DERELICT SUNDAY

We had a good online Church service this morning, with a great sermon, followed by a Zoom coffee and chat, after which we decided to go out for a drive.  Mr. HCB thought it would be rather pleasant up on The Ridgeway, so off we went.  We parked the car and then walked for quite a long time, and of course, I was taking photographs along the way.  

The sky was blue, the clouds were fluffy, there was a lovely perfume of wild honeysuckle and much evidence of bees, which delighted us.  The birds were singing, the views were wonderful and far-reaching, so we could almost believe that all was right with our world.  

Thankfully, we didn’t meet many people and in any event, out in the open, we didn’t need to wear a mask, which is one of the reasons, I’m not that keen to go shopping, even if a lot more shops do open tomorrow because when I do wear a mask, my glasses steam up!  

We found this derelict tree along The Ridgeway and it showed up very well against the blue sky and fluffy clouds, so this is my offering for Derelict Sunday.  I have also put in a collage as an extra so you can see what a lovely walk we had in the beautiful Wiltshire countryside.

On our way home, we had a message from our friends, Keith and Sue, to ask if we would like to pop in to see them to have a cup of tea and a slice of cake - it suited us well because our neighbours were having their family round so we knew we would be missing our afternoon tea with them, so we then spent a lovely hour or so with them.  Keith had made a lovely cake;  it was fresh out of the oven, and it was delicious.  Sue was pleased to chat with Mr. HCB as she is a “new” gardener and wanted to “pick his brains”  so I think we may be going to see them again. 

As we drove home, we said to each other what a lovely day we had had and we now realised that we have missed social interaction with friends for 13 weeks.  We know we have been fortunate enough to meet with our lovely neighbours each day, but let’s hope that people will be sensible, so that we can carry on meeting occasionally with friends in this way, because it was so good.  In fact, Mr. HCB’s comment was “Today will set me up for the rest of the week", so thank you to everyone who has been a part of our day today, including Lynn, our lovely neighbour, who gave us two platefuls of goodies, which meant I didn't need to cook!

“What is it about the English countryside – 
     why is the beauty so much more than visual? 
          Why does it touch one so?”
Dodie Smith