Gates of Heaven

As I walk in towards my front door, I pass the gates to a scrap yard; not most peoples' idea of an ideal next door neighbour. But when you have two boys (3 and 6) who visit two nights a week, it's a godsend. They gaze out and watch wrecked cars and old washing machines get tossed about by cranes and grabbers and diggers, flashing lights hypnotising them with the glamour of machinery, noise action.

I was coming home with the boys to cook them some dinner - toad in the hole, possibly? - after a wander around the abandoned ground that is in a curious limbo between old harbour and shiny new executive waterside flats. halted by banking excess and global credit meltdown, it means I have open space three minutes walk away that is slowly, inexorably being reclaimed by nature. Rabbits abound, buddleia rampant, plastic bottles endemic.

Scrap is big business these days as I understand it, and the yard is surrounded by fearsome fences, swathes of barbed wire, intimidating notices telling of security and wild dogs and idle threats of prosecution. But the high powered security lights that radiate out provide lovely shadows and lines; I took this shot with younger son holding one hand, the camera pointing, shooting in the other.