Cycling from place to place I get to see (and smell) my fair share of roadkill but you'd be surprised what other odd stuff I spot in my travels. It's not a glamorous pastime but litter spotting has become quite the hobby of mine, especially imagining how it might have come to be there in the first place. I'll keep adding to this list with each new oddity I spot:

CDs and DVDs: I have a few theories on why I see so many of these littered on the side of the road. Perhaps the driver took a corner too fast and the discs flew straight out the window? Or maybe the patient boyfriend had finally reached his Slumdog Millionaire bollywood soundtrack limit and gave the CD the heave-ho mid journey? Car journeys can get boring, the driver might have decided to have a game of one-man frisbeee? Or the most likely possibility, everyone has mp3 players now, rendering CDs practically useless, so they probably threw it at loitering hooligans to give it one last hurrah.

Pregnancy tests: Yes, you read that right, I'm talking about the plastic pee-on-a-stick devices that tell you if you're up the duff. I've seen at least half a dozen littering our streets over the past 3000km. It started in Ireland, I saw more in France and even spotted one in New Zealand. I was quite perplexed by this at first. There are countless pregnancy attempts in cars, I see the plastic wrapper evidence of this quite often but why would you dump the test on a country road? To hide the evidence, of course. If you put it into the trash at home there's the chance someone might find it. Biff it out the window and only the cows and sheep will know your secret. (Provided they can decipher the double blue lines.)

Ridiculous signs: There's a plethora of billboards and road signs that I encounter but some really stand out as stupid or odd. Take for example this many-lettered Irish attempt at a road sign. You either need to be travelling at 10km/hour to read it or you miss the point completely. Or what about this little gem, also from the Irish. The billboard must measure all of 50cm squared, on a road in the middle of nowhere and it's purpose? To sell filled cushions. Only two euro each, quite the bargain but there's no explanation as to where you buy them or why it's there on a narrow country road. After cycling for the day, I wouldn't mind a nice filled cush for my tush but unless a little leprechaun jumps out from the behind the sign to sell me one, what's the point?