In God's Big Country

Have just spent a couple of days on the edge of the Little Karoo, miles from anywhere. This picture doesn't give justice to the scale of the area at all. Miles and miles of scrubland, with rugged rock outcrops all set in the baking heat. Little to survey. Or certainly at what the Ordnance Survey would call small scale. I sometimes forget how small the UK is and how vast 'real' distances are.

Meanwhile, back in the UK (or is it France? Belgium?) a Christmas shopping exhibition goes astray courtesy of our never-ending trust in sat nav systems ...