Indy...

500!  :-) 

Cars are not really my thing but, for the record, the old one is an Alvis - cars built in Coventry from 1919 to 1965, when they were bought out by Rover. 'Alvis' means... nothing whatsoever. The founder said he made up a name that could be pronounced in any language - still an important criterion in car brand names. The new one is a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray; there have been eight generations of this model and this is number 7. It has an engine capacity 6.2 times my mid-size, 5-seat family hatchback, and a fuel consumption roughly twice as high per km. As my uncle used to say about his Jaguar: "It will pass anything but a petrol pump"

Neither would qualify for the Indianapolis 500 - America's most prestigious race - because that requires (among many other things) the wheels of the car to be outside the body. I have no excuse for bringing any of this up, except for the bad joke and the milk: We stopped at the café in the background of the Alvis (and behind the Chevvy) on our way to fetch 13 litre-bottles of milk as part of our regular weekly fruit/veg/dairy pick-up. It is a bizarre tradition that the winner of the Indy 500 receives a bottle of milk to toast their victory; I like the additional detail that, in the modern era, drivers can specify whole, semi or skim

Equally loose is my link to the extra, a view over the Cherwell valley from very close by. On the theme of 'transport', somewhere down there is the river itself, meandering like me, and the Oxford canal - which was the main goods transport route between London and Birmingham, until the Grand Union canal was built. Also there are two rail lines - the Banbury-Oxford line follows the canal, and the Banbury-London line soon veers off east (the viaduct on the extreme left carries it, I think). Finally, the M40, London-Birmingham motorway also follows the valley at this point

To call the white pigeons on the roof of the farm building 'transport' is perhaps a stretch. They are the reason I stopped to take a picture. Circling in a close-packed flock above the buildings, in the angled winter sunlight, they were a real eye-catcher, and a lovely focal-point for a picture. Until I took out the camera. I don't think any of them is a spy