Red Flags Flying...Red Poppies...

I did say that I was after more poppies, after my unusual Blip of two days ago...

But you weren't expecting anything straightforward, now, were you??

LARGE

And yes, high up on Salisbury Plain's perimeter I took the bus to and where yes, the scarlet Military flags were flapping brightly in the breeze. "Military Firing Range - Keep Out when Red warning flags are displayed".

No problem! I have no intention of risking being shot or blown up or being run over by a huge tank! And this part, near Market Lavington is such an intense area, the entrances are blocked off and even a guard!

Well, I say a guard. He was in a little concrete hut reading a tabloid newspaper. I peered in, as you do. A few minutes later, he popped out, for a cigarette - and a chat. He was hardly military and was only armed with a lighter. Firing was to go on to midnight. He loved his job. The views from that section of the White Horse Trail (a different part of I was also walking on yesterday) are incredible and he loved watching the weather, the birds, the changing countryside... well, we could have chatted for hours!

As I walked west along the perimeter road, more and more poppies appeared. You wouldn't be wise to leave that track as, well, the signs do warn of bits of unblown up bits that might still, well, blow up!

In the distance, I saw these clumps of poppies on the sides of this track used by the Military. Nine times magnification lens means that this is WELL behind prohibited firing lines, which, to me, adds to the intrigue. Then, I noticed the big black birds on the white posts... anticipating something? adding a rather solemn and melancholic aspect to the rather surreal feeling one gets when traversing intense beauty rubbing shoulders with the ugly machine that is War.

The fact that nothing is on this track, to me, adds something too, as it winds round the corner. An uneasy emptiness. An expectation, perhaps.

Lens is Tamron SP 70-300mm VC.