DERELICT SUNDAY

Another good morning at church when we heard more about the encounters people had with Jesus after His resurrection.

After church, as usual, we went out looking for dereliction.  Although there was still a chilly wind, the sun was shining and everything in the countryside looked amazing.  There was field after field of oil seed rape and the colour was stunning - see my extra - but the pungent smell rather got up our noses!

We stopped to eat the picnic I had prepared earlier and we were both stunned by the utter peace of those moments, high up on the Wiltshire Downs.  At one point, we saw four buzzards and a red kite in the sky and numerous other small birds and butterflies - such beauty and it was all free!

When we started going again, I thought I could hear strange sounds coming from one of the tyres, so Mr. HCB stopped to have a look.  It just so happened that off the road, in a yard at the side of one of the fields, we saw this wonderful old car - a Reliant Scimitar GTE and it had obviously been there for sometime.  I looked up the number plate and it appears it was first registered in 1973, so it is now 44 years old - old enough and in a bad enough condition to be described as “derelict”.  There was also an old bedstead and heater, but it was the car that caught my eye.  

Job done, so we just pootled along the highways and byways of Wiltshire on our way home, enjoying the scenery and one another’s company.

Sad news on the bird front - yesterday morning, Mr. HCB caught the black cat I spoke about, climbing up the pole on which the nesting box sits.  He ran out into the garden and shoo’d it off, but the damage was done and Mr. & Mrs. Great Tit, the parents were obviously frightened and never came back all day.  They haven’t been back today either, so we presume that the baby birds inside the box are now dead, because of course, if they don’t get fed, they won’t live.

When we got home this afternoon, the black cat was in the garden again and one of the ornaments in our border was lying on the grass - the cat had obviously been in the border, and in fact, was still there, so again it was chased out of the garden - thankfully the ornament wasn’t broken, but we are not happy.

I do wish I could find out where it lives because I would go and have a word with the owner - and please don’t say it’s nature.  I believe if people have any sort of pets, they should take responsibility for them - and Mr. HCB is not happy because he is finding things he doesn’t like in his raised beds, so will have to net them all, once again.

"What is it about the English countryside - 
     why is the beauty 
          so much more than visual? 
Why does it touch one so?"
Dodie Smith
I Capture the Castle