And did those feet?

Last night I had the privilege to talk to the ladies of the village at a WI meeting. It's the second time I've done this, the last time was on 12/1/2010, when the village was almost snowed in. I thought that not many would make it, but I reckoned without the spirit of the WI and there was a good turnout. Last night was even better and it certainly made me wish that other groups that I belong to, like the KOS, had such good attendances at meetings.

The fact that it wasn't that long ago led me to think about what changes there had been in the time (apart from the snow melting). The cottage at Bockhill was still a shell, just starting to have the roof done, then. Now it has been renovated and has new occupants, and the barn behind it is being modernised and incorporated into the building. As I always thought that it was a sad sight to see the old building crumbling I'm really pleased to see it back in use.

Back along the Droveway, towards the village there has been no such movement in the state of the site where "Franconia" still, just about, stands. I last mentioned it on the 7th July, when the site round the empty building had been cleared. Since then the building has become a ruin and the cleared site is now becoming a jungle. I guess the development of the site is held up at the planning stage, but it doesn't enhance the look of the area as it stands.

At long last something appears to be happening at the burned out house in the High Street. Again this eyesore has been around too long and the sooner something appears there the better.

I had a good time at the meeting, although I wasn't all that confident when my computer and projector refused to talked to each other when I first set up. Fortunately there were lots of cups of tea to be drunk and other things going on, so my panic wasn't noticed by too many. A quick switch off and restart of the computer solved it and the "no source found" message went and all was OK.

The one positive to come out of me taking most of the interval getting set up was that it go me off having to judge the competition. Ive done this before at other meetings and have always felt that although I may have become a friend of the winners, I might be in danger from the losers!

Behind the group here I could see a large notice board, and of course curiosity got the better of me.

It was of course there so that the ladies could practice the words of "And did those feet..........." in readiness for England reaching the Rugby World cup final. Nothing like a good chorus of this stirring hymn to support the team out in New Zealand. Here Gloria is giving it a try, but I'm not sure she's totally convinced that we'll win.

I made the walk down to Backsands Scrape this afternoon. With the winds of the last few days, and lots of rare waders around the country, it seemed like a good idea when I started. It wasn't. There were three Little Egret's, on Green Sandpiper and four Greenshanks.

One of the greenshanks did come very close to the hide, and although I've already taken far too many pictures of Greenshanks this year I couldn't resisit a few more, especially as the light was perfect.