across the footbridge, to hear announcements that trains were delayed by 30 minutes or so. There's nothing to amuse one at the station, as an acquaintance found one dark evening two winters ago when she was hoping to return to London.

Driving re-tests every two years would place further burdens on the DVLA^▸ (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency), which is having trouble coping with the number of learner drivers wanting their first tests, and with the Government eager to cut Civil Service numbers ...

I'm nudging 80 and haven't needed to use a motorway for decades and don't drive at night. Didn't the last tweaks to the test include parking on the other side of the road and then driving away? Something I might find challenging but have never needed to do. So I would twitch at the thought of a test that took these into account.

Certainly eyesight is an issue, and elderly people can have free annual tests. The roadside check is a bit hit & miss; this morning I walked along several streets in bright sunshine and could read number plates from further away than on a dull day.

When Dad was around 84, staff at Mother's nursing home were alarmed when they saw him drive up to visit her, such was his own state of health.

Today I walked alongside a few short stretches of the Lambourn Valley Railway in West Berkshire and, driving beforehand past Boxford, noticed that the former station shelter that had been moved to act as a bus shelter on the Newbury-Lambourn road had disappeared. I recall that just before Lockdown there had been some debate about its future as it needed much TLC^▸ (three letter code, or tender loving care, depending on context ), and I gather
that it's now at Didcot Railway Centre.

Back around 1962, a couple of years after closure to the public, I was cycling nearby, some 25 miles from school, when I passed a schoolmate riding in the opposite direction with a station nameboard under his arm. (I think it might have been "Boxford".) When I returned to the area in the 1970s, I visited the site of Welford Station, then the "terminus" of the remains of the line that ran from Newbury solely to deliver munitions to the USAF^▸ (United States Air Force. The Boeing C-40 Clipper is a military version of the Boeing 737-700C airline transport. The name comes from the fact that It is used by both the United States Navy and the United States Air Force) base that was - and is - nominally "RAF^▸ (Royal Air Force) Welford". Trains would run into the station site, then move onto the spur leading up to the base. Munitions now arrive by road off the M4.

(It's some years since I "checked out" the route of the line but, IIRC^▸ ('if I recall/remember/read correctly'), there are very few signs of the LVR - today I noticed a couple of bridges and a few fence posts.)

Almost four years later, I still have my doubts about motorists deferring to pedestrians WAITING  to cross a road at a junction. Yesterday I was driving behind another motorist who suddenly stopped on a mini-roundabout to allow someone to cross the road. I ws driving slowly and had left a good gap between my car and his, so was able to stop in time, but ...

(A few miles later, I stopped in a village to buy a newspaper, parking  beyond the shop and walking back, then, some hours later, driving back past the shop. On all three occasions there were pedestrians crossing the road obliquely, to the extent they couldn't see traffic approaching them. Reminded me of decades ago when I used to cycle along Marlborough High Street, a very wide road with cars parked either side and in the middle; I could count on someone walking across at an angle.)

This morning I had a leaflet through my letter box from my local branch of a political party announcing that there have been delays to completing the lifts which were "due to open last winter, but an upgrade to the local electricity supply is required before they can become operational".

I expect a leaflet from another political party also claiming credit for initiating the project. The one I had this morning was a modest four small pages, one devoted to contact information, another helpfully giving a timetable for local road re-surfacing between March 20 and 31. Today is the 28th and all but two of the 17 roads listed have already been treated. My cul de sac serving nine houses had its first re-surfacing since it was built 49 years ago. It was "micro-surfaced", giving a somewhat rough effect.

In December I posted about a light-controlled foot crossing near Calcot.  Today I found something similar half-a-mile east of Midgham Station.(My photos are not good - I blame the sun in my eyes.)

Earlier on my walk I'd looked into Aldermaston Station, which has introduced fees for car-parking since my last visit, though the first dozen arrivals can leave their cars for free on the road outside. On the south side of the station there are the remains of a siding; I guess that the connection may have been taken out at the time that the road bridge was rebuilt to allow overhead cables - and that the scrap value of the rails and the resale value of the wooden sleepers was insufficient to justify their removal.

(Near me a guy built a new house on the edge of a chalk pit using horizontally-laid sleepers supported by uprights. Over the years the uprights moved out at an increasingly-alarming angle, necessitating a proper stone wall being built last summer. Undeterred,  someone 50 yards up the road has also used sleepers to support the side of a garden of a house that's being restored.)

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) News

A police officer only paid the £34 fare between Axminster in Devon and Salisbury in Wiltshire "around half of the time" as ticket barriers were open and staff allowed him to travel for free on production of a warrant card.

Just seen this on Meridian TV^▸ (Thames Valley, or TeleVision, depending on context) news:
Engineers make remarkable discovery at Salisbury railway station during routine upgrade

One tunnel was briefly mentioned in the Salisbury & Avon Gazette in September.

"The government has been urged to introduce presumed liability for civil cases relating to certain road collisions, a move which would see motorists presumed liable when involved in incidents involving cyclists, pedestrians or horse riders."

Road C.C. article

I'm in an interesting situation in that I cycled more than quarter of a million miles and was a strong defender of cyclists. During that time I had a few bad experiences with motorists, usually down to their carelessness, though there were a couple of cases involving young yobs.

But on half-a-dozen occasions in recent years it's only been my alertness that has prevented me driving into an idiot cyclist. Had I done so, I would have had difficulty in proving that I was not at fault. (Some times I'd noticed a cyclist riding on the pavement, only for him to suddenly switch to the road in front of me,as I'd half anticipated.) And as a pedestrian I've had a dozen close encounters with pavement cyclists.

It's reassuring that some of the comments appended to the road.cc article are balanced and recognise that some cyclists are their own worst enemies.

I still regard cycles - and even "illegal" e-scooters - as an ideal way of getting around, provided they're used sensibly.

Years ago on the Tube, I saw a young man starting begging.The third person he approached produced an ID card that had sufficient authority to make the guy throw up his hands in acceptance and leave the train at its next stop.

What is the success rate for such fines being paid?

A friend of mine boarded the 1023 at Paddington which, she texted was "going nowhere" for 12 minutes,eventually she got to Reading and waited for the 1123 to Tilehurst/Didcot, which was progressively "delayed", eventually being announced as running fast to Didcot. By then I was waiting in the car at Tilehurst Station, where the concourse was jammed with vehicles of contractors working on the lists - and an ambulance making a rare appearance in its dedicated parking space; I was half-blocking the entrance and advised my friend to take a taxi and returned home. When I got there, I reflected that she might as well have waited for the next local service and she came to the same decision, opting to walk to my house. BTW^▸ ('by the way') nowadays the station car park seems almost as full as it was pre-Lockdown.

Copehill Village sidings

Though the "presenter" is a bit confused about rolling stock!

It's a long time since I visited the village and I can vaguely remember the track, but in those days they were devoid of locomotives and stock.

(And since I'm posting about Salisbury Plain, when I passed through Ludgershall in the summer the new housing estate west of the former station was nearing completion, though the embedded rails and warning signs for the spur that crossed the A3026 remained. An enthusiast for the M &SWJR was in Ludgershall in August, and was surprised to see how many wagons there were in the south yard. I didn't think that the "military line" from Andover was used nowadays, although talk persists of re-opening it to civilian traffic.)