Loitering

Spent a very enjoyable morning wandering round this Trendlewood Housing Estate with a church friend trying to see if we had missed any place that could possibly house a church presence here short of building a building. A garage that could be an office? An old barn? Pickings were slim and we are having a different sort of think.

We wandered down all the roads, including apparent dead ends. We had open minds to closed roads.

In one cul-de-sac we turned at the end, chatted briefly about getting our bearings compared to the main road and headed back.

'Can I help you gents?' A man was walking out of a house with a mobile phone to his ear. I replied in the negative and he continued 'Well you walked to my house.' I corrected him, explaining that we had remained in the road at all times (we had) and turned towards him so he could see my dog collar. 'I'm Steve the local vicar' I said. 'Oh bad luck' he replied, shaking my hand but not offering his name. He told me a neighbour had elerted him to our presence.

I have some questions. Can you imagine living in a cul-de-sac so dull that someone walking up your road is suspicious? Granted my colleague had a black woolly hat, but it was not a balaclava, he was, as far as I know, unarmed and it was cold. The second question only dawned on me hours later. If this guy had been alerted that we were walking towards his house, whose house was that he was in? Was he burgling it? I think we should be told.

And what was that 'bad luck' all about?