Dazzle Mine Eyes*

Landscape with Parhelia, Crown Hill, Radford Semele, Warwickshire

Following yesterday's confrontation with the glamour of dairy farming, I figured my best course was to get right back in the saddle. So I drove over to Radford Semele for another lunchtime wander around Crown Hill. This time, instead of heading for the summit, I walked east, through a small copse of beech trees to open flat top fields, and then south in the direction of Cedar Tree Farm, skirting Radford Hill as I did so.

On the return journey, in the east, I observed a solar spectacle, comprising two luminous spots either side of the sun. Each is a parhelion (pl. parhelia) or more popularly mock sun or sun dog. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, parhelia occur when the sun or moon shines through a thin cirrus cloud composed of horizontally aligned hexagonal ice crystals. A halo may appear (a resemblance of one may be discovered in part of this picture) when the axes are randomly oriented. The red end of the spectrum, being bent the least, appears on the inside, with the blue, when visible, appearing on the outside.

Driving home from work, just prior to 6:00, I arrived at a right hand bend along the A452 near Black Hales Farm, pretty much at the junction of the counties of Warwickshire and West Midlands. Indeed for a few hundred yards the county boundary follows the A452 to the bend itself. As I began the bend I was shocked to see a white car hurtling along in the opposite direction, supposedly bound for Kenilworth. His offside wheels were on my side of the road by a good foot or two. I instinctively made a leftwards adjustment to my steering but nano-seconds later there was a loud bang and a judder. My car (I can see it all so clearly and am not enjoying writing this) now adopted an off-route course. Steering right made no difference. In the full glare of my headlamps I saw the pillars and lower edge of a traffic directions sign drawing ever closer. I gripped the wheel hard and braced. I went straight through the pillars it and they and the sign disintegrated. Up ahead was blackness and I felt the car lose height as if flying through air turbulence. I remember holding on to the wheel extending my arms to force myself back into the chair, ever mindful what next might happen or burst through the windscreen.

The landing was without incident and the windscreen stayed put. It felt like I had plunged into a huge pair of spongy, wicketkeeper's gloves. The airbags had operated, the interior lights were on, my hazards were blinking, and Eddie Mayer was still churning out wise cracks on the radio. I was sloping down and to the right and therefore the driver's door was easily the nearest. But I couldn't open it.

I clambered over the central console of stick and handbrake towards the front passenger seat. I could open it a little but only by a few inches. And then I heard the voice of a man with a torchlight. He had come to help. I confirmed I was OK and there was only me. I spoke to him through the floor of the car. He held the door I had pushed ajar and I squeezed out. Outside I lowered myself, wiggling my feet for evidence of some surface to stand on. The surface I found was of branches no thicker than your thumb. Together they had the give of a mattress. From here I emerged from a man-high ditch to the crunch of roadside debris and the dazzle of fast then fast-braking motor cars.

Note: The map location is of the accident site, not the photo.

*Henry VI Part 3