Why on earth would you want to move away? Especially to the countryside. Everyone is desperate to get into the city, and there you are, doing the opposite. Whats so good about living out there anyway? I dont understand you. Perhaps its pleasant in summer, but in winter, theres nothing to do at all.
I have a friend, Harriet, who tried very hard to persuade us not to leave London for the country. It wound both me and my husband right up, as if we were there simply to do her bidding.
After nearly a year wandering through soggy lanes and endless property listings, we finally stumbled upon the right cottage and made our move. Almost daily, Harriet would ring, her tone laced with mockery, asking if Id managed to find a proper job yet. She knew perfectly well I worked remotely and had no plans to change that. She also liked to ask, Is the broadband hopeless over there?
Harriet and her husband paid their curious visit at the start of October. Over a year had passed since wed left the city behind. She wandered the garden with the kind of caution one reserves for haunted woods, and spent the rest of the weekend indoors sipping ale with her husband.
Despite the company, my partner and I kept busy ferrying potatoes to the larder and bottling the last of the damson jam. On the third day, as Harriet packed up her bags to catch the evening coach back to London, I offered no parting gift. Then, almost as an afterthought, Harriet herself asked for a sack of potatoes and some apples for the road.
I offered to go down to the cellar for everything, but neither of them fancied a trip down the slippery stairs with a hangover. I handed them a sack and a few buckets, and off they marched grumbling to fill them with fruit. I wondered how theyd carry it all on the bus, but soon saw their plan theyd already cornered my husband to drive them.
It was a round trip of three hours to the city and back. My husband, wise to their game, said hed had his evening pint and wasnt driving anywhere. So off they shuffled with their bulging bags, and for several years we saw neither hide nor hair of them. We spoke on the phone, naturally, but they never set foot in our village again. Perhaps Im harsh, but I doubted they missed our patch of countryside all that much.
But then, late November, there they were one evening at our doorstep, turning up out of the blue with a grin and a suitcase, hoping for a surprise reunion. Theyd made it for the weekend, but I was buried in preparations for Christmas and the coming New Year, plucking birds and churning out sausage rolls. Three cockerels were still waiting to be cleaned that afternoon. Still, a surprise is a surprise.
We threw together a meal. Harriet and her husband drank and ate, while my husband and I dashed back and forth. They offered to help, but had no idea how to pluck a chicken, not really country folk at heart.
All our poultry had already been spoken forreserved by the neighbours ahead of the festive rush. Wed planned to process them for our family before Christmas. Nevertheless, I offered them a goose but warned theyd have to dress it themselves. They promised theyd tackle it in the morning.
Yet next day, silence. Theyd driven up in their own car this time, so they bought a finished bird from a farm shop instead. Before leaving they loaded up the boot with veg and picklesanything they fancied. The car was packed to the rafters. I didnt begrudge them; wed enough stores to see us through several winters.
But Harriets next question caught me off guard: Dont you have any extra beef?
I replied honestly that we didnt. Orders had to be filled first, then the steers would be processed. It wasnt as though we were twiddling our thumbs; we needed every penny. And if, by some miracle, there was any left, family came first.
Maybe they bear a grudge. Neither Harriet nor her husband has called or written since. Word got back, through a mutual friend, that apparently, were terribly stingyWent to the village and came back with not a scrap of beef, shed said.
