Static

Of course, the reward for staying on later at work is having all of Wednesday off , which means that I can get out and have the landscape all to myself, apart from the odd dog-walker.  In this case, St. Catherine's Hill, near Winchester.

What is missing from these images is the constant white noise from the M3 motorway passing through the cutting at Twyford Down, about 10 feet behind and 100 feet below where I am standing.  It's a constant on a busy work-day, like static on an analogue radio.

I'm not quite sure what it is about this spot that keeps drawing me back, but it has something to do with ghosts; there's another kind of static hanging around the place. It has been a busy crossroads of humanity, of course, in both space and time, for thousands of years.  People have been passing through here for generations, ever since Iron Age tribes chose to settle on the hilltop.  Those salesmen and container trucks speeding up to London are just adding the latest sedimentary layer of noise.  Perhaps I simply love the encouragement to see things sub specie aeternitatis you get up here from what feel like its resident friendly spirits.