Wootton Bassett (Sunday 24th March 2019)

Last time I visited the newish Waitrose at Wichelstowe, on the outskirts of Swindon, the surrounding area had become a building site and the restored section of the Wilts & Berks had been drained. I had heard that this was no longer the case and drove over there to discover with horror that on the building site had been built something called H&W, some sort of "leisure complex" with bars and restaurants, facing the Waitrose terrace on which I sat with my cappuccino and replacing the previously peaceful view with groups of families with dogs and children playing (see Extra).
I hurried quickly on, my ears ringing,  and made my way to another stretch of the Wilts & Berks at Templars Firs in Wootton Bassett. It wasn't an entirely dissimilar story as the rare sunshine had brought out all the dogwalkers and families. The dog in the blip had just been swimming in the canal next to the bridge I was on, exactly opposite the bank where the water voles nest, so unsurprisingly there were none to be seen.
It was by and large a pleasant walk nonetheless if undistinguished by wildlife.

L.
26.3.2019 (1012 hr)

Blip #2876 (#2626 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #010
Blips/Extras In 2019 #53/265 + #027/100 Extras
Day #3285 (669 gaps from 26.3.2010)
LOTD #2018 (#1859 + 159 in archived blips)

Wilts and Berks Canal series
Wootton Bassett series
Canals series
Landscape series
Trees series

Visits To The Wilts & Berks, 24 March 2019 (Flickr album of 13 photos)

Taken with Pentax K-1 Mark II and Pentax HD P-D FA 15-30mm F2.8ED SDM WR lens

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Simon and Garfunkel - A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission) (recorded 13 June 1966, New York NY)
Having just finished playing the 18 CDs of Bob Dylan's sessions from 1965 and 1966, I particularly enjoyed listening to this Paul Simon parody of Dylan's sound of the period, full of Dylan references and in-jokes (detailed in the notes for this track on the You Tube link) that Cerys Matthews played on her show of this morning.
The engineer on this was Roy Halee, who worked with Dylan and recorded Like A Rolling Stone, and the producer Bob Johnston was also Dylan's producer. Playing on the track are Joe South (guitar), who played on Blonde On Blonde, and legendary Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine. I'm not sure that Art Garfunkel appears on this track at all.
I think Dylan enjoyed the joke as shortly afterwards he put Paul Simon's song The Boxer onto his Self Portrait album

One Year Ago:
Smokey 1956 hr