Little Creatures

If Helen arrives in Somerset to find me on the sofa sipping cocoa with Michaela Strachan, I shall tell her it was all the decorators’ fault. When I brought them their coffee this morning they pointed out to me the house martins swooping to and from a nest by the window. They also told me they’d spotted rabbits in the garden. I thought this was a wonderful idea, until I reflected on how few of my vegetables appear to have grown and wondered whether the ruminant rodents might be responsible. “You’ll want to keep a gun with you,” observed the decorator sagely.

The dirty dentists had told us, when we came for our first viewing, about the various animal visitors to the house. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were talking about dung beetles, but their list was confined to pheasants, badgers and slow worms. I was rather excited about the slow worms, but I failed to gather critical intelligence about whereabouts and at what time one might meet these unusual creatures. I’ve heard the pheasants, and I know I’m unlikely to make a badger’s acquaintance. But our decorator was more excited about the stream that comes through a corner of the garden. “I’d dig that wider, and put fish in it.” I had a go at pointing out that the fish would get swept away in the stream, and he patiently explained that obviously you’d fence it off with netting.

"No, actually I loathe wildlife; I've spent my life living a lie, wracked with self loathing for my inability to  identify my true purpose." 

Nobody’s mentioned rats yet. Everyone I know with a compost heap has rats living in it. Everyone with a stream in their garden no doubt harbours these whiskery denizens of the night. For years I had regular nightmares about being attacked by rats, which stopped only when we moved to a second floor flat (don’t write in, I know they can climb up the sewage pipes). Funnily enough I haven’t had this recurring dream in Somerset. I am tempted to assume smugly that I have become all rurally philosophical, and like Monty Don hold the view that one must live side by side with nature in a tolerant spirit. This warm philanthropic glow will last until the day I lift the toilet lid to find a grey bucktoothed creature staring up at me. But enough about the dentist.

Actually not quite. I am writing this in the village pub, avoiding the two gentlemen who with giant mechanical contraptions are attempting to remove 20 years of impacted grime from our kitchen floor (if the dentists were an Elvis Costello song, they’d be “Tramp The Dirt Down”). I am seated in the “reader’s corner” waiting for my honest rural supper to appear. So from zoology to anthropology, as I look around to get a sense of my village neighbours.

What was I expecting? A shove ha’penny competition with fivers being thrown at the feet of the one legged pirate organising bets? A gnarled bloke at the end of the bar, hand cupped to his ear, leading a chorus of “As I was tiddling over Ballstack Hill / Hup a day, Ho away, nonny and bonce…”? The bar falling silent as I open the door, half a dozen pairs of eyes looking at me accusingly? You may be surprised to learn that none of these are in evidence. There’s a miserable looking bloke on his own, de rigeur for village pubs, who must wait till I’m not watching to take a swig of his drink, because every time I look at him his arms are folded firmly across his short sleeved patterned shirt. There’s a loud woman the shape of a haggis, who is telling the male friend opposite all the amusing things that happened to her and her husband (seated next to her and listening patiently) on their recent trip to somewhere or other.

Then there are the staff. Hundreds of them. You can only fit two of them behind the bar so the others wander round aimlessly with ice buckets and beer mats.  On balance, I much prefer this sledgehammer-to-nut staffing philosophy to the old model where you spent half an hour trying to catch the eye of the lone bar person. Meanwhile, I find my eyes drawn again to the miserable looking bloke. I rather envy him. Think of the level of mindfulness he has achieved, just sitting in the moment, watching calmly as life passes by. I, by contrast, had a mini paddy because there’s no phone signal, and am now doing something one should never do in a village pub, viz. TYPING ON A MACBOOK. How do I ever hope to blend in? That miserable bloke is thinking “Muzz be frum Lunnon”, and Loud Woman will soon be telling an amusing story about the time the man at the next table sat doing emails instead of having inconsequential chat.

"I told 'ee: I bain't be coming' in till 'e'm puttin' that MacBook away."

But they don’t know about the trump card up my sleeve. I am on First Name Terms with Neil, the landlord. When I walk in he greets me warmly by name, as if I actually live in the village. Oh, wait a minute: I do live in the village. When will I stop looking at it from an outsider’s perspective?

Neil has Grand Plans for the pub he has recently taken over. An old stable block, complete with wooden troughs, will be a cask ale and cider bar. The skittles alley (it’s a Somerset and Devon thing, apparently) will be a cafe and shop. Maybe that’s what all the staff are for, waiting to expand into the bigger territory. Maybe by next summer there’ll be a rock festival in the beer garden and a regatta in the village stream.

Oh, the miserable bloke slipped out when I wasn’t looking. Time to go and inspect the kitchen floor. And see if I can spot any rabbits.