As a fair-weather gardener, I’m only now emerging from hibernation to tame the garden for the summer.
In my personal horticultural calendar, I have a limited window for tackling weeds. If I haven’t got my plot under control by the start of September, I give up. I know nature will soon side with me and stop the weeds growing in winter. I’m in awe of anyone who gardens all year round. I don’t venture out until dock leaves dwarf fading tulips and dandelions dominate the lawn.
By this time, the task of clearing the weeds seems overwhelming. But it doesn’t take much to lift my spirits. Discovering bright bouquets of rhubarb quietly colonising the vegetable patch does the trick. (Technically, rhubarb is a vegetable, not a fruit.) Lime-green leaves unfurling from blush-pink stems send a welcome semaphore message: “It’s crumble time!”
In my column for the April issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News, I take issue with a local problem that’s also been making national news.
When I tell city-dwelling friends that our village is surrounded by single-track roads, they often react as if that’s idyllic, but confess to a fear of driving on narrow country lanes. They’d be even more frightened if they saw how peppered are lanes are with potholes.
In my article for the April issue of the Tetbury Advertiser, I ponder the different definitions of Spring.
After the wettest winter that I can remember, I’ve been looking forward more than ever to the spring.
January and February are in any case my least favourite months, so I’m always glad when 1st March comes around. But this year, I’m particularly pleased because I’ve just discovered that meteorologists count it as the first day of spring.
In my column for the March issue of the Tetbury Advertiser, I describe a fascinating afternoon researching Corinium – the ancient Roman name for what’s now the Cotswold market of Cirencester.
As part of my research for a new novel (the first in a new series), I finally get round to revisiting the Corinium Museum in Cirencester.
This article originally appeared on Boldwood Books’ blog to mark the publication of my latest novel, Driven to Murder.
In a bizarre incident of life imitating art, as a starting point for the ninth Sophie Sayers Cozy Mystery, I struck upon the idea of the village bus service being cancelled – only to discover shortly afterwards that the bus route passing through my home village of Hawkesbury Upton was also about to be axed.
Although my books are full of comedy, they also subtly gently draw attention to genuine rural issues, such as loneliness and isolation, for added realism.
Public transport is a lifeline to rural communities, especially for the many people who don’t drive or have access to a car. Taxis won’t come out to you as you’re too far from town, and as to take-away services, you might as well be on the Moon!
Only when you lose your public transport do you realise how much you need it.
Children can’t travel to school, teenagers lose their independence, adults can’t get to work, families can’t go shopping or on leisure outings, and no-one can get to medical appointments or banks.
Hawkesbury Upton has very few buses – and now these few are under threat. (Sadly, The Fox Inn, one of two village pubs, has now closed its doors forever.)
Losing the bus shrinks your world to your own back yard and cuts you off from vital services that everybody should be able to access – and for which you still have to pay your taxes! *climbs down from soapbox*
By contrast, in city streets, there are abundant buses at all hours – often many in a single street at the same time. City-centric politicians don’t realise how poorly rural communities are served by public transport.
In Driven to Murder, when Leif Oakham, suave owner of local bus company Highwayman, plans to axe the bus that connects Wendlebury Barrow with the nearest town, the villagers engineer a lively and creative campaign to save the bus. All goes according to plan until one of their number is murdered mid-campaign, in broad daylight, on the number 27!
Ever the amateur sleuth, Sophie pledges to track down the killer before another tragedy can occur – and to save the village bus service along the way.
There’s just one problem: she doesn’t have a driving licence.
A disastrous first lesson with Hector in his precious Land Rover makes her secretly seek an instructor further afield, with hair-raising results.
My husband, who favours action movies, has always told me I ought to add car chases to my books – but I don’t think he meant through single-track country lanes…
Of course, this being Wendlebury Barrow, there’s a happy ending all round, and plenty of surprises along the way.
I just hope we are as successful in winning a reprieve for the Hawkesbury Upton bus.
Back to Reality
In the queue to board the bus from Yate to Hawkesbury Upton last week.
If you’d like to support the campaign to save the Hawkesbury Upton bus, join here’s a link to its Facebook group:
But the simplest and most effective thing to do is to travel by bus!
Although I’m lucky enough to be able to drive and have my own car, there will come a time when I’m too frail or poor to so. I want to make sure the bus is still there for when I need it. Don’t you?
In the meantime, I’ve pledged to make a weekly journey on our village bus service for the duration of the campaign.
If everyone who lived along its route made just one trip a month, our bus service would be saved.
It doesn’t matter how long or short the journey – each trip will boost passenger numbers, the key to the route’s survival.
Of course, these thoughts don’t apply only to my local bus service – wherever you live, whether urban or rural, the message about public transport is the same: USE IT OR LOSE IT!
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