Those were the days, my friend
I'm sitting here, in my Mum's study, recovering from my virtual hangover by cranking her phone bill up to glorious heights. I'm also freezing, because the central heating is not very effective, and this is leading me to wonder whether anyone has to date invented a 'nose muff' (no smutty comments please - this is a wholesome site. ahem). Seriously - you could have a little fleece-lined nose warmer, to be held on to your head by bits of ribbon, or something. It would look cool. Honest. I wouldn't care right now, truth be told. My nose has gone numb.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be doing some work, but I drifted off and started thinking about the village that my Mum lives in, and that I grew up in. It's tiny. It probably has around 100 inhabitants. There's a church, and a pub. No shop though - you have to walk 3 miles to get to anywhere that sells milk or chocolate biscuits. It's very beautiful. We are surrounded by hills, the view uninhibited by human habitation. It's also the kind of place where you can go for a walk, and be enveloped in utter peacefulness. Unfortunately, this being Wales, it rains a great deal, so you'd want a good waterproof.
We used to keep sheep here, but we sold them all eventually. Unfortunately not before I spent several traumatic teenage years trailing behind my Dad in a pair of wellies, black nail varnish and an attractive selection of Guns'n'Roses t-shirts, being forced to herd sheep. My father, you see, hated dogs, but he wasn't daunted. Children were obviously just as useful. We'd lumber across the hills, with shouts of "She's gone left, LEFT, into the HEDGE... NOOOOOO, not the hedge.... Run over the top and get up behind her, aaagh - don't let her get away again...." fading behind us into the mists. We'd have to untangle the pitiful, terrified animals from bits of barbed wire, eventually coming home covered in leaves and bits of tree branch, our hair smelling of lanolin, and sheep shit all over our trousers. I bet I'd be brilliant on One Man and His Dog though. Ah, memories.
My Dad decided to keep geese in the paddock one year. The aim was that they'd be ready in time for Christmas, when he'd nip up there, dispatch them with a mimimum of fuss, and bear them triumphantly to my mother, who would have to pluck them, and cook them and generally do all the hard stuff. After he'd spend an hour chasing them round and round the paddock with an axe, he had to give up because he was exhausted, and they were about to overpower him and peck him to death. So he called the local 'man-with-a-gun' and had them shot instead. They still tasted pretty good, but there was a certain aroma of revenge hovering over the dinner table that year, and we never kept geese again.
I love coming back here. I don't want to get in the car tomorrow, and drive back to the Big City. I'm all citied out, and I never thought that would happen.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be doing some work, but I drifted off and started thinking about the village that my Mum lives in, and that I grew up in. It's tiny. It probably has around 100 inhabitants. There's a church, and a pub. No shop though - you have to walk 3 miles to get to anywhere that sells milk or chocolate biscuits. It's very beautiful. We are surrounded by hills, the view uninhibited by human habitation. It's also the kind of place where you can go for a walk, and be enveloped in utter peacefulness. Unfortunately, this being Wales, it rains a great deal, so you'd want a good waterproof.
The pub is a funny old place. It's been through about 5 different owners since we got here, and I would say that if you're married, don't go anywhere near it. It seems to be a disaster as far as that's concerned. Within a year, wives or husbands have run off, and the old place dwindles again until you only have 3 customers left - the usual suspects, who roll up in their landrovers at about 3pm, and don't leave until the wee small hours.
We used to keep sheep here, but we sold them all eventually. Unfortunately not before I spent several traumatic teenage years trailing behind my Dad in a pair of wellies, black nail varnish and an attractive selection of Guns'n'Roses t-shirts, being forced to herd sheep. My father, you see, hated dogs, but he wasn't daunted. Children were obviously just as useful. We'd lumber across the hills, with shouts of "She's gone left, LEFT, into the HEDGE... NOOOOOO, not the hedge.... Run over the top and get up behind her, aaagh - don't let her get away again...." fading behind us into the mists. We'd have to untangle the pitiful, terrified animals from bits of barbed wire, eventually coming home covered in leaves and bits of tree branch, our hair smelling of lanolin, and sheep shit all over our trousers. I bet I'd be brilliant on One Man and His Dog though. Ah, memories.
My Dad decided to keep geese in the paddock one year. The aim was that they'd be ready in time for Christmas, when he'd nip up there, dispatch them with a mimimum of fuss, and bear them triumphantly to my mother, who would have to pluck them, and cook them and generally do all the hard stuff. After he'd spend an hour chasing them round and round the paddock with an axe, he had to give up because he was exhausted, and they were about to overpower him and peck him to death. So he called the local 'man-with-a-gun' and had them shot instead. They still tasted pretty good, but there was a certain aroma of revenge hovering over the dinner table that year, and we never kept geese again.
I love coming back here. I don't want to get in the car tomorrow, and drive back to the Big City. I'm all citied out, and I never thought that would happen.
posted by Rachie at 4:03 PM
