TRAFFIC through the centre of our village several years ago, generally had four legs.

The most direct route from the milking parlour to grass fields where the herd grazed, was along the narrow lane from farm gate to pastures.

Now newcomers into our village would recoil with horror to see cattle and sheep ambling along, no doubt grabbing mouthfuls of flowers and depositing steaming cow pats or sheep dung in front of their barn conversions and gentrified cottages.

There are no passing places and, as a result of an increase in supermarket and Amazon delivery vans, the verges are churned up as vehicles try to pass each other on a lane originally made to only give room for a horse and cart.

To protect entrances and grass verges, new villagers have used a variety of boulders, chain link fencing and posts to protect their frontages.

Not always respected by commercial traffic.

Just this weekend one of the gateways was blocked by a large boulder that had been dragged by a delivery van and left in front of an entrance. Whilst at the same time this van churned the grass verge into a muddy swamp.

But today we have escaped village politics and headed for the hills. Well taken my car in for a service and John’s for an update on it’s computer.

Both garages are on the edge of the moors and as both vehicles were in at different times, there was the opportunity to delight in the glorious scenery away from the garages.

Fish and chips in Pickering was the cream on our coffee. Or to be more accurate, chocolate sprinkles on my cappuccino, which is what I am sipping now having returned to the garage and having to wait for a gizmo to be fitted to my car’s seatbelt.

So pulling myself back to rural themes I must comment on how glorious the moors look under the winter sun. But what did strike me was the number of pheasants lying crushed on the roads.

Now to see the occasional game bird squashed and prone on the tarmac is not unusual, but I must have counted at least 20 and avoided several more.

Lockdown has curtailed any commercial shoots, ours in particular, and generally you would expect pheasants to be rejoicing that, come February, they have escaped the fusillade of guns.

These birds clearly started celebrating too soon.