BIG NEWS IN LITTLE DUNDON

When we lived in Los Angeles our big burly tattooed neighbour was a rapper who didn't rap.  No one was exactly sure what he did, but he had visitors who visited for extremely short periods of time, all the time, and when he opened his door to greet them, a thick fog of pot wilted the plants in the hallway garden we'd cultivated.  Billows of smoke combined with the window-rattling bass notes of his boom box eventually got him evicted.  His tiny little mother came to move him out.  We never really knew him but he provided lots of material for interesting speculation by Husband and I and others in the building.  

Our Happy Plants

In our little English village we're the oddballs whose every action raises eyebrows and makes tongues wag.  Around here our accents, along with the outrageous things we do, like walking to town, living car-free, not putting our garbage and recycling out the night before collection, then having the audacity to sometimes leave those bins out for four or five hours after pick-up, make us targets for gossip.  Sometimes this can be sweet and charming, sometimes it can verge on crazy. 

Lovely Cider

Last week we decided to something absolutely insane and go for a picnic on our lunch break.  Our Amsterdam Friend was here.  It was a glorious sunny day.  At noon we headed over to Somerton for some fish and chips.
  

Survivors

We took a blanket, bought some cider and went to a hilltop that looked out over sloping fields of bright yellow rapeseed.  Behind us, across the street, was a row of houses.  In front of us, nothing but the vista of rolling countryside, forest-topped hills, and fields of sheep and lambs; the lucky few who dodged the Aga cooker over Easter.

Rapeseed

We were looking out at the beauty when a voice interrupted the discussion we were having about the metaphysics of speed (the mph kind, not the methamphetamine) and the virtues of vinegar versus mayonnaise.

"Excuse me," we three swiveled our heads towards the voice which belonged to an elderly woman in her eighties, wearing a dove grey skirt, white blouse and grey cardigan, "but would you like a cup of tea?"  On the ground near the woman was an ancient cat, one eye nearly fully shut.  We looked from the woman to the cat.  "That's Gerry," she nodded to the cat, "he's seventeen years old and he was hit by a car, and I never thought he'd make it but he did."

Gerry Reminded Me of
Our Crazy Cat Mouse 

We were startled.  It's charming as hell to be offered a cup of tea while you're sitting on a hillside having a picnic.  We graciously declined, sure she was just suggesting it as a conversation starter.  She surveyed our picnic, checked us out quite thoroughly, determined we weren't a gang of foreign bandits (Canadian/American and Dutch) and lingered to chat.  She was lonely.  "My husband," she said, "died several years ago and now I am all alone except for Gerry," she glanced again at the one-eyed cat, "and Bobby, that's my other cat, but he's at home."

We chatted about the weather, the rapeseed, the cats.  I offered Gerry some cod, but he declined.  The chatter wound down naturally, and the lady excused herself with a smile.  She headed across the street to her home.   Gerry walked behind her.  Shortly after her departure, a half dozen men and women, all walking dogs, strolled by our picnic, lingering to the point of lurking, surveying the spread on our blanket, eavesdropping on our conversation.  Clearly the word had spread through the village, did you see those people having a picnic!  Unbelievable!

A week later husband and I were walking along that same route.  The elderly lady was standing out front of her house with Gerry.  She greeted us like friends, even though I don't think she remembered us, but we were visitors.  We stood and chatted a while with her about the weather.  Gerry sat listening.  The elderly are often very lonely.  Just ask Cranky Pensioner and my Ohio Friend.  

Something outrageous happened about a month ago, something that veered talk away from weather, the usual conversational staple, and into dark and dangerous places.  It wreaked havoc in the village.  It created a buzz on the streets, or should I say street.  Tongues began to wag, and there has been no end to the discord it caused.  Not since the dog fouling incident on Church Lane a few months ago has there been such a travesty.  There was a car parked in the tiny church parking lot and no one knew who it belonged to!

No one could believe someone had the audacity to leave a vehicle parked up the hill, out of the way, at the very bottom of the churchyard parking lot, and simply abandon it.  It was an aberration.  Even though the car blocks no traffic, and is an eyesore out nobody's window.  It's... it's outrageous! 

The Talk of The Town

The car lies closest to Bitter Man's house, like there wasn't already enough misery in his life.  One day Husband was in the lane examining the brambles he needed to trim.  Bitter Man spotted him and scuttled out.

"Do you know whose car that is?" he asked, because the appearance of such a car was a weird event and we are the nearest weird people he knows.

"What car?" Husband replied.  With the onslaught of spring and the explosion of leaves on the trees, we hadn't even seen the vehicle.  Husband went up to look at the mysterious car. "No idea who owns it," he told Bitter Man.

"Well, it doesn't really bother me," Bitter Man lied.  "But I called the Church Warden, and he called the police, and then the police came and said the car's registered properly, and there's nothing they can do about it."

"Hmmm," Husband said.

"What if something happened to the driver?" Bitter Man lowered his voice, whispered mysteriously, "What if he came to no good end, or what if he topped himself?"

"Or what," I said to Husband when this news trickled back to me, "if he went for a walk over the hill, and down the fields and was taken out by a herd of killer cows?"

"I'm sure the police would have been notified in the case of a missing person,"  Husband said logically, "maybe it belongs to someone staying down the road." 

Anybody Here Own
That Car?

Several days later, another neighbour, whom we've barely seen enough to identify as a neighbour, came walking up the driveway.  Husband was in the garden.

"Hullo," says Previously Unseen Neighbour (PUN) who didn't bother to introduce himself.  Since we stick out like sore thumbs, everyone knows us, and assumes we know them.  

"Wondered if you'd noticed the car parked up the hill?" 

"Yes," says Husband, "I have."

"Know whose it is?" PUN asks.

"No," says Husband, "I haven't got a clue, but I know the police were called, and I know they've said there's nothing they can do about it."

"I know all that," PUN waved Husband's sentence away, "I just thought you might know something about it."  He looked at our house suspiciously, like maybe we were harboring the driver inside.

"Nope," said Husband. 

"It's a bloody nuisance," PUN said as he disappeared down our driveway.

"I don't think he believed me," Husband said later. 

Why, we were stymied, would PUN think the car abandon-er was part of our household.  Why, when we have no car and a driveway that can easily park a half-dozen vehicles, would we force our guest to park up the hill, unless it was just to irritate Bitter Man and PUN.  In our more perverse moments we think of buying a scooter and leaving it chained to the cemetery gate, just to watch the fall out.

A Little Fun

In our village little things are big news.  And while sometimes it might feel a little intrusive, and a little claustrophobic, in a world where there is so much really big bad news, talking about simple things like a parked car and a one-eyed cat can be a welcome relief.