Peggys coming! You remember Peggy who was frightened
off by what she called Hoof and Mouth Disease last year? Well,
shes picked up the courage, or whatever it is they have in Boston, Massachusetts,
and is bringing her husband with her this week. Its
one of those people I havent seen for twenty years, which have ravaged my
life, so at least I know how I look . . . If only Id known I was going to
live this long Id never have had that large one in November 89. Im
just glad I dont have to meet her on licensed premises, looking silly with
a glass of sarsaparilla. And then theres the sobering thought that I think
shes hardly ever seen me without a drink in my hand. Shes
already emailed me about the little shops she thinks are still there in England.
I can tell you now shes in for a big shock about how American everything
has become. Once upon a time ago I was introduced to this
couple in their eighties in Ibiza. From their finca up a mountain they could see
San Antonio Bay, high-rise hotels all around. They had watched it grow from when
it was a few wooden fishing huts, yet she had never been there ever and he had
been once for a funeral some decades ago. I have often
pondered on what they would think if they went down there one Midnight, but then
realised that I didnt know what it was like in an African jungle at dawn. Peggy
shouldnt feel too strange though because she will be able to find all kinds
of things in the supermarkets her ancestors invented - like cheese in a squeezy
tube and soap you can wash your hands with without any water. And
at least shes going to stay near a village called Hope somewhere in Derbyshire.
Theyve rented a holiday cottage over the Internet, a bit like you might
in Ibiza really, though whether youd be taking sturdy boots with you is
a different tin of dubbin. Peggy was anxious about just
where they were going, so I went for a sneak preview and thought you might like
to read my advance travelogue: Dear Peggy Hello
there. Been there. It's perfect! Its a little hamlet nestling at the end
of a lane and theres a gate into a field about twenty feet from your front
door saying Footpath. You couldnt get any closer or be more
in the English countryside if you fell off the back of a hay-bailer in the middle
of harvest home. It looks as though some real people live
in the cluster of cottages there, too - though we couldnt say if they were
on holiday, they were having a good time just talking over the tumble-down stone
garden walls. Its all higgledy-piggledy farming property. Im guessing
you are staying in one of the row of stone cottages each named after a bird of
some kind. Plover or Sparrow hawk or something. One of you opens the five-barred
gate while the other reverses the car in. They look brilliant and we were quite
excited for you. From here, you go through your nearest
town, over the winding Snake Pass, which is looking lovely amidst the purple heather
today, turn right after a big reservoir where people were fly-fishing, and right
again in the middle of a little village - impossibly called HOPE! - opposite a
rather imposing old stone church which is full of it. It's about thirty miles
from here, or maybe a bit less. Your local village has
a handful of little shops, one of which sells just walking and camping stuff.
There are two tea shops, one called The Woodbine Café (David will no doubt
be able to remember the post-war cigarette brand), a deli, doing European cheeses
and pate, and a baker's and two little art galleries and a sort of 8/11 (?) mini
market and drinks shop open till 10pm every night and a petrol station. The quaint
Post Office didn't have the New York Times today, but obscurely they did have
the Yorkshire Post amongst the racks of English newspapers and magazines and -
wonder of wonders - real milk in real, glass, pint bottles. They had pasteurised
stuff as well, but this is from a farm where cows eat grass and dont have
sixteen hormone shots a day. When you leave that metropolis
(there are three or four rustic pubs, one with a sort of beer garden) you go up
a very English open-fenced lane for about four miles. The fields are full of fluffy,
white, lambs gambolling around and there are great views of craggy Derbyshire
peaks everywhere. And the sun is shining. And Im sure it still will be when
youre here. And youll be fine. It has been
pointed out to me that some of our younger readers might not know quite what sarsaparilla
is. It is an extract from the roots of a prickly plant grown all over Central
America and in Jamaica and adds a bitter tang, but nothing else, to soft drinks.
Spanish readers will have no such difficulty, recognising the words zarza,
which means bramble and parrilla, little vine. Thats
what the Conquistadores called it when they first arrived there, though they thought
it was good for you as well. I just know it as a kind of distinctive fizzy pop
you used to be able to get as an alternative to large ones, but only in milk bars
and the younger readers wont know what they were either.
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