Taking advantage

 

Our lane has been closed again. You might think this was good news as the surface may be renewed, but no, it is about services to a house. The one good thing though is that we all took advantage of the reduced traffic. It was now only used by the locals and so we were able to walk and ride bikes without much trouble.

There were whole fleets of cyclers whizzing into the freedom. They appeared out of nowhere and it made me wonder if there is web site that tells you of roads that are closed for main traffic in the countryside so that walkers or cyclists can hurry along and take advantage of the sudden silence.

I know of a bird that does this. It is the redwing from Iceland and Eastern Europe often travelling in flocks across the great North Sea. Taking advantage of the early morning darkness, they surreptitiously swooped into our orchard, where this year most of our apples for some strange reason have dropped early. This is an unbelievable chance for redwings to sneak in when other birds are resting in branches.

We went to see a theatre production last week. It was about the Post Office scandal and was performed by a travelling company which began in Shropshire in 1974. They travel on their bus usually performing in village halls, but this time they were in our salubrious Theatre Severn. We went in darkness and walking by the river we saw two swans taking advantage of the streetlights which meant that they could eat the lush grass on the side undisturbed by other creatures or people.

Have you noticed that some country venues with a restaurant charge you to go in before you have chance to get to the eating place to order your meal? This means that your ticket includes the restaurant and say, a visit round the gardens. Unusually, this week we went to a castle in Wales and ate at the café without an extra charge. It was wonderful to sit outside in the late autumn sun taking advantage of the peace, with dazzling male peacocks looking for our dropped crumbs.

My family have been lucky enough to welcome our Australian relatives this week. They live on a ‘little’ farm with 500 acres of bush land at the southern tip of Tasmania. They have trouble with the wombats who sneak under fences and eat their turnips. Once wombats have a track even a boulder did not deter them and my cousin put more rocks in their way which they circumnavigated. In the end he had to build a wall to stop them taking advantage of his crop.

(Taken from my column in the Shropshire Star)