Of Grime, Agas and Woodlice

 

After three years, 28 blogs and much activity, last week I realised something had clicked. This is not an age-related issue; just as I woke up three years ago with an urge to relocate to a rural area, last week I suddenly felt completely at home here. 

Even a hardened city dweller would have little trouble imagining the list of positive criteria that would make one glad to live in the country. You’ve probably already assembled the list before I can write it down:

- Slower pace of life

- Beautiful countryside

- Community spirit

Basically a Thomas Hardy novel without the tragic deaths and grinding poverty. Well, my list is not exactly different, but it’s nuanced. Let me start with community spirit.

Those who know me will attest I have never been champing at the bit to fill my house with the warmth and and tinkling laughter of manifold visitors. So I approached a little nervously the Londoner’s image of a world where everyone pops in and out of your dwelling. Happily, having chosen a house on the edge of the village that is not overlooked, we’re not in the thick of it. We have neighbours, it is true, but if I tell you that our closest neighbours took two months to come round and introduce themselves (bringing us, of course, some eggs from the hens in their garden) you get the general rhythm of life in our hamlet (separated from the village proper by a clump of woodland).

There are rocky moments, it’s true. I was in the garden with Mishka (the dog, keep up) the other day and she started barking at a man coming out of his house across the road. Rather than skulk away, he took this as a cue to march up our driveway and engage me in conversation. This was tricky, not just because of my preference for introversion, but because it was first thing in the morning and I still had my nightguard in (for the uninitiated, a plastic thing that goes over your teeth and stops you grinding them) which rendered me incapable of normal speech. I faced a dilemma: should I take it out, showering him with a torrent of saliva in the process, or try and bluff my way through? 

I chose the budget night guard option

I took the latter path. The conversation took the form of him firing questions at me and me spluttering an answer. 

“What’s her name?”

“Mi((splutter))ka”.

“What breed is she?”

“Minia((splutter))ure ((splutter))nauzer”)

And so on. He seemed quite unfazed by my speech impediment – I imagine he was assumed I was an inbred yokel.

It’s not just about your neighbours. You see a community spirit in the way every driver thanks you for giving way to them; in the bus drivers who drop my Mum at our gate with her shopping rather than making her walk from the bus stop. OK, don’t write in , Londoners: I am aware of the health and safety complexities involved. But until my mum is mown down by a passing badger as she alights we’re seeing it as a Good Thing. 

And so to number two on your list, the beautiful countryside. I’m not going to argue. We live, after all,  on the edge of the Quantock Hills and not a million miles from Exmoor. But my connection, as for many dog owners, came on a morning walk.

It was the day we added an a.m. stroll to Mishka’s agenda. For variety, I eschewed the village woodland where she normally goes and headed for a field a hundred yards in the other direction. We tramped round the side of the field, me looking down the while, to check she was OK and look out for stray faeces (It’s a country thing). When we turned to follow the diagonal path back across the pasture, I realised I hadn’t looked up at all and immediately did so.

Ahead of me, the foothills of the Quantocks rose behind the village. The early sun illuminated the faint mist on the fields. It was quintessential Rolling Countryside, positively Wordsworthian. My spirits rose – and I think that was when everything clicked. This is our home now.

I react to the sunrise on a morning walk

It’s OK, don’t worry, it’s not all soft focus and glorious sunsets. There was the day we tried to buy a sandwich at 1.30 in the afternoon from a nearby bakery:

“Hi, do you do sandwiches?”

“Yes, but we stop serving at 2.”

“Great, what have you got?”

“No, you see, we stop serving at 2, so the chef is clearing up now.”

“Yes but—“ 

There was no point. We’re in the country now, with it’s country logic. Of course the chef has to clear up at 1.30 if they stop serving at 2. Why wouldn’t they?

Oh, and remember the robot mower? It’s broken down. A winking light told me there is a break somewhere in the boundary cable. Which, as you can imagine, goes right round the edge of the lawn, and is now buried by the mystical action of the living soil beneath.

Don’t write in, I’ve looked at the top tips videos on You Tube. I’ve walked round with an AM radio listening to the interference (don’t ask); I’ve swapped and replugged the cables and attempted to interpret the different patterns of winking lights that ensue. In the end there was nothing for it but to disinter the entire cable and check every inch for breaks. 

I live in the country now, so I’m awash with positive vibes. The sun was shining, what was so bad about a day in the garden getting close to the soil whence our planty ancestors sprang? I will answer this question in one word: Mishka.

Our puppy is usually most companionable if one is gardening, sitting nearby and sniffing the air. On this occasion, she followed a different thought process, something like Ooh you’re digging, I can dig for you. Ooh, a cable, let me chew it. Ooh, your hand, let me bite it. Ha, you’re trying to pull it away, my favourite game ever, let me leap on it and sink my teeth in. Hooray, you’re squealing like a rodent when I catch it, let me hang on you you and sink my teeth further…”

For hours.

Well I’m half way round the lawn and everything is intact (apart from my hand, as you will have gathered). I need a few days off to recover.

It doesn’t really matter if things go well or not, since something clicked (see top of blog entry) I feel somewhat at peace. I can feel my edginess smoothing over. I even felt like telling you this was the last blog entry I would write. That was until a card was put through our door, which said, simply:

MEET THE VILLAGE

16^th October 10-12

Village Hall

So it begins. What shall I do? Go along and write for you about it? Or save us both the horror?

Meet the village children