Dafad's-Days: ALL HALLOWS MORN.

I've heard of things, that have been supposedly turned into pumpkins but what happens to all those pumpkins left over from Halloween? Which brings me rather neatly to a curse of the countryside ... fly-tipping!

It never ceases to amaze me what is dumped and it's not always just unusable junk! In fact if you're a wanderer on Windyblown Commons as I am, one can occasionally find some quite useful stuff. Some of my dog's towels, had another, posher, less muddy life than they do now. A large, old wheelie bin is now a substantial rainwater butt and I know farmers that have rescued baths as water troughs for their flocks.

But the saddest thing that I frequently see, is perfectly usable kids toys. Why not give them to charity shops? I've rescued several over the years and given them better homes, even washed, dried and auctioned some to raise money for our local hospices, sadly some are just too big to go into the washing machine.

Now, if you're wondering what all this has to do with pumpkins, it's a vague colour link, but this poor guy was dumped on the mountain with a load of plastic toys, old cardboard boxes and left upside down in amongst the rushes, to face cold lonely nights, the fog, wind and rain, with very few passers by to be able to say even a muffled good morning to.

That is until we arrived, sat him upright and the dog tickled his whiskers in greeting which made me smile, so I decided to move this pumpkinesque feller to a better location where he could at least have a better view of his new mountain world and maybe he will make other passers by smile too! I mean a guy of his stature deserves a bit more attention in his life.