An unexpected patch of wildness on my doorstep

 At weekend I went walking up to the local wood. I don't often go these days because I find the walk up the playing fields, surrounded by housing, monotonous, but I'd come to the realisation that I'd stopped my (always rather erratic) exercise (too busy and the weather's been too hot), and needed to get out more. The wood itself has become quite depressing with branches now marking the paths we should keep to and off-piste exploration of the undergrowth actively discouraged. At the further side though I found an odd spot of delight and wildness. 

Farmers' fields used to lie between the wood and a busy A road, but one of these has already been built on and the other marked for future development. Meanwhile this latter is allowed to run wild. Last year I seem to think it was covered in the daisy-like flowers of wild chamomile - attractive to bees and other insects but scrubby and reminiscent of waste-land.

 This year, oats have appeared from somewhere. Maybe a wild variety, maybe some seed from previous crops. 

Whichever, there's something lovely about their pale cream heads wafting in an evening breeze, and contrasting sharply with the dark dried stalks of what I think is sorrel (something that as a child I knew as vinegar plant, and dared each other to eat).

Alongside the oats, other plants are colonising the field - bright yellow ragwort, teasels, a clump of metre-high seedlings from a nearby ash tree, and a buddleia that looked better than my garden shrub.

I don't imagine this area will stay this way for long - the builders will move in with measuring equipment and diggers and its magic be lost. For this summer though it's lovely.