Ginger after the rain

Quiet day at home for me, while HH played 18 holes of golf for the first time this year, in sunshine, a pleasant surprise as the forecast was for 15 days'-worth of rain in one day. That's an alarming thought round here, where memories of the floods and landslides three years ago are still all too vivid and painful.

Walked the dogs in the early evening and was relieved to see our local mystery man again - haven't seen much of him of late, whereas I used to see him every time I took the dogs out. He is barely ever heard to speak, lives in abandoned buildings way up the hill, or camps in the open, and apparently survives on handouts from a few kind souls. Apparently, he used to be a talented draughtsman, but has never recovered from the loss of his family (don't know the circumstances). He was squatting in a seriously spooky building known as the House of Stones, now surrounded by tall coniferous trees, but it probably once had a commanding view of the whole valley below. It seems he heard a woman's voice telling him it wasn't safe to stay there and she was dead right, there were cracks in the walls a good two inches wide and it was teetering on the edge of the abyss by the time I saw it for the first time.

This evening I took a chance and offered him a lift up the hill - think I spooked him out. His only answer was to sign 'no' with his hand. A while back, we had reached the stage where he would silently acknowledge a greeting, but that bridge has obviously disintegrated.