Every day I walk with Bonnie in the area which is basically right across the street from us. You have to cross a footbridge to reach it, as it runs right past a busy A-road. It's the area from our houses right down to the River Thames. The old Joyce Green Hospital used to stand on this site, but it was pulled down in 2000 (if my information is right, this was before we moved to Dartford in 2003). There is also a Powerstation on the land, and a sewage plant. After the hospital closure the area became a bit of a wasteland and was claimed by groups of teenagers who used it to ride their motorbikes and ..aehm, whatever teenagers do I suppose! (All I know is that in the summer we saw fires ever so often over the site, burning cars etc).

About 2 years ago, developers moved in and the whole site will be re-designed. They will build many residential houses and flats, even a school and a leisure centre and lots of office buildings, they call it a mixed-use site.. It's being advertised as 'sustainable living'. I guess because the developers kind of build around the small lakes which are on the site..I bet they didn't tell prospective homebuyers about the sewage plant LOL .Anyone who is interested can have a look on: http://www.thebridgedartford.co.uk/. It's great that they made pathways which we can walk on now, but unfortunately, mostof the wonderful green space which we have now will of course go... not much point then for me to go walking there, I might as well walk the streets of Dartford.

I absolutely love wildflowers. I love watching them and taking pictures of them, for me wildflowers are much more beautiful than, for example, cultured roses and similar. And I like them best were they belong - in the countryside or where-ever really. For most people, and especially developers, I suppose their are just weeds. And I'm always so disappointed when I go for my walk and find that another row of wildflowers has been ripped out. They usually put lawn, very short and very uniform... Or worse, it gets concreted over. All I can do for the meantime enjoy it while I can. Oh, I just wish I could move to a house where I'm just surrounded by countryside and lots of wildflowers with no-one to 'develop' the area.