Lost money

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We have had our short-sleeved shirts on again today. We are not wearing them because the weather is warmer but because we have been once again for a COVID jab. Here we are standing once more in a queue of jolly people waiting for the spring booster with bare arms. It is becoming routine now and something we will have to get used to.

One thing I never get used to is the coming of spring – everything is suddenly growing, plants I had forgotten are sprouting up in the garden. Our trees are greening at a rapid rate and the view from the windows is changing beyond recognition. Or lawn has become enclosed with the trees as if they are encircling an arena and who knows what could happen on the spring stage?

A very unusual thing did happen though and that was because I got a message to ask if someone could use their metal detector on Oak Meadow. Well of course they could. I have long imagined a hidden hoard there. But all I have found so far is mole hills with white Victorian clay pipes dug up from the past.

I watched from the window as two men scoured the field swishing their metal detectors. Then there was an urgent beeping and they bent down and dug with their thin sharp spade. One man had a little leather pouch and he fished into it to show me the finds. Sadly, no golden hoard. There were some old greening copper coins and quite a few buttons from soldiers’ jackets, some of them with a gold finish which suggests a high rank. I had heard that prisoners of war worked in the field next us and the man who lived here before us took them apples from his orchard (now ours). The finds give us more questions than they answer but it is exciting to think of who dropped the coins and buttons.

I hate to say this, but I have been unwise with a subscription I took out. It was for a hobby and was interesting at first but when my bank card reached its expiry date, I assumed that was the end of that. I know lots of people have been having trouble with subscriptions that they join on a free trial and forget to cancel. But mine was different and I did not know that some cards can be automatically updated and then money taken. I checked with my bank and if you have taken out a certain type of subscription, as I had, then this is legal (it is in the small print).

I have lost money but gained buried ‘treasure’.

(Taken from my column in the Shropshire Star)



Looking for buried treasure on Oak Meadow

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