People eh.

What's wrong with people? From a notice attached to the fencing it sounds like machinery (a roller) which was being used to repair the car park was used to destroy this toilet block before being vandalized itself. £100000 plus worth of damage done to one of the forests' handful of amenities. Anderwood car park has long been a focus for vandalism, though this is by far the worst. People eh.

 

Anderwood

 

Anderwood

 

Old track

 

An old winding forestry track through Anderwood enclosure, and it is quite old, showing on maps from the mid 1800's; the depression to the side of the track is a hundred years younger, a Second World War bomb crater, a gift from the luftwaffe. Danke.

More vandalism

 

More vandalism at Anderwood. Somebody has a real problem with Anderwood; recently it's facilities and furniture have been chainsawed and burnt, a couple of trees have been destroyed, and a mouldy old caravan dumped and subsequently burnt. The burnt holly and brand new bin box suggests they've recently struck again. Is it any wonder we can't have nice things in this country, anything nice and we do a shit on it.

After the rain

This morning it was like the Gods had turned up the saturation on the forest; the rain has refreshed and revived the the stands, and verdance reigned. We were out early again, the first (to our knowledge anyway) of the day to tread these woodland paths, breath deep their freshly cleansed air and atmosphere; and it felt good.

Anderwood

 

Anderwood

 

So why not keep it simple (profanity alert)

  

In the words of esteemed presenter Roger Mellie (the man on the telly) 'so why not keep it simple, how about cunts!' I mean seriously, what wankers get their jollies fucking up disabled toilets, I mean, there's not that many public amenities in the forest as it is. Arseholes! Geoff and I were on the return leg of our Sunday long walk, it had been a lovely walk too, when as we approached Anderwood I noticed a large bough down in from of the toilets, the mystery was where had it fallen from, on getting closer it became apparent it hadn't fallen at all; some fucktard had randomly chainsawed a tree down, cut into another larger tree behind (which will now need removing), cut through and down the rails around the public toilet block, cleaved the men's and disabled doors in half; I didn't go in so don't know what damage may have been done to the interior. Fucking pricks. I regularly moan that the New Forest National Parks Authority don't maintain the forest's infrastructure, shit like this isn't going to help; I'd imagine the bill for repairs will run into the thousands, not to mention the man hours; or maybe they just board it up or knock it down and another public amenity will be lost.  Any wonder Britain's broken, we really are a country of turds.

Pannage

The pigs have been out to pannage for a few weeks now, we've seen them all over the place. Although this was the first time we'd got close, on a couple of previous occasions it was big old sows with expansive litters in tow; experience has shown they really don't appreciate you getting too close to their piglets, and certainly object to dogs doing so. These two were cool, happily snuffling for acorns and chestnuts, and happy to say hello. It's always lovely seeing the pigs out and about, and on the whole they're inquisitive and friendly, they always bring a smile to your face; personally though I'd be happy to see them in the forest all the time.

Pannage 2021

F*ck off! That's what Mrs Pig was saying, and what we did shortly after taking the photo as Mrs Pig took a dislike to Geoff and I. Not wishing to cast aspersions on Geoff, but I think it was him who Mrs Pig wanted gone rather than I. There were piglets in the group, and she was obviously taking no chances. It'll be a thin year's feasting this pannage for the forest's pigs, none of the forest's nuts have come to much.

Thoughtful destruction

As I walked past a group of World War 2 bomb craters in Anderwood enclosure this morning, I thought about the men flying the bomber. I wondered if they gone out of their way to drop their load well away from habitation out here in the woods. It would have been far safer for them to lose their bombs as soon as possible. So they must have purposely waited to be beyond conurbation. Which is cool. And, why hadn't they dropped their load on target, were they purposely trying not to kill people. You read stories of soldiers who've gone through a war without killing anyone. Or....was there a target out here in the woods? I don't think so, not that there wasn't plenty of military activity in the forest during the war, but I think these represent a bomber dropping their load before turning for home rather than an attack. There are a few groups of craters in the forest (beyond those of the Ashley Ranges), and they're invariably in groups of two or four, and none appear to fit an attack.  I sometimes think I really do over think too much.