The Meadow
It was a wild flower meadow, toadflax, cowslip, foxgloves and meadowsweet. There was evidence of ridge and furrow - until the tractor. moved in and ploughed.
Next year it was nettles and dandelions.
Curious sturdy heifers welcoming the early morning sunrise over the hill were exploring their green domain.
Then came bulldozers.
Trees and saplings uprooted, ancient local gritstone walls destroyed and flattened.
The ground cleared and officials pacing around the area with measuring equipment.
Planning refused -Inside the Green Belt!
Planning refused -Not in the Local Plan!
The field soon returns to a green flowerless mantle.
Safe for the moment.
- Category: Alternative History
5 comments add one below
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Frenchie about 3 years ago
Another great one. 😊 I wish money grabbing corporations would leave green spaces alone. This angers me so much...but I loved the drabble.
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Marion E Ball about 3 years ago
This is the field at the bottom of my garden. It has lived with the threat of development for 35 years.
I live in hopes.
The sad thing is that the land belongs to the developer whose family has lived and still lives in this village, for generations! -
Neville Hunt about 3 years ago
I could feel the passion in your words, Marion, and I share your undeclared, but implicit frustration, nay desperation. Our pretty little village has recently had unwelcome development attempts, one successful, the other unsuccessful, but both for the benefit of local residents and to the disbenefit of the rest of us.
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Marion E Ball about 3 years ago
35 years ago we started a small copse at the end of the garden in preparation for obliterating any development. Even when the trees are bare, the meadow is now obscured but so are the wild flowers. The badgers create pathways through the undergrowth and it is a haven for wild life. So there is always a bright side.
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Jamie Clapperton about 3 years ago
Sounds beautiful, Marion, and hope it is allowed to stay that way of course. :-)
