Stuck.
This morning I was all dressed and normal looking ready for my lift to the shops to arrive when a large white van drew up. There are only three different parcel services around here and I do vast amounts of internet sh0pping so the drivers are all familiar to me. This was the older, nervous one. After a minute he knocked on the door again, 'Err ... I think I've got the van stuck. You've put your car in a new place and it threw me off .. turning'. For F.cks sake I said inside my head. He had driven past the stones of the yard into some distant quagmire and ... was stuck.

'So what do you normally do under these circumstances', I said. He looked vague. 'Do you ring your office and they send someone out to help you?' 'Oh no ... there would be no point in doing that. No one would ever find me out here'. '????? ... '. 'I was thinking that when it happened once before a tractor towed me out. But of course that was somewhere else ... '. 'Well, okay, by chance my neighbour is about to come round so I'll ring her'. She is the queen of the district in terms of knowing all and everyone and was soon at work .. and finally rang back saying my nearest farmer was revving up his tractor as we spoke. 'So .. when he comes .. as he is doing you a HUGE FAVOUR .. are you going to pay him?' A shocked look crossed his moronic features, 'No, no my dear. I never carry money when I am out'. 'WTF?'

It was so weird. He stood there as if his van full of parcels being bogged down to the axles immoveably was somehow nothing to do with him. And something magic would happen to make it all all right. And it did. As I found him a farmer; spoke to the farmer; helped the farmer .. and soon his van was standing safely on the cobbles of the yard facing towards freedom. So he drove off with a terse thank you .. having not paid the farmer in any way .. and probably instantly forgot all about it. ( On our way shopping quite some time later we came up behind him wending his way along an incredibly narrow lane which was the most circular possible route to the next town .. normally easily reached by turning left out of our drive onto the straight road.)

'I'm feeling really bad about the farmer', I said to my neighbour. 'I want to pay him but it seems somehow too embarrassing'. 'No, no, dear. You couldn't possibly PAY him.' 'Well, what about a bottle of whisky?' 'No dear. His mother doesn't allow him to have drink in the house'. 'What the f.ck .. he must be forty-five. And I thought they had the farmhouse divided into two separate bits'. 'Yes, but she still has the connecting door and he is not allowed to lock it'. 'So is there anything he IS allowed?' 'Well, he's a great one for liquorice allsorts AND the shops have just got in the huge boxes ready for Christmas. Don't worry yourself .. when we get there I'll pick some out for you'. 'Perfect .. and get as many as you think makes up for the whisky'.

She reappeared at the car with four massive boxes and then, having me trapped, drove straight to the farm and made me go in with her. There is a strict class hierarchy here and ... although knowing the farmer and his common law wife (the only time he stood up to his mother was when he moved her in) quite well from chatting in the fields ... I had never been inside their house. After evading his mother, who sprang casually out of her door as we passed and feigned surprise to find us on the path, we entered a real old fashioned kitchen. Boiling hot and filled with everything you could ever want to use as if the rest of the pretty large house didn't exist. Including more cats than I have ever seen in one room before. 'Well, she can't have children you see', my neighbour said afterwards, 'So she thought Sod it I'm going to have as many cats as I like'. The sweets were accepted graciously and I was turning to go as I felt a bit out of place and possibly intrusive as there was a strong smell of boiling cabbage and it was obviously lunch-time. But no ... the three of them had leapt into the most intensive gossip. Interrupting each other and screaming with laughter about various people in the village .. who I hate to say I had never heard of. A very long time passed with me smiling a lot and nodding. And after a bit the uncomfortable feeling passed and was replaced by intense cosiness. How restful to be there with no expectation that you should be amusing or say anything clever or show that you had done something upper class lately or that you were dressed 'suitably' for what ever was happening at that moment. The working class country people here are still a million miles removed from modern life. It could easily be fifty years ago. How would it be to spend more time with them?

They wouldn't know what I was talking about, mostly, as they live in their own world of farming and country things. And although they obviously have radios and tvs they seem to watch totally different programmes from me .. at least that's what I gather from my lift-giving neighbour. We had a peculiar moment once because she had never heard of the term 'personal trainer' and couldn't grasp the concept. They never read books or even seem to listen much to music. My neighbour relaxes by listening to cds of birdsong. So I suppose it would be hopeless and fake and I don't want to be with people specially anyway. But it was nice and odd to observe them .. so bonded and friendly and 'there for each other'.

Ah .. it is truly another world. And right on my own doorstep.
- posted by Iris @ 11/15/2005 11:11:00 PM comment