Yesterday, in between showers, I walked along some of the little known jitties (or ‘snickets’ as they say “oop t’north”) in my town and I saw the “Green Man”, not the real one, but a Green Man plaque fixed to a garden wall peering out from the ivy. This reminded me of the stories my old Gran told me when I was but a wee boy living on the farm.

It was a rather large farm and I was a bit of a wanderer and always “went off” without telling anyone. She must have got fed up with this so she used to tell me about a bogeyman called the Green Man who lived in the woods and ate little children if he caught them. This frightened me so much that I always made sure that I was indoors when it started to get dark. I was even apprehensive about using the outside toilet at night.

It was wrong of her to frighten me like that, it caused me a lot of distress at the time. Even when I saw the plaque on the wall I felt uneasy, and that’s 70 years later!

Being an atheist I know different now, Thank God!.

If you look closely at the larger picture you can see what looks like canes arranged in the shape of a pentacle or pentagram, the pagan symbol. There’s a lot of people like me about.

If you want to know more about The Green Man click here.

To all my friends in the colonies (USA) sweltering under the biggest heatwave ever. This is the sort of weather we are having in the Motherland. It’s bloody July for heavens sake!

This tornado was videoed two miles away from my house. The hailstones made dents in the roof of my car, but others were not so lucky; trees uprooted, roofs torn off, greenhouses smashed.

My strawberries in the garden were hammered to a pulp, cabbages now have lacy leaves where the hailstones went through, I could go on but I wont. I’m very upset that the lightning missed the big tree next door by at least 100 yards, y’know, the one that blocks the light to my garden. God is a lousy shot!

This picture was taken 12 miles away to the north of Earl Shilton looking south, Bradgate Park to be exact, by a friend walking his dog at about the time we had the storm.