Chapter 14
A well-kept secret

Email To: Leslie Ann
From: Ansley and Blair
Date: 10 April
Subject: We are laughing at you

Dear ‘g’,

Yesterday Mom brought over a newspaper article written by Bill Bryson. He was talking about how crowded England is and how you would be lucky to find a private place to pee in the countryside. I guess he doesn’t know where you live. Mom saw photos of your home and said if you don’t like to see the colour green out of every window in the house you’re in big trouble.

You need to come home! We have more colours in our rainbow than green.

Love,
Your godchildren

Each season brought new life and new sounds to our world. Daytrippers could be forgiven for returning to London or Liverpool believing in the myth of the quietness of the countryside. Nothing could be further from the truth. Something was always interrupting the tranquillity of the moment. Two forces primarily governed our little patch: the farmer and the flyer. Once the first tractor was out of the gate at 6 am, rush hour began. Delivery vans, farm equipment vehicles and the daily milk truck made their appearance. Ramblers, accompanied by pooches so polite they carried their own leashes, ambled towards the woods behind the Hall. At least one British Telecom engineer would turn up, as would the gasman, window cleaner and laundry pick-up service followed by Keith, our postman, in his royal red van. As he delivered to 425 households in the surrounding villages and has done so for years, we assumed he knew more about us than we knew about ourselves. I wondered if the rest of his constituents had one foot in the here and now and one in London as we still did?

The thud of the daily mail as it dropped through the door slot was a reminder of how much our life had changed. In the post, along with the mandatory bills, arrived the Royal Opera House Covent Garden calendar of performances and the quarterly Victoria and Albert Museum Magazine highlighting coming events, once pillars of our cultural life. Sadly, they no longer sat in a place of honour whispering to us to make that booking. Gallery previews, art reviews and museum publications were now more likely to be sequestered next to a stack of unread Country Life and Period Home magazines.

My favourite sound, the one which always reminded me that I had made a major U-turn in my life, came from the 360 Friesian cows grazing in the pastures surrounding the Hall. During the long winter months they were housed in nearby barns until the farmer deemed it warm and dry enough for them to come out to play. This usually occurred in late March when the ground was firm and the grass was sufficiently long and tender for nibbling. The youngest cows ventured out first, frisky as puppies. Kicking their hind feet in the air, they raced from corner to corner in the field, colliding with fencing and water troughs at which point they would turn around and stampede in the other direction to do it all over again. Trees turned into back scratching posts; noses poked through wire barriers just for the touch of a human hand. Everything in sight was on the menu, including wind-blown plastic bags. Even the farmer had to chuckle at the sights and sounds of the cows’ gaseous energy.

Once a daily pattern was established the dairy cows settled down to a more sedate way of life and remained outside until November, or the rains, whichever came first. Following the lead of the alpha cow, the herd routinely moved from right to left in the pasture, mowing the grass with undisturbed concentration. Highly social animals, cows are capable of forming bonds, holding grudges and unashamedly performing like gay nymphomaniacs.

Another always welcome and comforting sound was the clip-clop of horses’ hooves as riders directed their mounts past the Hall towards Morkey Woods. This land immediately behind the Hall, now maintained by the Forestry Commission, has a rather unique history. During the Second World War the Royal Air Force used the area as a storage depot for bombs and shells. A network of bitumen roads was laid out under a canopy of conifer trees in order to transport ammunition to surrounding airfields without detection. Today, however, it is a perfect place for a trot or a first-hand David Attenborough experience with a herd of roe deer. Another activity that inevitably took place once a month was the aerial acrobatics of the pilots taking their Harriers for a spin. Living near several RAF bases we could be both startled and amazed as the skies became a canvas for figures-of-eight and other acts of bravado.

Still, the hands-down winner in the noise category had to be our rooks. These birds could never win a beauty or talent contest since their high-pitched cawing sound could only be appreciated by another rook. It was as abrasive a racket as the incessant crying of a cranky baby. In fact, I don’t think rooks could even win a Miss Congeniality contest, as they would rather pull the eyes out of each other than live communally in a tree.

As neighbours were at a premium, compared to life as we had known it, we learned to enjoy our high-rise limb dwellers and watched with amusement as they paired off to build basket-shaped nests of moss and twigs, creating a natural cradle for their young. In the depth of winter when the trees were bare, the search began for the perfect branch on which to raise a family. The most sought after were always near the top. We liked to think they choose these penthouse locations for the panoramic views rather than for security. By the end of March most of the construction work was complete, which left evening hours free for the more leisurely pursuit of making rooky. In no time at all the little ones were wobbling and stumbling all over the lawn as they miscalculated height and distance from their towering homes. Every feline in the neighbourhood seemed to know to sleep under a tree just in case a mouthful fell into his gaping jaw. By early summer the nests were so well camouflaged they were hardly noticeable. With parenting chores behind them life calmed down, leaving us slightly longing for our noisy neighbours and sad that all the activity was over for another year.

We also learned to enjoy and cultivate another aspect of country life—our horsy friends. Not only for the exposure to equine events around the county, but to boost our knowledge in an area thus far neglected. Our willing tutors were Penny and Andrew, a couple who definitely knew their way around a paddock. They took us under their wing more than once to introduce us to the party world of ponies. I have to laugh remembering our first outing together, when they courteously reminded us that the attire of the day was none other than murky green and muddy brown, just in case we were thinking of wearing something fetching in rose-petal pink or canary yellow. Frankly, I think we could have survived our social blunder, but I doubt they could have lived it down.

Having once attended a gathering of the Countryside Alliance, a national organization that campaigns on a wide range of rural issues, we were again welcomed to join Penny and Andrew for our first point-to-point race in Garthorpe, a little blink of a village a few miles up the road. ‘Racing in a field of its own’ was the slogan of the Cottesmore Hunt and sponsor of the meet. Bill and I had often driven past the grounds noticing timber hurdles and observation towers and wondered just what went on in the distant hills.

Thankfully it was a bright, sunny day with a proper nip in the air to make it sporty. It seemed every four-wheel vehicle in the county was positioned hubcap to hubcap, row upon row, filling every inch of the grassy parking lot. Lines of cars resembled one long picnic table, as hampers, chests and coolers appeared. Deckchairs encircled portable dining tables like dusty cowboys around a crackling campfire. From the boot of their car Penny removed an old leather-lined wicker hamper that creaked like a wooden door when she lifted the lid to remove the food. By noon, we were tucking into triangles of smoked salmon and egg sandwiches, pâtés, cheeses, potato salad, a cauldron of piping hot chilli, puddings and sweet cherry tarts. One ingenious guest was even making the rounds pouring sizzling sausages out of his thermos. Slices of beef laid out on a platter were so tender and sweet they were referred to as ‘he’. We later learned that ‘he’ had been organically raised by our hosts for just such an occasion and had only recently met his maker. With each mouthful, our grateful group thanked our four-legged friend for his sacrifice.

This was a wonderful family event, although I suspect most parents could be forgiven for absent-mindedly leaving their kids at home while lovingly packing up the family dog, for it was a virtual canine matchmaking social club not to be missed. Everywhere doggy noses collided with doggy bottoms while owners nonchalantly gazed elsewhere, respecting the privacy of the star-crossed lovers. Jack Russell terriers, well known for their bipolar personalities, often found themselves tethered to the front wheel of a Land Rover Discovery or a Cruiser Amazon. There, they basked in the sun with a water bowl on one side and morsels of food on the other, waiting for total strangers to wander by and rub their tummies, causing their legs to fall lazily open in the most ignoble fashion.

Bill, understanding the nuances of gambling, studied the racing sheet with an eye to recovering our entrance costs at the very least; while I became hysterical with laughter, and I must say a little envious, at the animal love-in going on so unashamedly everywhere. Thumbing through the racing form, Bill offered me the opportunity to make a quick fortune. ‘Pick your poison, sweetheart. I’ll go place your bets.’ Knowing I had as much chance of selecting a winner as a snowball surviving in hell, I decided to rely on the only two arrows in my quiver, female intuition and silly names. This, of course, meant we had an unblemished losing record as Miss Hoity Toity, Gin ’n’ Tonic and Roley-Poley failed to produce a single winner. In fact, two of our horses finished the race solo with their riders coyly crossing the finish line on foot. Clearly, the lesson of the day was that the fun was in the spending of money, not in the making of it.