Chapter 28
On the hoof

Email To: Kathleen and Robert
From: Leslie Ann
Date: 17 September
Subject: Road kill

Dear Kathleen and Robert,

I know autumn is on the way not so much by the change in air temperature but by the increased activity on the roads. Pheasants regularly come out of the undergrowth to claim every available inch of tarmac as their own. Yesterday, while driving the back roads to town, I had to come to a complete stop in order to let a convention of partridges cross the road. Bill wasn’t so lucky. Poor thing came home last night with his brief case in one hand and a dead pheasant in the other. He had the unpleasant task of wringing its neck after an oncoming car winged it and left the bird for dead. However, we took advantage of a tragic situation and offered the pheasant to Mimi and Tony who had invited us to dinner. They were thrilled with their hostess gift. As the New Mexican ‘Road Kill Café’ motto says, ‘Dinner so fresh, it still looks surprised.’

We are awaiting your visit,
Leslie Ann and Bill

The best Sundays are the ones that unfold on their own, revealing unexplored territory. As with most days, they begin with the hunter–gatherer ritual, in our case, a pot of tea. Still drowsy from a fresh-air-induced sleep, we prepared ourselves for the Sunday Times reading marathon. This protocol is observed without regard to seasons, events or weekend guests. With all available space on our duvet covered in newspaper, we propped ourselves up in bed in anticipation of our two-hour mental exercise.

I’m a page turner and paper rustler, starting from the back moving to the front. Once I spot an article that interests me, I chew on it then bury it like a dog with a bone, only coming back to it when I’m hungry. Next, I tear out any references to items such as websites or phone numbers that need to be placed in my address book or ‘favourite’ computer site. While I’m doing this Bill begins his cerebral junket at the front page, reading each word with the intensity and precision of a brain surgeon. Every Sunday we smugly laugh at each other from opposite sides of our California king-sized bed, wondering how we manage to keep marital peace under such stressful conditions.

Several mugs of hot tea plus the effort required to turn pages finally took their toll on us. We could no longer think over the loud rumblings coming from our tummies. On this particular autumn morning our cupboard was totally bare, so we went in search of the English equivalent to the American breakfast diner. With few exceptions they are little better than smoky cafés on motorway pullovers. In England, the first meal of the day is still very much the domain of hotels and Bed & Breakfast establishments while in the States it is often the preserve of less impressive enterprises.

My rule of thumb for selecting an American eatery has always been the seedier the diner the better the short order cook. A meal of scrambled eggs with sausage patties or links, crispy bacon, hash brown potatoes, grilled tomatoes, grits and biscuits has been known to get me up at the crack of dawn so willing was I to take on calories. The English breakfast, although similar in content, looks decidedly different on the plate. For starters, a waitress with asbestos hands brings it to the table piping hot. One look and you know it can deliver a weekly allowance of cholesterol and fat in a single sitting. The belly-busting combination of fried eggs, fried sausages, fried bacon, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread and baked beans is not recommended for anyone who wants to avoid a heart condition.

Throwing caution, not to mention our health, to the wind Bill and I remembered a small hole in the wall in Oakham that served breakfast until 11.30 am. Panicking as it was now 11.25 am, Bill called ahead to ask Vik to put the sausages and bacon on the grill. By the time they were cooked we could be there. Knowing how to please his customers, he obliged, saying, ‘No problem at all sir, get here as soon as you can.’

En route, we found ourselves laughing once again about an incident that so typified England of the 1980s. Seeking breakfast, Bill and I had walked into a small country hotel at the stroke of 10.01 am. An overfed proprietress, squeezed into a summer frock that had seen one too many seasons, appeared at reception.

‘Oh, sorry love, we stop serving at 10 am,’ she said in a tired tone, without a smile.

‘Then may we just have coffee?’ we inquired in a congenial manner.

‘’Fraid not love, we don’t start serving coffee until 11 am.’ Times have finally changed, though sadly not everywhere. Meal hours in the countryside can still be highly regimented; however, on this occasion we were in luck. Breakfast of two, four-minute poached eggs served with brown toast on the side for me and the ‘Full Monty’ for Bill stoked us up for the day. Once fed and relaxed we had nothing to do for the next six hours; the afternoon was ours to construct, an empty canvas to create. Driving out of Oakham into the countryside we noticed a yellow and black ‘Polo Today’ sign hammered into the grassy verge. We knew instantly how we would spend the rest of our Sunday.

As I have previously mentioned, my knowledge of horses is elementary. It begins with ‘look up for the raised tail’ and concludes with ‘look down for the result’. Beyond that, I can only wonder why anyone would own an animal that requires constant feeding, exercising and mucking out, not to mention tack, horse trailers and vets. I’m more in awe of the owners who foot the bills to maintain these wonderful animals than the beasts themselves. In my estimation that made me just the right type of spectator for a polo match.

Every driver in the bucolic English countryside can be counted on to carry certain items in their car. Unlike in America, it is not necessary to produce a driver’s licence. It is essential, however, to have a proper picnic blanket, two comfy folding bucket chairs, a thermos of scalding hot tea, previously mixed to exact proportions before leaving home, and reading material in case of inclement weather. Unknowingly we had arrived with the quintessential kit for polo watching in the boot of our car. Now if we could only understand the nuances of the sport before someone spotted us for what we were, city folk dressed up as tweedies.

The sound of horses’ hooves as they thundered past, racing from one end of the field to the other, was exhilarating even for the novice. This particular fixture was the Wilkinson Sword Tournament. As the sun played peek-a-boo with the cumulus clouds we found ourselves watching the sport with eyes barely open, soaking up what would surely be the last of the summer sun. Nodding off for a moment, I took a mind-trip back to Afghanistan, an unforgettable country I had visited many years before. I was reminiscing about a tournament put on by tribesmen proudly demonstrating their horsemanship on the dusty desert plains when a drifting scent of freshly brewed tea broke the spell. A woman with a plummy English voice and cut-glass vowels beckoned us to the social tent where refreshments were laid out. Displayed on a long table were homemade ham and tomato sandwiches on thin white bread, fresh baked scones with blackberry jam and a large dollop of clotted cream, crispy hot sausage rolls and wedges of sponge cake. Edwin, the club chairman, approached us looking stylish in his riding fatigues.

‘Do join our members and players for tea. This is our season finale. Let’s see if we can entice you to join up for next year,’ he said, extending one hand in friendship while the other hand presented a plate of nibbles. With only the slightest hint of coercion, we were delighted to part with our £40 membership fee.

This is often the way new acquaintances are formed in the countryside. Unlike in London, where a formal dinner party was de rigueur for meeting friends or potential networking partners, nothing quite so formal was required in Rutland. After many years living in England, Bill and I knew that any potential friends would first assume we were both American. After all, Bill had spent fourteen years living in the United States and had acquired what he termed a mid-Atlantic or Sargasso Sea accent. I, on the other hand, retained all the characteristics of my North Carolina upbringing. My diction contained juicy fat ‘a’ sounds mingled with words without a final ‘e’ as though they had simply fallen into outer space.

The ‘meet and greet’ process seldom varied. It began with the same question, usually directed to Bill.

‘Are you over from the States on holiday?’

‘No, we’re actually displaced Londoners,’ Bill would explain.

Not sure that his answer was entirely convincing, he would begin to drop obscure place names only an Englishman would know. The conversation would eventually conclude with a joke about Bognor Regis, Bill’s birthplace. Everyone loved to have a laugh about ‘Bugger Bognor’, an unfortunate quote attributed to King George V when his wife offered to take him back to the town to convalesce after an extended illness. Clearly, for the king, one visit was enough.

Continuing the conversation Bill would inquire of his newfound friend, ‘So, what part of the country do you hail from?’

‘I am a Yorkshire man myself,’ would come a likely reply. ‘Really, it’s been years since I last visited the county, but I remember a wonderful little pub called the Hog and Doss somewhere between the villages of Tinkleberry and Flotswhistleon-Hoot. Does it still have the sign outside the door stating they serve children, fried, grilled or boiled?’ Bill’s startling memory usually convinced his new friend that he was, indeed, one of them.

It was now up to me to follow suit. With ease, I would try to explain my way into his good graces, ending with my pièce de résistance, British citizenship. Once these formalities were behind us, we were usually deemed worthy to be engaged in more edifying conversation.

Although we thoroughly enjoyed the polo event, we realized that our time in London had left us poorly prepared for understanding the equestrian world, so with that in mind we purchased tickets to the upcoming Burghley Horse Trials. This splashy, three-day event is the largest annual crowd puller in the area. Members of the Royal Family often grace the competition either as participants or spectators while thousands of non-royals decant their horses and dogs from purpose-built trailers. Others arrive using every means possible from mobile home to bicycle, chartered bus to helicopter. Many just walk.

Billed as ‘The World’s Favourite Horse Trials’, it could not take place in a more beautiful setting than that of the grounds of the magnificent Burghley House estate, the home of the Cecil family for over 400 years. This, the largest and grandest home of the first Elizabethan period, was designed by William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer of England to Queen Elizabeth I. Eighteen opulent staterooms display treasured works of art, furniture, tapestries, textiles, carvings and ceramics collected over the centuries. Thanks to Lady Victoria Leatham, a knowledgeable woman in her own right and current keeper of the family keys, we were able to visit Burghley and the extensive Capability Brown park and lakeside sculpture gardens as often as we liked as members of the Friends group. To have such an outstanding array of riches within a few miles of home was to be spoiled in the extreme.

I am not quite sure what percentage of the attendance at the horse trials are there for equine pursuits or pashminas and perfumes, champagne and caviar, but it is a fact that at Burghley, Mohammed does come to the mountain. Boulevards of trade stands display many of London’s finest fashions to the country set while other merchants target the more serious outdoorsman.

Bill and I toddled up to a saddler, not that we had a horse to mount, then went into Woof Wear to inspect the latest in canine couture for our invisible dog. We eyed the all-weather waxed jackets, shooting clothes, rifles, rods and riding boots and drifted into sheer fantasy when a clerk tried to sell us a vacuum machine for our non-existent paddock and stable. Thank goodness the champagne buzz wore off before we could sign our name to a purchase order for a custom fitted, luxury horse trailer.

The real fun, and for us a dumbfoundingly new experience, was to watch nearly 150 horses compete in the cross country and dressage events. While Bill ventured off to purchase a program, I engaged a twelve-year-old girl, dressed in full riding gear, in conversation. I posed a question to her.

‘Explain to me please, why a horse would want to jump over an obstacle the size of a locomotive, plough across a 1.5-metre bristly hedge of tortuous thickets into an icy pond, leap over a fully laden picnic table, and crash through a garden conservatory before jumping into a ring of fire [red carnations]?’

It was clear from her stunned expression that she had never quite thought of the cross country event in that manner. I wondered if perhaps it might have been something I said that made her scurry off to find her mother. Is it possible there is still a bit of truth in Winston Churchill’s old saying that we are ‘two nations divided by a common language’?