Friend or Foe?

If there is a ranking of railway lines that cross the same river multiple times, I would risk a few pounds on the line from Moreton-in-Marsh to Oxford being at the head of it. Moreton gives the game away in its name - a small market town on a boggy plain, hemmed-in on all sides by hills that shed water into the land around the town. The water has one narrow escape route south, which forms origin of the river Evenlode. This follows a course which is extraordinarily meandering and convoluted - unusual in a river close to the source - generally south and east, until it meets the Thames near Oxford

The railway follows the river valley, but is forced to bridge the capricious stream multiple times. This makes for a very pretty train journey as the water crosses the track from side to side and the flood-plain, dotted with grazing animals, stretches away in both directions

The flat land around Moreton provided a site for a WWII airfield - in fact a major training centre for bomber pilots, as well as an operational base for raids on the industrial cities of northern Germany. After the war, the base was used to teach firefighting skills to military personnel on national service. It was then a short step to become the national Fire Service College for training civilian firefighters. Inevitably, it became a target of the asset-stripping Cameron government, and is now owned by Capita

The wax delivery I anticipated yesterday took me off my usual beaten tracks, and around the back of the college. This is not quite the first white hedgerow I have seen, but it's the first one with a camera to hand and time stop. I wonder if all those training fires keep the air warmer here! It would be easy to say 'blackthorn', but I think this is as likely to be cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera). They look very similar but the latter flowers earlier and one guide says that the sepals on cherry plum fold back, while those on blackthorn do not. These are definitely folded back

Cherry plum are not always devoid of spines, but they are less numerous and vicious than blackthorn. As the three punctures I repaired after my last outing are still a recent memory, I prefer to believe this is the more benign Prunus. As you can see if you go large, I had a fairly damp ride