Just like Beatrix Potter

We leave the house and turn together to walk up Crown Road. The forecast warns of rain and another drop in temperature this afternoon, but for now the sun is bright with just enough warmth to melt the frost and warm our backs.

'Up and along?' one of us says, knowing the other will understand, and we do, crossing the High Street to take the Millenium footpath up to the woods. Halfway up we clamber over a stile that seems to grow in height each time we cross it, as the earth around it gradually wears away. 

 'Or how about along then up? We'll be able to stay in the sunshine a little bit longer.'

It's a less-used route, at least by humans, but tractor tyres have flattened a pathway and either side the telltale signs of recently dug holes and small round droppings tell us there were rabbits here not long ago.

'They'll be in their burrows now, sitting by the fire with a nice cup of tea and a slice of bramble pie, wondering what those thundering footsteps are doing overhead' I suggest.

I've never quite moved on from believing that the world under our feet is just as Beatrix Potter might have painted it.

'Along then up' turns out to be a much steeper route, so we pause frequently, each time turning to look back at the valley behind us, never failing to absorb its simple beauty. At the top of the hill we turn into the woods. Dry fallen leaves cover the path. Thick under foot, their crunch is a delightful reminder of all our childhoods.This is what we've come for. We scuff and trample, shattering leaves into clouds of dust that will filter down into the soil and feed the trees that dropped them.

I'm the first to spot the chestnuts shining between the leaves. We're never usually in time to see any more than the prickly open cases, their soft white insides turning slowly brown, but today it seems we've got to them before the squirrels. Perhaps the wind last night has shaken down a new crop, or maybe, just like the rabbits, the squirrels are sitting cosy by their firesides, their cupboards already stocked for winter. Either way the chestnuts are there for the picking. We shuffle through the leaves, spotting more and more until our pockets are full, our legs misshapen and lumpy.

As we turn for home, I start humming a Christmas song, imagining chestnuts roasting on the open fire we'll light a little later. Philip is already musing about collecting sprouts from the allotment to cook with them. 

Halfway down the hill I stop and look again at our street, nestled in the valley below. I know I'll never tire of the sight. And as we get nearer to our own burrow, I can't help thinking that down there too is just as Beatrix Potter might have painted it.

Seeing the light

In the sudden switch from sleep to wakefulness, I can't work out what's woken me or why. It's as though someone has come into the room and thoughtlessly turned on the light. Philip is still there beside me, and there's no sign of recent movement, but across his face and pillow there is indeed a light; a clear bright beam, falling on him like a spotlight from the sky.

A strange and unexpected alignment of cloudless sky, leaf-bared trees and the lunar cycle, has brought the full moon through our open curtains and into the bedroom. Drawn to it, I stand at the window looking out, thinking of all the clichés that have ever been penned about moonlight, my sleep-dulled brain unable to come up with any new words to describe the silver glow lighting up our room, shining magically outside.

It's bright enough to see along the row of gardens that back the houses of our street; to pick out the sheds and greenhouses, washing lines and compost bins. It's the same garden furniture I see every time I look out, but tonight it's lost some of its ugly practicality, swept by a glistening shimmer. For a moment I wonder if this is what it would be like if giant slugs had crept across the land while we slept.

I stand and gaze, and as I do, the view in front of me is replaced by a series of other gardens, looked at from other windows. I'm back leaning on the tiled window-sill of my childhood bedroom in Croxted Road, peering through the net curtains and the steel-framed windows that were covered in condensation every morning of the year. I remember the story that I used to tell my friends to explain the small scar on my forehead; the story where I fell out of the window and somehow miraculously survived, not the real one where I climbed up to watch my Dad in the garden, slipped and caught my head on the corner of a cupboard. Or at least that's the story I think is real.

Then I'm looking out over the flat pitched roof of the dining room extension in Manor Way, past the spot in the flower bed where Megan would sit chatting to Ruth next door, as they swapped mud pies through  holes in the fence; past the hedges and the shrubs that I clipped and pruned year after year, down to the bottom of the garden, where the green swing sits, just as it should for every child.

I'm whisked forward in time to the bedroom window in Crown Road, to see Martin, our overweight cat, teetering along the top of the garden fence, making his way to our neighbours' bird table to sit hunched up like a fat furry turkey on a plate. Beyond the fence is the old orchard, where the overgrown grass and ancient trees strain to face another year, hoping once again to defy the latest in a long list of planning applications to fill their space with a row of houses.

I stand remembering, until I realise that the light is getting brighter, no longer from the moon but the start of a new day. I think about the hours I've spent staring out of bedroom windows at a series of gardens and neighbourhoods and I realise I've almost always slept at the back of the house. Hardly ever has my view been of street lights and front doors, of passing cars, or concrete paths. My first glimpse and last look at the outside world each day has been the world of grass and trees, of home and family.

I take one last look at the sky before going to make my first cup of tea of the day. Sometimes we try so hard to reach the moon, when all we really need to do is stop and see.

The other side

It's a year now since we moved to Telston Lane; a year of adjustments and settling, a year of swapping old routines for new rituals, familiar scenery for new sights.

When we lived in Crown Road I could spend hours looking out of the front window at the comings and goings of the street; at neighbours and strangers strolling past, at cars reversing ever-so-carefully down its tight confines. Here in Otford, it's the view from the back of the house that draws me to stand gazing out of the kitchen window into our long, long garden.

We haven't changed much about the garden in the last year - we haven't really needed to; each season has bought a new colour, a new focus, and a new reason to thank our predecessors. The abundant white rose that lit up our first few weeks was followed, as summer drew on, by the lavender that grows so well in this valley, by the honeysuckle trailing over our ramshackle fences and the tall white daisies waving from every corner.

The first winds of autumn brought down the leaves from our neighbours' trees. I'd dreaded the task of clearing them, but the gentle rhythm of sweeping soon became a calming replacement for summer's weekly walk with the lawn mower.

We found just how damp and squelchy the ground could be after heavy rain, then just how pretty it could look after the snow of our very first winter. Spring came and went, with the delight of unexpected daffodils pushing through the cold hard earth, and then the rose bush filled with buds again to herald the start of our second year here.

When we lived in Shoreham, there was a small square table in front of the window. It was there that I'd chat to Philip as we ate our dinner or shared a lazy weekend breakfast, and it was there that I started writing this blog, sitting opposite Philip, with the top edges of our laptops just touching. I spent hours at that table - writing, dreaming, reading of lives all around the world. Every now and then, I'd glance up to my right to look out on the street and all its life.

The table is still with us; it sits in the kitchen now, against the wall. When we first moved here, we adopted our positions each side of it, and for a while, like any comfortable habit, it felt ok. But then I realised that when I glanced up to my right, it wasn't the world I could see, just a kitchen wall. When I looked ahead, it wasn't into the room, but just to the wall at the end. Gradually it seemed as though my world was closing in rather than moving on and opening up.

It's a big thing, the way we arrange ourselves. When Philip and I walk together I am always to his right; when we sleep together he is always to mine. We've never debated it, that's just how it is, and any other arrangement simply wouldn't be right, so it was with some trepidation that I suggested we might try sitting the other way round.

And tonight I'm sitting at the other side of the table. Ahead of me, when I look up, I see Philip pottering about in the kitchen. I love to watch him cook, it's the time when I see all the patience, love and care that are an inherent part of who he is, no matter how cleverly he disguises it. And when I glance up to my right, I  can see through the clear glass of the kitchen door, straight into the garden, where the rose is about to bloom.

We're settling into Otford now, shedding old habits and learning new routines. When we came here, it felt such a big move, but I've come to understand that it really isn't the other side of the world.

I never would have guessed though that what could really make me feel at home was just the other side of the table.

 

Broken sunglasses and an old potato

It's not a good start to the day as I realise, yet again, that it's bins day and neither of us remembered last night to put the rubbish bags out for collection. As I stumble around the house in the half light of early morning, muttering and grumbling about being late for work, I wonder how other people organise themselves for the day-to-day activities of living together. With the small part of my brain that's awake at 6am, I trawl through faint memories of our early conversations, but I can't remember us ever having a conversation where we allocated out the chores; I don't recall any lists of tasks carefully shared and balanced.

There wasn't any negotiation process all those years ago, and I'm sure there would be no point in opening talks right now. It's too early, I'm sleepy, he's asleep. So I gather up the newspapers for the recycling bag and move from room to room emptying bins into a black sack. I line up the bags at the kerbside, then go back indoors to wash my hands before leaving for work. When I go upstairs to say goodbye, I realise there's one bin I've missed, so I dash back down for another bag, my irritation increasing with each of the thirteen stairs down and every one of the thirteen stairs back up again.

In our bedroom there's a small white basket, it's usually got a few tissues, perhaps the label cut from a new t-shirt or the polythene wrapper from the weekend's newspapers. Today, just because I'm in a hurry, it's full. And when I tip it up, the contents don't empty quickly or cleanly into the bin-bag. I reach down gingerly through the tissues, hoping for nothing damp, then extract a pair of broken sunglasses, one lens missing, one arm sticking out at a strange angle.  I tug to release it from the wicker weave of the basket, and as I do so, the rest of the litter falls to the floor. As the tissues float down like over-sized snowflakes, there's an unexpected thud, and I see a wrinkled old potato rolling across the floor and under the bed.

A little later, I'm driving to work, along with the often-slow lanes of traffic on the M25. This is usually my time for the mental shift from home to work, an hour of thinking about the day ahead, preparing the virtual list of things I'm probably not going to achieve in the next eight hours. But today, my mind keeps returning to home; the images in my head are a pair of broken sunglasses and an old potato.

I can't help but think how well those two objects sum him up. If I was taking part in a tv game show, I'd have guessed the identity of the bin-owner before the compère had even finished describing the wrinkled gnarliness of the potato.

I'd have known why sunglasses are a year-round accessory for him; that it's not a vain affectation, just a need to stave off the unsettling effects of over-bright lights. I'd know that he loses or breaks them time and again, that one day he'd like to own another pair of real Ray-bans, but that in the meantime he settles for something close.

I'd have been able to describe to the watching millions exactly where that potato came from, how it's ancestor sat in an egg-box on the window sill in Crown Road, before being planted in the middle of our allotment. I could talk about the enormous pride we felt the first year we harvested our own crop, how every year since then he's dug up the potatoes with the glee of a boy searching for buried treasure.  I could go on to explain how he's the cook in our family, how he turns those potatoes into the crunchiest roasties, even though he insists on leaving the skins on.

Today, the traffic flows as smoothly as my imagination and soon enough I'm pulling into the car park. As I stand in the lift on my way up to the seventh floor my last thought of home is the realisation that, without any negotiations about the sharing out of chores, I seem to have done ok. A frantic early morning emptying of the rubbish bins is a very fair price for the dinner I know I'll be going home to later.

A Tale of Two Villages

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light..." 

So wrote Charles Dickens more than a hundred and fifty years ago in A Tale of Two Cities. His words have been echoing in my mind this weekend.

This time last year, as long-time readers of this blog will know, we lived in the best street in the best village in the world. And as the last Saturday in November dawned, we were up early, donning our warmest clothing for the best weekend of the year, the weekend when the residents of Crown Road put up the Christmas lights.

But six months ago, knowing that we couldn't go on renting for ever, and having given up hope of ever being able to afford to buy a house in Shoreham, we moved along the valley to Otford. This year, there was no slip of paper through the letter box confirming the date or time to assemble, there was no bustle and noise outside as the boxes of light-bulbs and wheels of cable were placed at strategic points along the street.

Instead, a few days ago, Philip received a text from Keith, our old landlord and ex-next door neighbour, inviting us to go along and join the annual ritual. Philip knew straight away that he wanted to go, I took a little longer to set aside my grudging sense of disappointment that our new village has not yet entwined itself into our hearts, and finally agree that it would be a good thing to go back and join in.

So yesterday, instead of just opening the front door and stepping outside, we jumped in the car and drove along the valley. And when we arrived, all was just as it should be. We slotted straight back into the roles we'd been assigned last year. Philip in charge of the Christmas tree at the end of the road, me the queen of the WD40, making sure all the bulb sockets were liberally squirted.

Nobody was surprised that we were there, though many asserted their pleasure that we were. Some things had changed - different window frames on one house, a new car outside another, but so many things were still the same. We chatted and worked, exclaimed with gratitude at the coffee and flapjacks as they appeared and praised the choc-chip biscuits made by Imogen, who wasn't even born the first year we were there to put up the lights.

There were some new neighbours, joining in for the very first time, and about to find out the wonder of those bright lights in the darkest month of the year. There were others who, like us, have moved away and were spoken of and remembered fondly.

At the end of the morning, as always, we made our way to The Crown, the pub at the top of the road, the pub that had been our very first visiting place in the village and the venue for our wedding reception. There we all squashed into the small front bar, recently decorated by the new landlords who are slowly and quietly working their way into the affections of the village.

And it was only then, as we all raised a cheer to Crown Road and its lights, that it really hit me. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We've moved along the valley, but my heart is still living at no 13.

Just along the valley

We hadn’t been together all that long when Philip first introduced me to the small green guide book; 28 circular walks in the Kent countryside, ranging from a gentle stroll round a field to a sharp breath-stealing march up a hill. With his usual boundless enthusiasm he overcame my reluctance to accept walking boots as a fashion item, and over the next few years we tested them out - the boots and the walks - working our way across fields and footpaths, stomping through villages and valleys. As we walked, or stopped to admire the view, we scribbled comments in the book's margins; 'bluebells in April,' 'a cheese sandwich under the trees,' 'Badger!' After a while the book became shabby and dog-eared; a cracked spine and turned-down corners the battle scars of our favourite walks.

There was one page in the book that became more worn and tattered than the rest, one walk we returned to again and again, until we really didn't need the book any more. The footpath started out in a small quiet village, then wound its way up and through a wood, across a valley and a hill, past farms and a golf course; before winding back down again, past a viaduct, along a river and back. 

Before long I was calling the village 'the nice place' and weekend walks were supplemented by visits on a Friday evening. We found a small pub, where the barman always greeted us with a smile, addressing Philip as 'young man'. It was no time at all until he knew our names and started pouring out our drinks before we'd even finished asking for them. Occasional drinks turned to dinner every Friday; the perfect way to mark the beginning of the weekend. We gradually felt more and more at home sitting at 'our' table in the bar, chatting to the other regulars, marvelling at how lucky they were to live in such a lovely place. Our conversation became peppered with phrases like "wouldn't it be nice if..." and "maybe one day..."

So, when one Friday evening we pulled into the pub car park and spotted a 'To Let' board outside a house a few doors down, we knew it was meant to be. Dinner waited while we walked up and down the road, peering through the front windows as we passed, trying to make it look like we weren't being nosy, hoping there wasn't anyone inside looking out. When we finally sat down in the pub to eat, there was no other conversation possible. The very next morning we contacted the letting agent and a few days later everything was in place for us to move.

We both knew it would be temporary; long-term renting really wasn't the wisest move, but we hoped that before long we'd be able to buy a house - if not in the same street, then at least in the same village. In the meantime we just settled in and enjoyed every minute spent living in a street with the friendliest, most community spirited neighbours I've ever known; and next door to the best landlords anyone could hope for.

For months, Philip went round with a big smile on his face, telling anyone who'd listen that it was just like being on a permanent holiday.  We started to put down roots - in the street, at the allotment.  We helped to put up the christmas lights, took part in the duck race, manned a stall at the village fete. Philip chopped wood for our open fires, I trod the boards for our local productions. The village opened its arms and welcomed us, it was only natural that we loved it in return.

After a while, we began to realise our aspirations to buy had been too optimistic. We watched as the For Sale signs came and went; we waited while prices got higher and higher. However hard we saved, even the tiniest most run-down cottage in the village was beyond our purse strings. We talked about it long and hard; renting was fine for now, but we both knew that if we left it too much longer we'd never be able to own our own home.

It's been four years since we moved to the nicest street in the nicest place in the world. This week, we exchanged contracts on a house in another village. 

Our new house is small, but lovely, with a warm friendly feel about it and a wonderfully long garden. It’s only a couple of miles along the valley, so we’ll still be able to carry on doing all the things we've grown to love; and seeing the people we've come to know and admire. I know we are very lucky to have found a place we can afford to buy; I know that it will suit us just fine.

We’re moving in two weeks’ time, so the next few days will fly past in a blur of sorting, packing and cleaning. Before we leave, I will take one last slow walk around the house, smiling to myself as I remember the day when we sat together in the bedroom and Philip asked me to marry him. I’ll think of our wedding day and the wonderful party we had in the Crown pub at the top of the road, made perfect through the hard work and good will of Phil the barman. I’ll stand in the kitchen and think of all the vegetables we’ve proudly carried home from the allotment, the fabulous dinners Philip has cooked here, the gorgeous cakes that Megan has baked. I’ll look at the room, still pictured at the top of my blog, and re-live how I felt when I sat down to write my first ever blog post, marvelling at all the words I’ve written and read at that table ever since.

And then before I know it, and certainly before I’m ready for it, we’ll be closing the door for the last time and handing back the key. The move is, without doubt, a good thing. The tears I know we shouldn’t cry are just a confirmation of the wonderful time we’ve had and the happy memories we’ll be taking with us.

Thank you Shoreham.

Friday on my mind

It's Friday morning, eight o'clock and I'm still in bed, propped up by a pile of plumped up pillows. Most mornings I'm up and out before Philip's even conscious, but on a Friday I work from home, so I'm the one who gets to stay tucked up in the duvet, with the cup of tea he made before he left.

I don't always live easily in the present. My mind's default setting is to think about the future, to mull over things, worry about and plan for what will, or might, or ought, to happen. Today though, there's something about the light outside that leads me to just sit.

The sky's a pale blue, cut in quarters by the white trailing clouds from two passing planes, like a washed out Scottish flag. From where I sit I can see the tops of the trees; they're still skeletal at this time of year. Though I know their leaf buds are forming, I can't see them from here. One old tree must have been there for hundreds of years. It stands in the back garden of a small cottage along the valley and it's been pruned a number of times to stop it blocking the light from the buckled leaded windows. It seems to have been hacked at without much thought for its shape so it now has a permanent one-sided lean, as though it's straining to get away from the cottage. For the last couple of years it's been the last tree to get leaves, like a recalcitrant old man who finds fewer reasons to get up and dressed every morning.

Where the tree's been cut back, I can see the upstairs of the house. The windows peep out from an old, uneven red-tiled roof, blinking in the light like eyes from under a fringe. I wonder if there's someone sitting in their bed thinking about the trees and the sky, looking out at me.

It's very quiet now that Philip's left for work. It's not just that he likes to leave the radio on in every room, more that there's a sound to his presence. When he's here, I sense his breathing. I can tell by the pace and depth of it, what mood he's in, how hard he's concentrating, whether he's tense or relaxed. When I first knew him, we worked in an office together. One day he spent a whole day coughing, trying to clear his chest. By the end of the day I felt the need to clear my own throat in sympathy every time he gasped for breath.  Sometimes now, without even realising it, I find my breath slowing down or speeding up to keep pace with his.

Before he left, I listened to him moving around, heard him downstairs talking to the cat; waited for his step on the stairs, on the creaking floor-board in the bedroom. I noticed the click that his tin of hair-pomade made when he set it down on the wooden box by the bed, I heard his keys jangle as he picked them up and dropped them into his trouser pocket.

I sit for a while, but thoughts of the work I need to do today start pushing into the empty quietness. I know it's time to get up. When I do, the news is all of a terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I switch on the TV and see film after film of buildings shaking, people screaming, rolling tidal waves of water washing over fields and through car parks.

It doesn't seem possible, that while I sat looking out at the peace of the valley, halfway across the world, people's lives were literally being turned upside down. I know there is no rhyme or reason. It simply isn't fair that some people will never again hear the turn of the key in the lock as their loved ones return at the end of the day. I am enormously grateful that I will.

Setting out

Each morning I follow the same routine; as I leave the house, I pull the front door shut behind me, turn left and look down the street. The terraced cottages form a guard of honour as the road makes its way slightly downhill  towards the river. Beyond that, the view opens up across the fields to the other side of the valley. From this distance I can't see the llamas grazing, but as I look up I can see the lights glowing from the solitary house on the hill. I'm intrigued by the round  turret like wing at one end and always think it could be the setting for an Agatha Christie murder mystery, a deadly dinner party with Hercule Poirot as guest of honour; 'Villainy at the Vineyard' perhaps, or 'The Shocking Shoreham Shooting'?

I have a long commute to work, so it's still dark when I leave. There's no-one else around at this time, but as I look along the road I can picture the other Crown Road residents waking up and preparing for the day ahead. I know the house where the toddler will already be awake, chattering away to her Dad before he sets off for work in Tunbridge Wells. I can imagine the scene where our champion of the allotments will be slowly stretching, bringing the life back into his aching shoulders. I can almost see each of the dogs and cats bending down to their individual breakfast bowls.

Then I turn to walk up the road towards the car. Parking is never easy in this small narrow street, so it's usually a bit of a way from the house. I never mind that though; this is sometimes my only chance of the day to feel like I'm really part of the village. At the top of the street is the hill leading up to the woods on our side of the valley. This is the slope where so many people rushed to test out their tobogganing skills when the snow fell heavily in December, I can still almost hear the excited shrieks of delight and fear. Sometimes the field is empty, at other times there are sheep or cows grazing there. I remember the reaction of my son when he first saw them clinging to the steep incline "why don't they roll down?"

As I walk up the road I continue to imagine the scenes behind each front door. The young couple a few doors up are expecting their first baby. It was due earlier this week and I wonder if anything happened in the night. But there's no way of knowing; everything looks peaceful and it's far too early to knock and find out. As I reach the top of the road, the first car reverses past me on its way to the station. The driver smiles and waves through his rapidly de-misting windscreen.

Just a few minutes later I reach my car, but in that short time the darkness has lifted a little and the sky is a lighter grey. I know that each morning for the next few weeks this will happen slightly earlier until the day when I walk out for the first time this year to the bright morning light of Shoreham. On that day I'll walk even more slowly to my car.