Shabby and Unloved
Yesterday morning the weather was overcast, another typical dull British day and disappointing after the spell of spring sunshine we've been enjoying. By lunchtime the sun had burned off the cloud and it was a gloriously warm day. So much so I decided to go for a stroll, and headed north to Seven Fields.
Thats an area of farmland surrounded by housing developments and designated public space, although its still used as hay meadows amongst the wooded hillsides. There's an unspoiled quality to it. None of these manicured parks with denuded foliage that Swindon is becoming fond of.
It is however bordered by two of the three 'P's, the grotty undesirable bits of the town. Park is too far away, but Penhill to the north and Pinehurst to the south mean that urban squalor is staining the outskirts with it's detritus. I wandered along the path that follows the curve of the hill through the woods above Penhill. It resembled South Wales almost. Untended gardens filled with rubbish, shabby unloved houses with shabby unloved inhabitants.
I reached the center of the wood where the large oak had been set fire to four years ago. They'd finally cut it down. Surrounding it was a rubbish dump spread through the undergrowth. Shabby unloved woodland. What can you do?
Complaint of the Week
A shabby and unloved youngster picked out his DVD from the selection at the library and put his coins into the machine for the ticket to allow him to take the item home for a week. He ambled toward the security guard with a look of bemused outrage on his face.
"I put two pounds in." He said.
The security guard stared back unconcerned. "The machine doesn't give change Sir."
"Yeah but I put two pounds in."
"Sir, the machine doesn't give change."
"....I put two pounds in. I'm supposed to get fifty pencve change."
"And I'm telling you, that machine doesn't give change."
"But I put two pounds in. Where's my fifty pence?"
"Library opens at half past nine. You can sort it out then."
"I should have fifty pence."
And so on, until a librarian had the misfortune of passing by.
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