WELLIE WANGING

     Some people might suppose the country to be dull and boring, and I say to them, you have not lived in Somerset in the summer where a  stream of festivals and fetes, gatherings and guests, ferret races and skittle alleys compete for your leisure time.

Wellie Wanging anyone?

     Posted signs announce the summer fairs or fetes hosted by local communities where neighbours come to play games, visit, eat and raise money for worthwhile causes. 
     There were two local  celebrations within walking distance to The Pink Cottage. The Butleigh fete was definitely geared to the more athletic minded with competitive sports like Skittles, Coconut Shy, Hook-a-Duck and Wellie Wanging.  Wellie Wanging is played by tossing a Wellie (Wellington Boot) as far as you can to eliminate all the other tossers.  The sport originated in the town of Upperthong in Holmfirth.  The World Welly Wanging Association is based in Upperthong to this day, and has issued a strict set of guidelines for the sport. 

... the Rolling Stones

The Hog Roast or....

     Our own local fete featured Ferret Racing, Skittles, and a Hog Roast.  We bought tickets fully intending to go, but an incredibly generous friend offered us passes to see the Rolling Stones and Jake Bugg at Hyde Park.  We had to choose.    

     Food and animals feature heavily in farming country and on July 5^th, there was a wine and cheese event at the town hall to celebrate the new kitchen.  On July 7th the church up the hill hosted a repeat of their very successful Pets and Parachutes event.  All manner of pets and people streamed up the road beside the Pink Cottage to the Sunday service.  Afterwards teddy bears and dolls were parachuted off the church tower for fun. 
     The last weekend of July brought The Lowland Games near Langport featuring Mud Wrestling and Wife Carrying.  Wife Carrying is a sport new to me.  Further investigation revealed the competition originated in Finland, and the current World Wife Carrying Champs are indeed, Finnish.  Husband wants to start practicing for next year and has warned me off the carbs.
     Everyone's on holiday in August so the pace slows down.  August 10th is our annual village show which will wrap up the season.  Awards are given for everything from the heaviest marrow to the ugliest vegetables.  We'll be there.

     Aside from local celebrations, there's loads of other things to do here.  We are close to a number of interesting tourist sites.  Glastonbury Abbey is a short bus ride away, and is a beautiful ruin for a summertime walk, thanks to Henry the VIII and his relentless bid for a divorce.  August 11th, another lady-killer, Brian Ferry plays at an outdoor concert at the Abbey, an end of summer event for locals after the mayhem that is the Glastonbury Festival.  

     We’re twenty minutes from Montacute House, a National Trust Elizabethan house built in 1598.  It's linked with the National Portrait Gallery so there’s a ton of art.  The house itself is amazing, but one  aspect of it struck me as extremely clever.  The Trust has come up with an ingenious way to prevent tourist bottoms from settling on antique chairs.  There are no signs.  There are no ropes.  Instead each chair and settee has a large thistle on it, so were a miscreant to lower their backside onto any furnishings they’d end up with a thistle up their bum.  Brilliant yet subtle. 
                 
                                                              Note the Thistles

Behind the Pink Cottage, next to the church, is a seventeen hundred year old Yew Tree.  People come from miles around to see it.  We had our first canine guest with owner, a few weeks ago.  As we cut though the church yard taking Lottie the black lab for a walk we were startled to find a circle of people standing around the tree, foreheads pressed into the bark, arms outstretched embracing its trunk. Some of them leaned back against it, eyes fluttering half-rolled back in sockets, still others gazed to the heavens; real life tree-huggers.  We tiptoed past.  They were oblivious to our rude intrusion.  We laughed derisively.  

    

     A week later, anyone passing the churchyard would have seen me standing, forehead pressed against bark, trying to feel the ancient vibrations of the yew, and draw energy from its seventeen hundred year old roots in a desperate bid for creative inspiration. Now I regularly take visitors up the hill to the tree for a little hugging.  Is it possible I've been here too long?     

                                                                                                        

    

WE WALK

        When we arrived in England and began looking for a place to live in the country our friends in London said,

     “Get a car!  You simply must have a car!”
     “But we don’t want a car!”
     They rolled their eyes in exasperation.
     “But we have a spare,” they added, “Please… you really must use it!  We insist.”
     “We really, really, really want to walk,” we said, “be green.  Leave no carbon footprint.  Get exercise.  Breathe fresh air.”
     They laughed at our simple ways, an unspoken, ‘you’ll soon see' hung in the air.

Our Hood

     Truth be told, another factor in our decision to remain carless was that neither husband nor I have driven on the opposite side of the road, and spending a month amidst the skilled but terrifying drivers in London convinced us we'd be facing vehicular manslaughter charges if we got behind the wheel.

A Somerton Chook

     “Oh you silly chooks,” our friends laughed.  We thought ‘chook’ was an affectionate British word for Canadians.  Instead, it is an Australian word for chickens. 
     We found our village, and it is fairly remote.  There is only one store in the immediate vicinity.  It’s a pet store, so fairly useless to us unless we’re buying snacks for Penny the Peahen, or contemplating gold fish or budgerigars for dinner. We walk everywhere for nearly everything.  It is three miles in either direction to the towns where we shop for fresh farm produce and groceries.  It’s a mere two miles over the striking Polden Hills to our nearest convenience store.  
     We order staples on line from a grocery store.  They have an excellent delivery service and we can get basics and beverages delivered seven days a week.   When the sun set earlier, we received desperate calls from lost drivers hauling Elderflower Presse, toilet paper, Cabernet Sauvignon and Persil Laundry detergent up and down our lane.  Through rain and sleet and snow, they searched for The Pink Cottage.  We'd stand in the dark in the lane, and wave them in by flashlight.
                                                                                 Shortcut to the convenience store

      In the winter we had wide berth on the droves and lanes for our lengthy walks.   Now that summer is here and nature is out of control, the vegetation has exploded.  Some of the old easily navigable paths are crowded with grass and nettles reaching our waist.  Laneways are so tight that we have to dive into the ditches for safety when tractors speed past like they're competing at Le Mans; another reason not to drive.

                Off to the hairdresser

      With the arrival of summer our shopping horizons have expanded.  There are a couple of farm shops that sell local cheeses, seasonal vegetables, jams and chutneys, eggs and butter.   One farm, about a fifteen minute walk down the hill is particularly excellent.  The main road that fronts it was easily navigable a few months ago.  Now we dart in and out of hedges, hugging close to the side of the road to avoid ending up like the flattened badgers we see everywhere.  The farmer suggested we take a shortcut through their fields to our road, and then remembered that their bull Freddie was out and it might not be so safe.  

                Off to the bakery

     One night we went to the local pub because it was rumoured to contain a store, just a local shop for local people (see League of Gentlemen).  When we arrived we found the shop had closed.  The pub is ancient and there were two men at the bar.  We had a drink and a chat. One of them  squinted across at us and said, ‘I know you… you’re the walkers.’  Our reputation had preceded us.  We recently found out some neighbours wagered we wouldn't last here two weeks without a vehicle.  It's been three months so far, and every walk is an education.  Now people smile and wave as they drive past... either that or they're laughing at the freaks without a car. 

             Off to the butcher                                    Homeward Bound

  

      



                          

    We’re inching closer to accepting the idea of having an automobile in the future.  Two sets of friends arrived from California, each of them rented cars.  One drove beautifully, the other was so petrified that in the face of oncoming traffic he would simply slam a foot on the brake and stop in the middle of the road, uttering a silent primal scream, his eyes half-way out their sockets. Never have I seen husband so frightened in a car, not even when I am behind the wheel.  We figure our driving skills might lie somewhere between the two.  If they can do it and survive...

                  
                                                                                                    

       

    

MISS SAT NAV

      Shortly after my mother passed away we had guests at the Pink Cottage.  They were from California; one of my closest friends, her husband and twenty-one year old daughter.  They were worried it was too soon for visitors but we insisted their visit would be a welcome distraction. It was. 

The largest car in Compton Dundon  

     They were brave enough to rent a car, and navigate the English roundabouts to our doorstep, where they pulled up early one Friday evening.   Tumbling out from the vehicle wild-eyed, Friend’s hands were still clenched in the death grip she’d had on the steering wheel.  We looked at each other and burst out crying. She, I suspect, was happy to have arrived alive, I was happy to have a friend near in a time of sorrow.  Friend’s husband looked around at the trees and fields and sheep and visibly relaxed.  Friend’s L.A. born and raised daughter was like Alice newly arrived in Wonderland.  We unloaded their luggage, quite a lot of luggage actually, from what was probably the largest vehicle in Compton Dundon, tractors excepted.  

     That night we cooked a full-on English dinner for our guests; local organic sausages and mash and veg and salad.  Before we arrived at the Pink Cottage we did not eat pork.  Now, we are on a strict sausage only regimen.  One by one meat groups have been eliminated.   Penny the Peahen reminds us of a giant chicken… so no more chicken.  We pass sweet sad-eyed cows daily on our walks.  No more beef.  Lambs frolic in the fields surrounding the house.
With mint sauce... I think not.
     We comment to neighbours how cute we think they are.  They say nothing, just gaze off knowingly into the distance. One sad day an entire flock disappeared from a nearby field.  They were not holidaying in Ibiza.  No more lamb chops.     
     All we have left are sausages…. which don’t actually look like an animal.  Husband has discovered scotch eggs; a cholesterol death nugget, again no resemblance to an animal.  But pork may go the way of all other flesh.  My friend Emma just told me how intelligent and aware pigs are.  We may soon be down to watercress.  I’ve already lost over ten pounds on the ‘grief’ and ‘walking six miles to the nearest shop’ diet.  I'll be ramping up my cheese intake, goodness knows there's a lot of it.

     On Sunday the blue sky was dotted with puffy clouds floating decoratively above; a perfect day to drive to the dramatic Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site one hour south of our village.  We piled into the monster vehicle.  Friend is the only one of us who has driven on the opposite side of the road, having lived in England when she was in her twenties, so the driving was up to her.  Friend’s husband is a wizard with computers.  He set the GPS for Lyme Regis, the hub of the coast and off we went; both husbands in the back seat, Friend’s daughter in the third row at the rear.
     With one driver, Miss Sat Nav, three guides; one with a physical map and one with an iPhone tuned to Google Earth, and all of us chirping in at every turn in the road we managed to miss our first motorway entrance.  No worries, we thought.  Miss Sat Nav will get us sorted out.  Husband mumbled a slew of anti-technology expletives from the rear.  We soldiered on.  
     Miss Sat Nav gave us very clear directions for an alternate route.   We passed the Yeoviltin air base, the Yeovil Golf course, the Lynx Trading estate.  One hour later we were still circling Yeovil… again and again and again, as if Yeovil had a magnetic hold on us.  Roundabout after roundabout we followed Miss Sat Nav’s directions. 
      “This is wrong,” husband pipes in from behind us, "really wrong."
     We ignored him, egged on instead by Miss Sat Nav’s voice, seductive and certain; a siren we dared not disobey.  Following her command we fled yet another roundabout towards what she said was our final destination. Ten minutes later we wound our way through strangely empty cobblestone streets to East Mill Lane in the beautiful town of Sherborne. 
     “We are not even on the map anymore,” husband says, sounding slightly smug.
     Our intended destination was Mill Lane in Lyme Regis.  It had taken us about one and a half hours to travel twenty miles, in the wrong direction, to the wrong town.  We tried to reprogram Miss Sat Nav to the correct town, but something about the area, or the topography irked her and she remained stubbornly mute. 
      Friend’s daughter saved the day, getting us out of Sherborne with Google Earth on her iPhone. Back on the map husband directed us towards Lyme Regis.  Friend's husband resuscitated Miss Sat Nav.  All engines firing… we were Lyme Regis bound.  We passed signs pointing to towns named Queen Camel, Tintinhull, Chilthorne Domer, Brympton d’Evercy, and Haselbury Plucknett. 

     “Haselbury Plucknett!” Each one of us contributed some very rude variations on the name.  Relieved to be heading in the right direction we were practically sing-a-long giddy.  It was short-lived.  Neither map nor Google Earth can predict a road closure.  I could have sworn I heard Miss Sat Nav snigger when the orange signs came into view.  Friend slammed on the breaks.  There was nothing else to do but turn around.  Friend pulled an impressive U-Turn and we sped off on the only road available, the one we'd come in on. 
     “Turn around and go back,” Miss Sat Nav ordered, annoyed at our disobedience, “Turn around and go back, Turn around and go back, Turn around and go back, Turn around and go back, TURN AROUND AND GO BACK!”
      Friend couldn’t take it anymore.
     “Shut up!   Somebody shut her up!”  
     I punched buttons.
     "TURN AROUND AND GO BACK."
     I touched the screen.  Bye, Bye Miss Sat Nav.    
     Armed with Google Earth and a map, minus Miss Sat Nav, we headed down narrow lanes lined with hedgerows higher than our vehicle.  It was gorgeous navigating through rolling Dorset hills, streaks of blue sea appearing and disappearing in the distance as we made our way through farmlands and villages. We stared out the windows smiling like fools.  Finally we arrived in Lyme Regis.  We’d driven forty miles in three hours… but we didn’t really care. 
     By now we were quite hungry, our English breakfast long burned off by nervous tension.   We slid out of the car into a packed parking lot, legs stiff, starving.  Lyme Regis on a bank holiday weekend is like Venice Beach on the Fourth of July.  We took a lovely walk along a jam packed Boardwalk, we in long pants, while locals in swimsuits sunbathed in sixty-eight degree weather, their pale flesh scorched bright pink by the sun on this first official long weekend of the summer. 
     We needed to eat… really needed to eat.  We were testy.  Our collective blood sugar had plummeted. Breakfast was a long time ago, and unbeknownst to us, it would be quite some time until dinner.  Local restaurants in Lyme Regis close between lunch and dinner, from two-thirty until five-thirty.  It was four in the afternoon.  Commerce is not king here, even during a bank holiday weekend, restaurants are not open mid-afternoon.  Dorset is known for its dairy products. We had two options... ice cream on the boardwalk, or clotted cream and scones on the terrace of a lovely cottage on Mill Lane.  We had both.
     When we finally climbed back into the truck we were full and happy and ready for the drive back.  We turned on Miss Sat Nav and dutifully waited for our instructions.
     “Take your first left,” she commanded.
     Husband studied his map.
     “Ahem,” husband clears his throat, “I don’t think that’s the right direction.”    

   

    

SAD NEWS AND KILLER COWS

      Sad news from the Pink Cottage. I returned from visiting my parents in Toronto last Thursday night. Friday morning my mother passed away peacefully in her sleep. 
     My sister and I are heart-broken, my father is beyond grief-stricken.   My mother loved England. It was her birthplace, and the land she hoped to return to some day.  Jessie Kathleen Leszczynski loved dancing. She had a wicked sense of humor, loved a good glass of wine, was fascinated by haunted houses and Egypt. She loved gardening and flowers and all things green.  She adored her roses.  She loved the pictures from her homeland of the Pink Cottage. I cannot write at length about her yet... it's far too soon.  Instead I am posting the post I had originally planned. Thank you Saint Bill and Saint Tom for being there.  RIP mom.


      

     On Sunday mornings back in Los Angeles I looked forward to our ritual of reading the New York Times.  Outside the window the hum of the nearby DWP generator created a sort of white noise.  Crackheads on the streets occasionally shouted.  



View out over the DWP building

View out to Main Street

     After ten years of gentrification the hookers we recognized from the early years had all but disappeared replaced by straggling Nickel and Dime party-goers still staggering around stupefied after the previous night’s revels.  These sights and sounds were the familiar and comforting backdrop to our Sunday read.  Things have changed. 

     Now on Sunday mornings I listen to local news on the radio, while the smell of manure wafts in the window, the birds squawk and Penny the Peahen honks.  After a sub-zero March that saw Penny shivering in front of our window her tiny head-feathers whipped about by the wind, spring has erupted like a floral volcano.  


Vines creeping

Bluebell's bursting

     You can practically hear the buds exploding on the apple trees, the pink flowers popping.  Bulgy bees, the size of Volkswagen Beetles, buzz from bloom to bloom.  Grass grows so quickly you’d swear it’s inched up during the course of one hike.  Every day a different flower begs for your attention in the bed beside the driveway.  The trees remind me of the Day of the Triffids;  branches groping at the Pink Cottage like barky tentacles trying to grasp us through the windows.     Vines creep around our pink perimeter. There are so many birds you can barely hear yourself think.  Lambs leap into the air half-crazed by the spring weather.  Sheep graze tearing grass from soil.  
      Back on Main Street I’d read the New York Times Book Review, the Sunday Styles, and looked at things like Bill Cunningham’s photographs of New York street life and fashion. I read the Modern Love columns because I thought I had a couple of them in me somewhere.  I’d wince through articles on politics and economics.  Now I listen to BBC – News Somerset, I say listen because we have opted out of television entirely. 
     I read 'This is Somerset' and the local Parish news.  I am concerned about the weather in Yeovil during the Yeovil Town soccer club’s parade to celebrate their ascension to the Championship. I am fascinated to find out that one in six people walk to work in Bath. I am saddened to learn the Badger cull is still moving forward and there is nothing I can do about it.   
     After absorbing this news avalanche we decide to hike up to the top of Dundon Beacon, a beautiful hill topped by a glade famous for its bluebells (that, like the rest of nature here, are entirely out of control.) It’s been several weeks since we went up there, and in that time spring has launched a full on attack.
Slug sans saddle
     The path is barely recognizable. Queen Anne’s Lace and brambles line the bridle way. Just three weeks ago you could see right through the nearly bare stalks to the fields beyond.  No more. Now the plants tower up the sides of the road, taller than your head. There are slugs on the path so big you could strap a saddle on them.     

     On the other side of a hedge a herd of cows are sent to pasture.  I have to stand on my tiptoes to see them over the privet.  You’d think this was their first graze of the season since they practically gallop out of the gate.  They’re large cows; quite beautiful, but definitely huge.  And they seem to be of one mind.  Every one of them is heading in our direction.  Every gaze is fixed on us.  It’s then that my husband decides to share  a tidbit he’d picked up on BBC news.
 
     “So," he says, "I heard on the radio that this guy in Wiltshire got trampled to death by a herd of cows last week.” 
     “What?”  I look at him, backing away from the bramble barrier separating us from the approaching herd.

     “Don’t worry,” husband says, “They can’t possibly get through that hedge.”
     My husband says things like, ‘this plane will never fall out of the sky’, while you’re strapped into your seat on take-off, like he’s perversely willing calamity.  And while he technically has spoken the truth so far, our recent emergency landing set me thinking.
     The cows continue galloping towards us until their massive bodies press up against the privet.  Their heads crane and stretch and glean over the greenery.  They moo like they’re cursing us.  I back away.  My husband chuckles. 

    “Let’s just go up the hill,” I say, like they’re going to break through the barrier just to spite him.  He looks at me like I’m crazy.

     We head up the path, seven foot tall growth on either side which means no escape; an attack by a herd of cows here would be like running with the bulls in Pamplona.  They watch us leave,  like hunters watching elusive game. It’s a steep climb and we huff and puff in the misty morning air. We reach the crest of the hill, the beautiful glade. The fence is closed.

     “Weird,” husband says, “that fence is never closed.”
     We push on through to the last little part of the ascent.  We look up.  There are three figures silhouetted in the early morning light, like mythical beings. 
     We squint in their direction. Standing in front of us are two cows… and a bull, no... two bulls.  Beyond them is the rest of yet another herd. I think back fondly to the crack heads.
     “Don’t worry,” husband says, “that bull is not going to charge.”

BADGERS AND WITCHES

     It’s very quiet here… only the sounds of the birds, the lambs, sometimes the military helicopters from the Royal Navy Base in Yeovilton  buzzing  over the endless green landscape letting you know that there is a need for military helicopters somewhere.  But don’t be mistaken, just because we’re in the country it doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to do.  Mornings are for writing.  Then it’s pulling prickly nettles out of the ground, chopping down brambles; those relentless attack vines with spikes, feeding Penny the peahen and stressing over why she’s gone off her fruity nibbles and is favoring sunflower seeds, doing battle with the dandelions, and traipsing over the moors. 

Fruity nibbles.... again!  

     You can buy wands, broomsticks, every manner of cape, herb, powder, candle, or other spell paraphernalia.  A Witchcraft-themed bed and breakfast welcomes followers to town.  

There are things I’ve wanted to accomplish in life that have so far eluded me.  And some people I could do without.  Maybe conventional channels are not the answer.  Maybe Witchcraft is.  It seems like witches would be open-minded people.  They’d certainly be interesting.  I’ve found an online course based in Glastonbury where I could learn to be a witch in a few short weeks, but I still wouldn't meet other people.  

I think I have to go to town and  join a group.  I’m not sure how that would work exactly; maybe I’d buy a how-to book and look meaningfully into the clerk’s eyes.

     It dawned on me that that maybe I should not be so isolationist here in The Pink Cottage; maybe I should get out more, become involved in a local activity, something where I could meet local people and be a part of a community. 

    First activity that comes to mind is Lamping.  It’s kind of a sport I guess, the first community gathering I witnessed.  Very local, I’ve seen it out the window at night, beams flickering across the fields.   Lamping is the practice of attaching giant lights to jeeps, shining those lights across the nighttime dark fields until you spot a hare.  The hare is mesmerized by the light.  That’s when you shoot it.  I reassess.  I have no gun, no jeep, no lamp, and I like my hares alive and bouncing white-tailed across the moor.

     Then I think, I do love animals, how about joining the Badger Protection League?  Badgers are big news in England, and people like naturalist Sir David Attenborough and Ab Fab Joanna Lumley are amongst the League’s members. There are a ton of pro-Badger organizations all over the country.  
     Badgers can carry tuberculosis and infect cattle.  Lots of people want the badger population culled.  Others want the badgers inoculated.  Still others don’t even believe the badgers are the real reason bovine TB is spreading.  The government has sanctioned a cull in Somerset this June.  It’s a very divisive subject.  Now, I’ve never seen a badger, but there’s a bunch of them in the wood next door.  They’re nocturnal and elusive.  You know they’re there because you twist your ankle in the burrows they dig.  

Badgers live here.

     Badgers are a protected animal in England, even though they are a member of the weasel family, but lots of farmers are not fond of them because of herd infection.  A very complicated issue.   Brian May from the band Queen is the VP of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  He’s also an astrophysicist and a leading member of the Badger Protection League.  If I joined the League there would be lots of protests to attend where I could meet like-minded badger lovers.  Maybe I’d get to meet Brian May.  I always liked Queen.  The problem is I don’t think belonging to the Badger Protection League would endear me to the farmers in my neighbourhood (yes, with a u).  I wouldn’t be able to voice my pro-Badger sentiments.  I wouldn’t even be able to attend the Badger Night Walk protests across Somerset without alienating those around me.  I’d just be a silent Badger lover in the confines of my own home, not meeting other Badger lovers.  That’s kind of what I am already.  Maybe I'll just donate to the cause.  You can too.

     That pretty much leaves Witchcraft.   We’re five miles from Glastonbury, arguably one of the Witchcraft centers of England, if not the world.   It’s home to the Arthurian legend, it claims to be Avalon (but then so do a lot of other places), and it’s a New Age center. 

     It’s also crammed with stores selling every witch accessory a beginner could want. A friend told me the place is lousy with witches and that there is some interesting business going on behind those closed doors.  There are at least four bookstores on one small stretch of street that offer anything and everything to do with the occult, including how-to books on Witchcraft.

      I'm thinking Witchcraft is the ticket.  Then my husband reminds me that sometimes I already am a witch. At least I think that's what he said.  He's just given me one more reason to take up the craft.