Uncommon land

Firstly, thank you for the kind comments on yesterday's blip. Back to more familiar territory today and a trip to the military land near Frimley Green. Except that I learned today that it is common land. There is a public right of access but byelaws protect the military exercises from public interference. The result, by and large, is peace and harmony.

But tensions do occur occasionally. Today I passed a group of soldiers heading in to the woods. I was in the car, otherwise I would have loved to have blipped the female officer in full camo face makeup (quite carefully applied!). Would that have been interference? She looked great.

Later, while walking the dog, I found a military chap standing by a temporary sign saying "keep out, military exercise". I asked him about it and he said that the winding down of the military presence in Afghanistan and the selling off of other military land meant that demand for using this area of land had grown.

Further through the woods I got in to discussion with one of the locals walking his dogs who was accutely aware of his rights. The keep out sign, he said, had no authority and was just an example of military muscle-flexing. He'd had one or two run-ins with the military who he said were generally OK but that one or two officers sometimes got a bit shirty. "Particularly the women."

He'd complained because some soldiers had been riding quad bikes through the woods at excessive speed. There is a 15 mph speed limit for all vehicles, frequently ignored by the troops, he said.

I worry that as our army shrinks - the nearby Deepcut Barracks is to close shortly - there will be fewer areas available for training. In theory more areas should be needed by the expanding Territorial Army, but the move to broaden the UK's civilian reserve has had a stuttering start. "Not enough volunteers coming forward," said the chap who seemed to be in the know. He told me he'd found a live round on the land a while back. That too is a worry as there should be no live shooting there. But it does make a walk in the woods that much more exciting.