Hawkesbury Life - Debbie Young's Writing Life

Running in Wonderland (You Can Call Me Alice)

Posted on April 26, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Changing your form of transport now and again is a good idea because if gives you a different perspective on the world around you. I’m always pleasantly surprised when transferring from my Ford Ka to our camper van: it’s like becoming a giant for a day. I can then look down upon walls that towered above my car and discover the secrets usually concealed behind high fences, their owners fondly believing they have private gardens. Pony-trekking has the same effect: I felt like queen of the hedgerows.

Trading four wheels for two is equally refreshing because until you acclimatise to the slower speed of a bicycle, it’s like travelling in slow motion. There’s more time to digest the view on your journey and the fresh air and sensaround smells on a bike ride are much more pleasant than the microclimate of a sealed glass and metal box.

But my favourite way to absorb the local landscape is when I’m running. Invariably I run alone and the solitude means I’m not distracted by passengers’ banter or irritated by their choice of music. Jogging down the familiar country lanes that surround my house, I often notice features that I’d never spot if travelling by other means. Last week, I saw a tiny wren on a branch and a smattering of bluebells breaking through a grassy bank, the earthy smell of new damp grass rising up from beneath my feet.

Once, plodding silently along Sandpits Lane, I caught a flash of taupe out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see what it was and discovered a mountjack deer gazing at me from a field a few metres away. The encounter stopped us both in our tracks and for a moment we breathlessly appraised each other. I felt like Alice in Through the Looking Glass when she meets the Fawn in the wood where things have no names. The Fawn therefore doesn’t know Alice is a girl and so is not afraid of her.

So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arm. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in a voice of delight. “And, dear me! you’re a human child!” A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

The mountjack deer was first to crack in our staring competition and ran off rather faster than I did. Though this chance meeting lasted only seconds, the magic of the moment has stayed with me ever since.

So I was not surprised to experience another David Attenborough moment on Sunday as I notched up a few miles’ running training before lunch. I’d crossed the Bath road to extend my usual route. As I entered new, unfamiliar running territory, a splash of silver and white caught my eye and I looked towards it. There, in the corner of a field, lay a gentle, peaceful unicorn. I gasped. And there was me thinking my deer encounter couldn’t be bettered!

I stood stock still, not wishing to break the spell. I was breathing hard. (Well, I had just run three miles.) Then the oxygen started to return from my leg muscles to my brain and my eyes came into focus. And I realised that of course this wasn’t a unicorn at all, only a pale grey horse having a rest on the ground. It had settled down, legs tucked beneath it, in front of a white picket fence. A stake in the fence had come loose and was hanging free at an angle behind the horse’s head, looking for all the world like a unicorn’s horn. Turning round, I smiled at my own foolishness and resumed my weary trot in the direction of home. Whatever would I come across next? I wondered. I just hoped it wouldn’t be a lion.

(All the illustrations above by John Tenniel, from my favourite book of all time, Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass And What Alice Found There.)

If you liked this post and enjoy running (and this post), you might like some of my other posts about running:

What Would It Take to Make You Run 10K?

The Best Reason to Run

And if you really, really liked my post, please consider sponsoring my Bristol 10K Run 2012 in aid of diabetes research!

Travel

Dorothy Was Right: There’s No Place Like Home

Posted on April 24, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Living as I do in an area that’s a tourist destination, I’m always curious when I go away on holiday to see whether I can find any other tourist spots that are equally homely. It’s rare to find another place that’s a match for our little corner of the Cotswolds.

I’m therefore taken aback to come across a small Scottish town that seems on first glance to meet my demanding criteria.

Late one afternoon, en route in our camper van from Perth to the coast of Fife, we encounter a small market town with a familiar air. Spotting brown tourist information signs to a nearby castle, we decide to stay the night and visit it in the morning. We find a place to park near the centre of town, and while my husband reads the paper and my daughter plays with her toys, I combine a recce with a run (I’m in training for the Bristol 10K).

I gently jog down the narrow high street, making a mental note of the facilities. There’s a craft bakers, an award-winning butchers, two charity shops with a high class of junk, and a useful old-fashioned hardware shop.There are signs to a library and a leisure centre and an edge-of-town supermarket. (Sound familiar, anyone?)

The calorific perils of a chippy, a Chinese and an Indian take-away are offset by a slimming club in the old market hall,which also hosts a cafe offering hearty soups, sandwiches and cakes. (Well, this is Scotland). I jog on to the end of town and I’m immediately amidst farmland, where fingerposts beckon me on to pleasant footpaths through sheep-strewn green fields.

Hmmm, this is home from home, I begin to think. I could get to like this place.

There’s even a local royal connection, albeit not one to ever make the pages of Hello magazine: Mary, Queen of Scots, was once a guest at the local castle and later a prisoner.

Turning left onto a footpath, I jog happily round the perimeter of the town and am rewarded with a glimpse of the castle, in the middle of a small loch. I pause to catch my breath by the ticket office and mentally book a family boat trip to it for tomorrow. Culture, a boat and a spooky-looking setting that would do Scooby-Doo proud – there’s something here to keep all the family happy.

When I head back into town, the charity shops are opposite me, and I notice for the first time that they are in aid of a Scottish children’s hospice. A little further down the road, in the direction of the other end of town, is a sign to that very hospice. A few yards further I pass the high school. It is closed down and boarded up, peppered with danger signs. I’m sure there’s no connection between the closure of the (dangerous) school and the presence of a children’s hospice, but it still makes me shudder with horror. I’m so sad for the children affected by either building.

I run on, hoping to find something cheery to negate the effect of these discoveries. A little ahead of me is a large building, by far the most grand and imposing on the high street. I run a little faster, spirits rising. Level with the gated entrance, I read the sign. It is a funeral directors. Now feeling thoroughly chilled, I turn on the heel of my trainers and plod back to the van, to find my family waiting. I couldn’t live here, not amidst all this sadness. After all, there is no place like home.

(This post was originally written for the Tetbury Advertiser, May 2012 issue.)

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like this one about the lure of home: East, West, Our Village Show’s Best or this one about another country dear to Mary, Queen of Scots’ heart: Lost In France.

Personal life

The Mysterious Invisibility of Telegraph Poles

Posted on March 11, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Telegraph pole in my garden's airspace — Easy to spot, even in the evening light, yet still I never notice the interloper in my garden airspace

Negotiating my way slowly between the electricity company’s vans in Back Lane, watching its workmen make a tarmac patchwork of the pavement, I realise I’ve never noticed just how many telegraph poles we have in our village.

For 21 years I’ve lived with electricity cables crossing my garden’s airspace, yet the only notice I’ve taken has been to avoid siting my washing line beneath them. (There’s nothing a perching bird likes better for target practice than a drying line of clean washing.)

Opening my bedroom shutters each morning, I never see the telegraph pole that bisects the view.

When I was given a Victorian photo of my house last year, it was days before I could put my finger on why it looked so odd: there wasn’t a telegraph pole in sight.

When telegraph poles first came to the village, they must have caused a great deal of excitement, whether relaying telephone messages or hitching us up to the National Grid.

And they still do. What I like best about them is the way we use these poles to spread word of imminent village events. On their familiar brown trunks¸ over the years, we’ve pinned up posters for everything from jumble sales to judo, from youth club to yoga, confident that they’d effectively spread the word. Little wonder that lately some of them have become more tin tack than tree.

Advertising column in Parisian street — Who needs Parisian elegance...

telegraph pole used for advertising posters — ...not Hawkesbury Upton!

So let’s hope that after the cables have gone underground, the electricity company leaves us a few trusty telegraph poles for Hawkesbury’s special messaging service – even if they don’t have any cables to support.

(This post was originally written for Hawkesbury Parish News, March 2012 edition.)

Personal life

In Praise of Village Shops and Post Offices

Posted on November 26, 2011July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

What turns a shop into a superstore? After all the build-up to the launch of a new superstore in our nearest market town, I happened to be away on holiday when it finally opened. I forgot all about it till driving past one evening after the clocks had changed and there it was, like an alien spaceship, its strange round tower all lit up. A small alien bribe had landed on my doormat while I was away – £8 a week in vouchers for the first four weeks, clearly designed to have me inescapably in their thrall by the time my big Christmas shop was due. But who’s interested in aliens when your own planet is perfect?

Because here on Planet Hawkesbury, we’ve already got all we need for the Christmas season. In November we had three special festive shopping events, thanks to Pre-school, the Primary School PTA and Severn View Farm, each packed with fabulous gifts that you’d never find in the biggest, brightest chainstore.

And if you didn’t manage to pick up all your presents at these events, we’ve got our own gift shop on the doorstep all year round – aka Hawkesbury Post Office, whose tasteful gifts are eminently easy to mail, ideal for posting to friends and family far from home. And let’s not forgot our lovely Hawkesbury calendar and Christmas cards!

The Village Shop is happy to order in all our Christmas food shopping, to arrive just in time for the festivities. We won’t need to fight traffic jams or risk the winter weather. (Last December’s deep snow must have caused havoc for anyone who left their shopping till the last minute.) Give Ann and Mark your list and they’ll do the rest. Now that’s what I call a super store.

So this year I’m going to be avoiding the Christmas rush. I’ll be spending all my time with family and friends instead – and enjoying the many seasonal events that will surely be previewed in this month’s parish mag. I hope you will too.

Happy Christmas!

(This post was originally written for the December 2011 issue of Hawkesbury Parish News)

Personal life

Up the Garden Path

Posted on September 28, 2011July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

My resolve to tidy my small front garden before the autumn turns into a bigger job than I planned. By the time I’ve pruned the trees, pulled up the weeds, and rescued the periwinkle from the ivy, I’m gazing at a surprisingly large empty space. Next step: to refill it. Next stop: the garden centre.

Three days in a row, I pop into the one in Nailsworth, emerging each time with an armful of pots. One by one, I plant my purchases, choosing each site carefully, as if placing the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But by the end of day three, there are still some spaces. I resign myself to a fourth shopping trip. This could prove to be an expensive week.

But before I set off next morning, I must stop at Hawkesbury Upton Post Office to buy a stamp. On my way up the path I spot a tray of plants for sale. There’s a pansy in just the shade of purple I want to match my periwinkle. I check the price: just 20p. The garden centre till receipts flash up in my memory. Their prices were ten times higher. I rummage around in the tray in search of further bargains. I find a lovely sage for 35p: perfect for my colour scheme. Dropping some coins in the honesty box, I wonder why I bothered with the garden centre when this humble little tray was just yards from my door. It’s an added bonus that these plants were raised in the village – it means they will thrive in my garden too.

It makes me wonder whether I can source the other item on my garden shopping list so close to home and at a comparable price. I’m after a bench. I know I won’t get much change from £200 at the garden centre. Then I remember a little while ago I drove past some home-made garden seats for sale outside a house in Horton. Before I can be tempted to hit the garden centre, I nip down the hill and discover I can secure two lovely chairs for just £20 a throw.

So no more lining the pockets of garden retailers and chain stores for me: I’m going to be shopping much closer to home in future. Globalisation – who needs it? Give me villagisation any day.

(This post was written for Hawkesbury Parish News, October 2011 issue – now on sale in the Hawkesbury Village Shop and Hawkesbury Upton Post Office!)