DERELICT SUNDAY - THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT

We had a great service this morning for the First Sunday in Advent via our Church Facebook page, which started with this YouTube Video entitled "The Waiting Room", which I thought was worth sharing.  

After the service, although it is a damp, dank and dreary day and quite foggy, we decided we would still go for a walk and Mr.  HCB said he knew of a derelict barn along a nearby road, so off we went, suitably dressed for the weather.  We kept up a good pace at the start of our walk, but soon slowed down as we got colder and our knees ached but we soldiered on.

We found the barn, but I couldn’t get that close to it, so it’s not a brilliant shot, but it is derelict.  Looking online when we got home, we think it is the barn for Badbury Wick Cottage, which appears to be a large farmhouse, and a Grade II Listed Building, which is along the road from Badbury Wick Manor.  According to my research, the farm dates back to the late 1700s although I’m not sure that the barn would be that old.  Perhaps when it is a better day weather-wise, we will go along and take some shots of the actual cottage/farm.  

We then walked through to Badbury Park, which is a new housing estate that has been built in the last five years with more houses still being built.  The path we took leads through to the estate and you will see from my shot that the developers have planted the “obligatory” trees!  

When we reached the children’s playground, we could see that there were lots of painted rocks set in a large concrete circle - see my extra.  We stopped and spoke to the young mum who was obviously “in charge” - I found out her name was Jenny and that she lived on the estate with her husband and two children.  Jenny told us that during the lockdown they had started painting stones and making a long “snake” with them, but then thought it would be better if they were all put together and this was the result.  She said that she was there today in case anyone else wanted to paint a stone to go in the circle and in fact, there was another mum there with her two children who were doing just that. 

We had a lovely chat with her, when she told us that they had had a Scarecrow Trail for Halloween and there would be a Christmas Tree Trail with about forty decorated trees in the next couple of weeks.  We explained that we didn’t live on the estate, but were pleased to hear that there were community things going on.  I told her about Blip, telling her we had been looking for dereliction and had found the barns so I said that I would put the decorated stones photograph in as an extra.  

What a lovely conversation with Jenny and a good start to Advent.

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? 
     Feed the hungry, 
          clothe the naked, 
               forgive the guilty, 
welcome the unwanted, 
     care for the ill, 
          love your enemies, 
               and do unto others 
as you would have done unto you.”
Steve Maraboli

P.S.  Thank you for your understanding at the moment, when I am not able to comment much - I am very grateful for all your comments, stars and hearts - and Snowy was delighted yesterday too!