Walking Plants and Pointing Maidens

Two signs I did not capture on camera during my time in Scotland remain with me and just plain tickle my funny bone to no end.

They were close together and totally unrelated, yet remain fixed in tandem in my mind.

The first was a red warning sign: Heavy Plant Crossing.  There was no factory in sight and I still have no idea what the heavy plants were/are and why they would cross that road in that spot and in such a way that required that I be warned, bearing out my own personal hypothesis about road signage: Road signs are designed for people who already know where they’re going.  

If you’ve ever driven in unfamiliar locales, you’ll know what I mean.  Sign placement is sometimes overhead, sometimes at the side of the road (left or right without much rhyme or reason that I can discern) and sometimes affixed to buildings.  Sometimes signs are large and sometimes they’re so small a magnifying glass wouldn’t help.  And most of the time when exploring a new place, I find myself seeing the sign as I pass my destination by, with finger pointed helplessly at where I was supposed to be.

But I digress.  Who could resist the visual of Dinosaur jr.’s album cover when it comes to plants boldly crossing the street (or in their case, several streets or cities at a time)?  Although I have to confess that my own internal visual when I read ‘Heavy Plant Crossing’ (the meaning of which I still do not know) resembles more a clutch of chubby cacti, peace lilies and African violets tumbling across the road, begging the question, why did the plants cross the road?  

Maybe the plants were crossing the road to get to the maidens, for the next sign, just yards down the road, reads Maidens   2, fixed onto the usual white painted metal sign pointing  ☞  thataway.

Maidens is a small village between Girvan and Ayr.  But every time I saw the sign for Maidens, I was reduced to silly giggles, imagining that it must be lean pickings in this part of Scotland for there to be only two maidens and stuck on the idea that some Scottish fellows somewhere are desperately searching for that sign.  I sure hope they find it, for there are two maidens somewhere surely waiting for them.