The Day We Finally Arrived

 

A passer by knocked at our door earlier this week; I was about to embark on a “welcome, weary traveller, please warm yourself in front of the fire” routine to convince him we were genuine country folk, but he wasn’t stopping. He wanted to let us know that he ran a construction company and that our scaffolding was unsafe. He painted various lurid pictures of what might happen if a passing lorry struck it a glancing blow. I reassured him that it was being taken down that very day.

I’m not sure why I was feeling so confident about this. This was, after all, the third day on which it was due to be cleared. On the first day two horny-handed sons of toil had arrived and said they could only take half of it because it wouldn’t all fit on the van. The following day someone else turned up with a slightly smaller van and said he could only take half of what was left. I envisage a day four weeks in the future, when the solitary remaining pole is cut in half so it’ll fit in a Fiat 500.

The scaffolding coming down (well most of it - there’s some left round the back to deal with the render which is falling off the wall) felt like a symbolic moment; as did our bath moving from the landing and being sited in the bathroom. With working taps. As our bathroom was one of the first pieces of work to be started, this felt pretty special.

It didn’t stop there. Our symbolic “we’ve finally arrived” week was cemented by the opportunity to visit the annual Village Flower Show. There was much excitement in the village (according to the website anyway) as last year’s show had been cancelled due to [insert name of global pandemic here]. The only other time Helen and I had visited a village flower show was in the Cotswolds, on a weekend which finished with Helen suggesting we move to the country, so symbolism was heavy in the air.

We set off with trepidation. Would we be allowed in, as technically we live in a hamlet the other side of a patch of woodland from the beating heart of the village? On the other hand, our house used to be the village mill, so they would surely honour our lineage.

We arrived. Some old bloke sitting at the door didn’t ask for money, just smiled and waved us in. 

I’m sure you can imagine the scene that greeted us. Flowers that looked like they’d been cut from someone’s garden, in vases; except in the specialist categories such as “footwear” for which all the flowers were planted in shoes; groups of vegetables looking impressively identical (even M&S can’t get their echallion shallots to resemble each other as much as these did); the same names appearing over and over again in the lists of prizewinners: five people seemed to be responsible for 90% of the items on show.

Doris Haggard was determined to win first prize this year

As we moved towards the exit, a matronly woman accosted us. Were we visitors? I took my first opportunity to say “No,  we live in the village.” She beamed delightedly, and asked where we lived. Here is the first difference from a London encounter, where the question would always be “whereabouts do you live?”, any more specific enquiry marking the person out as a burglar or murderer. In a village it is expected you give your address to anyone who wants it. Given that our address is simply The Mill, and you can’t miss our house because it sticks into the road and forces it to reduce to a single carriageway, there’s not much getting out of it.

As we left, we were accosted again, by a hunched elderly woman walking bent almost double over a wheelchair which she was pushing for support; it was impossible to say where woman ended and wheelchair began. Were we from the village, she asked? I prepared to give her my door keys and invite her over for a few weeks. Then she spotted our dog, who we’d smuggled into the show in Helen’s basket. Woman and puppy were introduced. Why she Russian name, she wanted to know? I made up some stuff about Mishka’s ancestors being Russian (which I had a vague memory might be the case). She effortlessly switched languages and engaged Mishka in a conversation in Russian. That seemed quite enough excitement for one flower show, so we made our excuses and left.

Of course, this isn’t strictly a country thing. Any London suburb with a smidgeon of community spirit will have similar events, “village” fetes and the like. The “community” behind such events is generally about 20 people with the enthusiasm to pull the whole thing together. In a village, it’s much the same, except there’s more attention paid to villagers. The most villagey part of London we’ve lived in is St Margarets, and I don’t remember being asked at the summer fair whether I lived in St Margarets or not. In fact that was what I liked about London. My grandmother put it better than I: “The good thing about living in London is you don’t have to talk to anyone”. And so we come full circle. This is why I swore I would never move to the country. I didn’t like the idea of people wanting to know about me and where I lived. But now I’m here, it feels rather positive, like people actually care about me.

A culture of Inclusion underpins the village festivities

And I must say, for the record, that in this part of Somerset at least, the people are extremely friendly. I thought the woman in the dry cleaners was going to hug me, so delighted was she that I’d come to see her. I am still gloomily aware that we are in an area of hardcore Tory voters. I don’t know if everyone would be so friendly were I gay or Nigerian. But for now, I’m feeling cautiously positive.

On which note, let me deal with the bulging postbag I generated when I mentioned I’d found a new “hair stylist”. I thought I was using a generic job title; but correspondents have been triggered to demand photos of my new hair style as if it’s going to win prizes, and subject me to gender-normative abuse for not visiting a barber (sorry lads, if it doesn’t involve feathering it isn’t a haircut).

It was a big deal for me, as back in London I’d been visiting the same “hair stylist” for 25 years. I won’t say much on the subject for fear of being trolled again, but thanks to my new “tonsorial technologist” I’ve discovered the holding power of sea salted water. And my “Milk Shake” shampoo brings all the girls to the yard.