Abandoned Hearts

Today's image were taken on another local photographic safari this afternoon after we'd stayed in to watch the FA Cup Final. The game wasn't bad as such but just lacked any sustained sense of uncertainty or excitement (bar the first goal after an unprecedented 13 seconds!) that the best finals have and ended with the result that everyone predicted and expected.
So it was with a sense of nagging disappointment that we set off on our safari but being back outside on a gloriously sunny afternoon soon cleared our temporary despondency and we got on with our walk and trying to get a blip or two. We decided on a circuitous route through a nearby industrial estate (where the two extras were taken - what can I say, I was just drawn to a blue number 4 and the word oooh!) and then back via Hermitage Lane.
Today's main image is the garden of one of the abandoned cottages that used to form part of the British Legion Village. There were originally 30 of these dwellings erected in the early 1920's on Hermitage Lane to house recuperating servicemen, each with its own small plot of land and even their own verandahs. The majority of them were demolished several years ago, after falling into disrepair, to make way for retail development (in this case a Lidl supermarket and a drive-thru McDonalds) with the remainder of the newly cleared land being kept to build new housing for injured and recovering veterans. However, some plucky survivors of the original cottages were still occupied until just a couple of months ago. It felt sad to see them now all boarded up (apart from one lone outlier) and uninhabited with, as in my main image, discarded possessions still scattered around the plot - a Wendy house, cushions, two chairs, a  table, a floor brush and even a pair of flip flops. It almost felt like that the residents had fled in the middle of the night. My attention was particularly caught by the heart shaped garden wreath with little stars on it hanging from a tree and the corresponding heart in the window of the little Wendy house, lit by a shaft of late afternoon sunlight, in the background. It certainly tugged at the heartstrings to see them in their current forlorn state - there has already been some vandalism and a small fire set. I left with a real sense of melancholy and sadness. I'm sure they'll disappear altogether under further development in the not too distant future.