Tag Archives: London

CL Xmas Fair – there and back again

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Well, I’m back!  The Country Living Christmas Fair was quite amazing – I’ve never seen so many Christmas tree decorations/silk scarves/cinnamon candles etc and (this is important) so many people buying them, in my life.  I’ve been to plenty of Christmas Fairs in my time, but this really took the biscuit.  And of course it was great to be part of it, and siphon off some of the happy shoppers to come and listen to me burbling about my book, and the people and animals that made it happen.

It’s a lovely thing to be able to talk about something close to your heart, and have an audience who laughs with you, and shows genuine interest in the pretty pictures up on the screen.  If any of you are reading this, thank you for being there and special thanks with extra gold stars to the brave souls who asked questions afterwards.

But when I had finished my talks, and signed my books, and threaded my way out through the exit with a steady stream of people carrying Christmas presents for the masses in bulging carrier bags, and trundled along on the tube and then leaped onto a train at Paddington, and finally got home – my, it was good to stand on the bridge over the stream and just let the sounds and scents of the countryside wash over me.

Home brings you back to earth, too.  I was still on a bit of a high, as I stood on the bridge, but there were the geese to shut in.  And the hens.  And the sheep to find in the darkness and check.  And Slip wanted an apple, and Harry bit Slip because he wanted one first so Slip needed his injured feelings soothed.  And the dogs were pleased to see me, but reminded me that it was actually their supper time.  And for the cat too.  And when I was slow with supper, Scarab brought a mouse indoors instead and let it go.  And then we had a mouse hunt around the kitchen with the mouse leading and going like the clappers pursued by me and the dogs (Scarab had lost interest in the mouse when he placed it on the floor:  he was just making a point anyway).  I opened the kitchen door, and the mouse shot through it and into the night, and by then the glamour of London was a distant memory.

So I’m back and it was fab.  And to coin a phrase (John Denver?) “gee but it’s great to be back home!”

 

 

London: there and back

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I went to London yesterday.  Not a great drama you would think, but for me it is.  For a start I have to get up extra specially early to feed and organise all the animals before I go.  Then I walk the dogs around the village, and something about my going-to-London day means that I will meet the most garrulous and needy villagers on my route.  Frank, for example:  “morning, my dear.  Looks like rain, don’t it?” (that’s how he always starts, it’s his opening shot before he really gets going).  Then he was telling me about his mother, who must be over 100 and has decided that she prefers life with no clothes on.  How can I sidle away from that one?

When I had listened to Frank, got home, checked the sheep (still not shorn, so highly attractive to blow-flies and need constant vigilance), made sure that shrieks from Frillz just meant that she’d discovered ladybirds, not that she was being torn apart by the others, and settled the dogs in their baskets I could finally set out for the station.

Another part of going to London is that I always arrive at the station about half an hour too early, just in time (in fact) to just miss the train before the one I am aiming for, a stress in itself.  Yesterday my half hour wait on the platform was made beautiful by an extended family of swifts, who hurled about the sky just above me, avian Spitfire pilots, yelling with happiness as they went.

Then the train to London, and sudden exposure to crowds.  Once I have established to my inner self that I don’t actually know anybody, so it is pointless to scan the faces of passers-by for a friend (as I do in Bath) it is exhilarating to be amongst hordes of strangers, all rushing to do something (what?  I’d love to know).  London was looking good yesterday, the sun was shining (as it was not in Wiltshire), the shops were awesome, and the exhibition of The Horse From Arabia to Royal Ascot at the British Museum was superb.  And although I got back to Paddington just in time to miss the train before mine again, so could hear the announcer urgently calling people to board the train for Chippenham as I arrived at the station, the return trip went smoothly.

I went and stood in the field when I got back.  It was raining steadily, in fact it was pouring, but the air smelt fresh and green and the dogs came and sat with me.  To quote Paul Simon, ‘Gee, but it’s great to be back home!’

 

London (eventually)

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Went to London yesterday to see the musical ‘Matilda’, and it was awesomely good.  But I don’t go to London often, so make more of a meal of it than those who go every day and travel nonchalantly there and back without a quiver.  I had to feed the animals early, and find coat/shoes etc without mud (and worse) on them.  I like to get to the railway station ridiculously early and sit for hours on a cold bench looking mindlessly at ranks of parked cars in the distance.  Anything rather be late, and have to run, and just miss the train pulling heartlessly away as you hurtle down endless steps (I’ve done that, and I didn’t like it).

So it was a mixed blessing when Frank appeared at my side when I was hurling hay at the sheep, with something on his mind.  He’s a real countryman, is Frank, and there’s nothing he doesn’t know about ferrets in sickness and in health, but he does take a long time to get to the point.  Frank’s never been to London in his life, and probably never been on a train either.  So, with me beginning to hyperventilate, he started off the ‘well I saw you was along here and I thought to myself that I could toddle along and have a bit of a word’ thing that can go on for half an hour.  The gist of his song, arrived at after careful shepherding from me, was that he thought my field of untouched Spring grass, which I’ve been nurturing all winter to give my lot a nice treat when the other fields are at their barest, would be just the thing for his newly lambed ewes.  I let him down gently, but it took time.

I whizzed home to start changing and Mrs Addington was on the doorstep.  She was collecting for a Good Cause and was expecting a cup of herb tea (not a mug, she doesn’t like mugs) and the chance to lecture me at length on exactly how Good the Cause was.  Not this time, Mrs A!  I stuffed a note into her box and fled indoors.  Finally (and this takes the biscuit) I opened up the gates (which I keep closed in case Maurice’s dairy herd are having one of their many little excursions into uncharted territory and decide to have a grand day out in my garden) and Maurice had parked his tractor plus harrows in my gateway and disappeared.  Gnawing my knuckles, I rushed about till I found him peaceably chatting to a neighbour about hedging, persuaded him to shift his mighty machine and finally got myself to the station.

Readers I made it, but only just and I didn’t calm down until I was actually in the theatre (and it was awesomely good).  But that’s basically why I don’t go to London very often.