Lichen it

Another day passed in a blur and I am glad that I took this shot of an elm tree trunk on the way to work.

On the way home a very strange and unsettling thing happened. A guy stopped me on the cycle track from the station - really quite rural. He was really upset and edgey. At first I thought he was going to demand some money (or worse), but he told me that he'd lost his kids while they were playing in the woods.

Long story short I helped him call 999 and explain where he was. But almost straight away things didn't add up. His story was slightly different each time and he didn't want to call home as he wanted to find the kids first. And he had a suitcase as well as a bag of tools ... and for a supposedly local man he kept getting his directions mixed up. And he'd been drinking - buckfast out of a bottle hidden in a carrier bag.

I put the confusion down to being upset / distraught - which seemed completely genuine to me. So, I stayed with him and tried to get more of the story out of him until the police called back to say his kids were safe and sound at home ... and please ask him to go home. I got the impression they wanted to speak to him...

No idea what that was all about - but not very pleasant.