Part of the Union

Some months ago our local council closed roads round here to clear away about twenty years worth of silt out of the ditches, presumably to lessen the annual flood carnage we seem to get every winter. I know it was about twenty years worth because I found a credit card from 1992 and a prehistoric calculator among the crud.

A few weeks ago along came another lot of workmen with flail cutters who mowed the hedges. All the droppings fell into the nice clear ditches, and this picture shows the result. Nice neat hedges. Clotted drainage gulleys.

I think it's an elaborate work creation scheme, whereby the hedgers make jobs for the ditchers, who in turn have to call out the road fixing gang because the standing water has damaged the surface due to rampant breeding of pot holes.

After taking this picture on my iPhone I tucked it up my sleeve to protect it from the rain and carried on running. Unfortunately I must have pressed a few wrong buttons, because I have accidentally recorded twelve minutes of the inside of the arm of my neon pink running jacket.

Am thinking of submitting it to the Tate Modern for one of their video/art installations. It's no more boring than some of the ones I've seen there.