I must apologise in advance for my bigoted and incompetent imaginary relative who has insisted on sharing this blog from time to time. Sir Edward lives with his wife Lady Susan and a few elderly retainers in a crumbling mansion set in the depths of the XXXXXshire countryside. His politics are somewhere way to the right of Mrs Thatcher but are eclipsed by Lady Susan's own very forcibly expressed opinions. I have made it clear that I reserve the right to edit any of their blog contributions.
Anyway, on to other things. I live in one of the quieter bits of the Peak National Park with wife, cat and daughter. Daughter and her amour have bought a house about ten miles away and will be leaving us ere long. Other residents include large numbers of woodlice and the Crow family. Mr and Mrs Crow have nested in our massive Scots pine for some years and are model parents, raising usually three chicks and keeping them close for the best part of a year until the next mating season. Mr Crow is unusually large, raucous and confrontational and takes great pleasure in harassing our large overweight cat at every opportunity. The cat realised early on with a kind of dull resentment that he had neither the brains nor the speed to take on this annoying black creature and now tends to skulk away when Mr C fancies a fight. We imagine that the cat has dreams in which he finally wreaks his savage revenge.
We look out across our shallow dry valley to green hills, with sheep, cows, heifers, horses and hares always in evidence. Foxes, badgers and hedgehogs appear from time to time but bird species are fairly limited. Limestone quarries run in an invisible line behind the hills behind the house and coat us in lime dust when the wind is from the east.
We're on the very edge of a small village with about 50 houses, pub and school, but far enough away not to have street lights. The council have twice offered us lights but we've sent them packing. We can't think of anything we want less and our few neighbours agree. I don't think you can really appreciate light without darkness. Mind you, there have been a few times, only a very few, when my unsteady walk home from the pub would have been less painful if I'd been able to see the walls and hedges before I walked into them.
The village is changing. Less and less residents work on the land or even in the area. The shop packed up a few years ago and the Sunday School finally ran out of children soon afterwards. I misunderstood the full significance of Sunday School until an old farmer enlightened me. Whether or not it was good for the kids, it was the only time, the ONLY time in the whole week, when their parents could make uninterrupted love. And in doing so, they usually created more kids who then swelled the numbers at the Sunday School. And numbers there were. Families really were enormous. A farmer friend's father was one of a family of 11 and his father one of 17.
The farmer friend? One of only 6. And he only has 3 kids.
The primary school somehow keeps going. There were only 14 on roll when my daughter was there, but it has improved since and has even acquired inside loos! We used to have a village carnival with a queen on a float and football and tugs-of-war but enthusiasm has waned. Some of the out-of-towners have no interest whatever in the village community. But the Methodist Chapel which doubles as the village hall has actually been extended, though the extension is for catering rather than worship. The C of E church is unusual if virtually empty. A chance bomb during WW2 took out the old building and a new one was built in the late 1940s. It's not pretty but I guess things were still very tight after the war.
I think we'd find it hard to leave this place. The only thing we'd add is the sea but that's going to take about 1000 years of global warming. It would be very hard to move into a town and a city
would be impossible. Coming home always feels good. If we're coming home from the north west, we have about 7 completely uninhabited miles to traverse over moorland and cattle grids and we enjoy every mile. If we've been somewhere manically busy, it's good to stop on the highest point (Thatch Marsh) and just chill for a bit. Over last winter, Thatch Marsh was impassable for many weeks and snow was still visible there in April.
