A walk while litter picking had been proposed for todays daily exercise, and when the house was left it was 3.23pm, 23°C, and gusts were at 48km/h: there was a random unopened sachet of flower food on Farm Road, one man on the bowling green practicing, a bottle cap appeared to have been embedded in a verge for years, a crushed McDonald’s beaker and a compressed can were on the next one, a man on a bike reeked of spray on deodorant; and down on Sandy Lane – The Jigsaw Construction Company had banners by The Old Milking Sheds, and mole hills were all over the verges.
Down a side street – an elderly couple appeared to be having a video conversation with a baby via a phone, next to a church a bit further along the path – a little Poodle was sprinting around after a Terrier like dog, I was sniffed by a dog, and further down the Lane was a black Labrador being called Mr. Dopalot. A car with strange hot dog and cheese burger stickers in the back windscreen went past, another couple of cars smelt horrendous, but there were wasps, bees, and a couple of butterflies amidst the foliage, as well as multiple cans that I rapidly lost count of; after a bit of the back end of a car were multiple vaping cartridges in multiple colours, a Monster Energy juice can had a weird skull shape on it, and a Quavers packet was mostly decomposed.
A concrete lump seemed to have formed via erupting out of the pavement, a wasp was making loud noises on a flower, I spotted a minuscule ladybird on a plant and another couple of ladybirds getting friendly with each other, some orange-y coloured ones, one that looked on the jaundiced side was mountaineering a telegraph pole with nettles round it, and ladybird larvae amongst the foliage.
I wondered how old some of the ginormous trees were, another flattened can was found in a hole next to a tree, a massive lump of decomposing carpet was under the next one (which we decided to ignore) and the tree at the top had big blobby berries on.
Sycamore seeds were spinning off others, the contents of the by then full bag got wrestled in to a bin at the top again (and it smelt revolting); Mum continued marching along the pavement with her litter picker, the garden wall of the house on the corner of the next Close appeared to have disintegrated, and a house on the main road said ‘Warning – Doberman on guard! Enter at your own risk. You have been warned.’ on the gate.
We went down a footpath (and the footpath gate said ‘Ramblers Association have improved this for you’ on it), the field had a lot of wild grass in it, another woman with 2 walking poles passed by, and we went over a stile. Once into the field on the other side I photographed a nice butterfly; and a barn that said ‘Donkey parking only – no motorised vehicles allowed” and ‘Miniature Donkey Xing’ was on the opposite side of a field that had – behind a hedge – cows loudly munching on the foliage, and a woman (late 20’s – in her slippers – and appeared to have come from an enormous house further down the hill) approached Mum and asked if everything was alright, and then said the footpaths had changed.
Out on the lane – there was a gate with some very curious sheep behind it who peered at me and made noises, through the next 1 was a church (built in 1100’s – but I noticed that it had rather modern drainpipes), and down another path and across another lane was a barn with some gigantic hay bales and several cows in it. A very very pungent smell was wafting around, some sheep were hiding underneath/between 2 hedges (and a couple of lambs were sprinting off with tails wiggling), a small herd of cattle on the other side of the next gate included 1 cow sat on a mound of muck and looking very relaxed, and then – once at the top of that field – and into another 1 where there were more sheep, more sheep noises and more pungent smells, 2 jet trails could be seen in the sky, a nice couple (mid 60s) gave us directions – I was told we were on the path we’d come up; I spotted another nice butterfly, heard lots of pigeon noises, and some children in the primary school playground.
We went through another gate and up a big hill (and a man was walking another fluffy terrier), up and down a few more mini hills, down a very long slope, up a very long 1 – which had a bench at the top in some nice shade (and a lot of bird twittering nearby). Next we went through a tunnel-y sort of bit of the path with very very dry and cracked ground – surrounded by trees and bushes – and then over a stile/very rusty old gate, across a field with 5 horses in it – who were all flicking their tails around a lot and 1 had a head covering on, and I thought I could hear a cuckoo.
In what was termed ‘a coppice’ (a shaded tunnel sort of area of trees to 1 side of the field) there was sheep wool dangling off tree branches and trunks, and only a couple of sheep visible in the next – rather dry – field; what would definitely be termed a mansion – with enormous windows and a couple of enormous gas (propane) storage tanks – was on the far side of the 1 after that, and my feet were hurting and there was loud blackbird twittering on Church Lane, and I saw a toddler waddling around holding a bottle of sun cream. We talked about world records set by vehicles, then the final bag of litter was wedged in the Church Lane bin – and I forgot when because a couple of chilli plants by next doors garden hedge were decided to be adopted; and back inside – Soot was unconscious with a limp tail and twitching whiskers on the back of the sofa, and the kettle was boiled.
