Someone gets carried over the threshold, someone gets a new gardener, and several get a new garden!

The dawn chorus has been added to lately with the muffled BOOM of the bird scarer in the farmers fields nearby. Which seems a waste of time to me, if you saw the numbers of pigeons that descend on it from time to time, all of whom are layabeds and so don't hear the BOOM, and probably wouldn't care anyway.

I was in the shop the other morning, enjoying a mardle with Daisy, when in burst Elsie, making the little bell almost tinkle itself out of its bracket. I love the sound of this bell, much preferable to one shop in the next village which has this awful buzzer concealed under the doormat, so everyone who steps on it makes this loud BUZZ, and you can imagine the fun local children have, running in and out! No, a little tinkly bell is much more civilised and more suited to spinster ladies. Sorry, one 'unclaimed and unattached for now' lady and her 'quite a bit elder' sister! Daisy's words, not mine. Anyway, whenever Elsie bursts in anywhere, you can bet your bottom five pence piece that it's because she has news to impart, ie gossip.

'Guess what I just saw, go on, guess, betcha can't can you?' came out, all of a rush. Daisy and I looked at her, then at each other, then shrugged our shoulders, and before we could say anything, Elsie informed us that she had just seen Mr Bartholomew carrying Miss Asquith over the threshold of her little cottage! Daisy and I didn't know what to make of this, was Elsie hallucinating, had she been at the nettle wine again or what?

'Are you sure Elsie dear?' asked Daisy.

Elsie sniffed, which she does a lot really, usually more out of high dudgeon than a case of the sniffles. 'How could I be mistaken about something like that pray Daisy?' she said, in what she calls her 'best voice' usually reserved for the vicar and senior members of the WI - which she only joined because they occasionally meet up with a certain other WI with 'Royal Connections' as she puts it. 'How could anyone mistake seeing a tall, distinguished, quite handsome considering his age, gent (and this confirmed our suspicions that secretly she fancied him herself, despite comments about men being useless lummoxes etc., etc.) carrying a small, genteel lady over a threshold attached to her cottage. Go on, tell me!'

Well, of course we had to concede defeat, but needless to say both Daisy and I were intrigued to say the least. We suggested Elsie ought to go round on some pretext or other, find out what was going on. She said she wasn't as nosey as some folks, so them as wanted to be nosey could just go ahead and be so... said all the while staring at me!

We were trying to figure out, in as disinterestedly a way as we could so as not to appear nosey, how we could find out the reason behind the over the threshold carrying, when Esme entered from the back of the shop, announcing she was just going to take a few essentials round to Tilly's cottage, just to keep her going until her cousin Martha arrived tomorrow.

Three heads turned towards her. 'What?' she asked in that snappy, snitty voice she sometimes uses... well, her normal voice actually.

'Why does Tilly Asquith need essentials, why are you taking them, why can't she come herself, and why is her cousin going, and why do you know all this?' asked Daisy.

'Heavens Daisy, it's like twenty questions living with you sometimes. In no particular order Tilly needs a few essentials taking to her because she is incapacitated with a badly sprained ankle, sustained when she was out walking, and slipped on the stile going into Sprocketts Field, which was wet due to the rain. Luckily she was with Hugh at the time, and he had his mobile with him... you know he only just got it recently and it took him ages to figure out how to make a call. But he rang the local surgery, helped Tilly hobble down there, luckily only a short walk from the new surgery as it happens. The doctor then ran them back to Tilly's cottage, Hugh carried her indoors, and then Tilly rang me to fill me in on all this. Her cousin is coming up from Oxfordshire to look after her, but won't arrive until tomorrow. Does that answer your questions Daisy, satisfy your curiousity Elsie?'

Of course it did, thank you Esme.

My friend Rowena, she of the ribboned, braided hair and penchant for fancy walking sticks, has had to give in and get herself a gardener. Many years ago she was involved in a car accident which left her with a permanently damaged left knee, which seems to get worse as she gets older, though she is only 55. When she was in her late forties, she and her husband divorced, and she bought one of the old outbuildings belonging to the Sykes family farm, no longer farmed and sold off, piecemeal, several years ago. A strange sort of set up in that none of the barns are close to each other, but each stands in it's own little plot of land, some bigger than others, and there has been much speculation over the years as to what they really were used for. Anyway, she bought herself one on a largish plot, bought mature fruit trees to create a small orchard, some hens, and rare breed sheep. She had the building gutted, and whereas one of the others close by has been renovated in a modern style, Rowena's is full of interesting objects picked up on travels overseas sometimes with her ex-husband, and the usual flea markets and charity shop finds too. Trained as an accountant originally, she now makes a living designing and making knitwear, some of it from her own fleeces. Over the years, her other main hobby, her garden, has grown and developed, and she has her own organic fruit and vegetables, salads and herbs which she gives away or swaps for other things, a cottage garden bursting with flowers, and a beautiful lawned area, where she plays croquet! By herself usually!

But then she had the accident and although for several years she has managed to look after the garden, of late it has been too much, and she has made the decision to get a gardener. As luck, or fate would have it, in the latest issue of our village magazine was an advert put in by Dilys, a lady gardener newly moved to the area and looking for work. Rowena rang her, and the next day when I was visiting and sharing some of her delicious coffee, Dilys came over and the two hit it off immediately. In return for a small wage, and a share of the produce, Dilys is taking over the garden. Rowena naturally gets first say as to what she wants from it, and will go and pick it herself, but the rest Dilys can use. They will make joint decisions as to what to plant and where - for now Dilys is going to plant cut and come again leaves, herbs, and other veggies as they decide on together. The tomatoes are already started and coming on, as are peas and beans, but Dilys has plans to introduce different beans next year, not the usual broad and runner types apparently. Rowena had been fighting against getting help in, but knows that now was the right time after all, for her angels had sent Dilys. Or fate. Or nothing more than pure coincidence, depending on your outlook.

We are an area blessed with lots of sites full of allotments. Some of them are decades old, matching the age of the delapidated buildings on them and the gardeners are even older. You can see a variety of buildings, from the neat and tidy real potting shed type, to one made out of old packing crates, belonging to an ex-Serviceman (both shed and crates that is) and which looks like it should have fallen down years ago, but which has stood over ten years now, and makes for interesting reading, destinations painted on the odd one or two, comments scrawled on it by fellow allotmenteers too. On fine days you can see people working their own allotments, or standing around sharing a flask of tea and having a chat, putting the world, and their absent allotment neighbours plots, to rights. Several women now have their own allotments too, and on one site it took a while for the male gardeners to accept them, so I was told. The women were ignored, and so formed a little group themselves, often sitting late into a summer's evening, a bottle of wine and a plate of sandwiches between them on a rickety old table, the ladies themselves on a variety of old chairs, enjoying the late evening sunshine before heading back home. It seemed this looked an attractive way to end the day, and gradually the men began to talk to the women when they were working on their allotments, to the point where you can often drive by in an evening and see them all chattering away, and at weekends, spouses and children come along too, creating a lovely family atmosphere, everyone getting involved in the work of the allotment and sharing the food and fun after.

For residents of a certain village though, they have been given their own, very new site, on some unused land owned by the council, where small allotments have been fenced off, each with a spanking new six by three shed as well. The site is a lovely open one, very slightly on an incline, but not enough to be a problem, and nearby is the old parish church. You can imagine working in your allotment, listening to bell ringing practice on a warm summer's evening, and offering up a prayer maybe for a good crop.

More about the 'babe magnet', the blossoming B&A friendship, a wild cat strike and a reading group meets.

I'd love to be able to tell you that the mystery surrounding the mysterious telephone box call had been solved.... Laurie had told me she was sure she knew who the man was, but now she has become rather cagey about it, saying she was wrong, it wasn't anyone I knew. Which sort of indicated to me SHE knew him, so it may not be anyone in the village anyway. Those who thought the Two T's might be involved in some illicit menage a trois, or that he was having an affair, were way off the mark, nothing could be more unlikely. So that one will have to be laid to rest for now, which in a way is a relief. Well, would you want to know that maybe a friend's husband was having an affair with her sister? .
However, I can tell you that Mr Bartholomew and Miss Asquith, aka HUGH and TILLY (and thanks once again have to go to Elsie for overhearing their private conversation and passing on this information about their Christian names!), are getting on famously it seems. He drove her to an art exhibition in one of the neighbouring villages last weekend, and they were seen walking, her arm delicately linked through his, around the village last evening. It's hard not to have an 'Ah Bless' moment when you see them together, it really is. But they do look as if they fit together, and it gives hope to all the getting-on-in-years bachelors and spinsters of this parish.. well, except for Elsie, who has said she has no room in her life or her house for men, 'cluttering up the place as they do, with their smelly ways and lazy habits.' Probably sighs of relief amongst the eligible men of these parts then!
There has been consternation though, amongst the inhabitants of one of the nearby villages, as there have been rumours of a large black, puma-like cat on the loose, living in woodlands on the edge of the village. Recent rumours of a bear living in woods in another part of fhe county proved to be false and were down to some group or other.. 'acting rather irresponsibly as these sorts of people are wont to do', according to Major Hutton... who else? But the cat is another matter. Described as being as big as a large sheepdog, black all over, though some say it has white markings on its body, with a long body, long tail, small head. One person claimed to have seen it pounce on a rabbit in the fields, but most people who have seen it, though that amounts to less than half a dozen, claim it roams along the edge of the trees. Of course, tales of these wild black cats abound all over the country, one wonders if there is actually some truth to them, or just folk jumping on the bandwagon for their fifteen minutes of fame in front of a microphone or reporters notebook.
This was one of the subjects we talked about after the reading group meeting. The group was very recently set up and met for the first time only this week, and among its members are several people already known to readers of this blog. There's me, along with Phoebe-the-eccentric, Lizzie-the-writer who goes in for mini marathons for charity, and long rambles with local walking groups, and Esme, part owner of the village store with her sister Daisy (Esme always being thought of as the tall pointy one, and Daisy the small round one!) and by far the more serious of the two, happy as a spinster whereas Daisy longs to be kissed.
Then there's two other people you haven't met yet... first, my very best friend Maggie. She and I have known each other over fifty years, and for almost all her life she lived in the same town we grew up in. I moved around a lot, she stayed put, only ever coming to Norfolk on holidays to stay with some rich relative, an Uncle. After looking after her parents when they became ill and subsequently died prematurely really, one from cancer the other of a broken heart, she decided it was time for a big change. Never married, never wanted to be, happy, independent, with a wide circle of friends who she wasn't too sorry to be leaving behind as she was looking forward to the adventure of making new ones, she came to live in Cargrave Manor. Her rich uncle had died and left her his rather small fortune, and so she was able to buy an apartment in this lovely old country house, recently renovated and turned into four good sized apartments. Hers is the whole of the left hand side (as you look at the house full on) on the first floor, with bay windows, a wonderful balcony built over the old garden room below on the ground floor, two bedrooms, large study, wonderful views of woodland and sea (just). She earns her living as an alternative therapist, working out of a practice with several others, and leads the life of Riley, according to her.
The other member is another of my closest friends, Ian. An architect, 50 and single, and my neighbour. He's prone to moments of madness... like coming home from his office in the middle of the afternoon on a fine sunny day and whisking me off in the BMW for an ice cream on the sea front at Hunstanton. Working for himself has it's perks, he says. And it's attractions for women too. He was married once, but she upped and left one day, no word of warning, just went leaving him a 'Dear John' and since then, he has vowed never to let any woman get too close. There have been lots of long term relationships since we've known him, mostly with much younger women, all legs and blonde hair they used to be, though there was one exception to the rule I remember, but I think she was a bit too feisty and political for his liking, especially as she was of a different political persuasion! There was one relationship we thought was going to be the one to break his own rules about not getting too close. They were together over ten years until quite recently... she wanted more than just living with him, but according to him when he told me she had packed her bags and left, she was a lovely woman, but 'that spark wasn't there, you know?' and he looked at me, rather too meaningfully some would say. Elsie for example, who never lets a nuance pass her by! Anyway, he is quite happy living on his own now it seems, and decided he would like to join the reading group when I told him about it. This is good, because it means we won't just pick female fiction, but will be forced to look at other genres too.. it is so easy to just stay in your comfort zone, when it comes to reading and most other things.
So the six of us have agreed we will meet once a month, at Maggie's... she has the space, there is no problem with car parking, no interruptions from spouses, children or animals, and we can sit on her balcony once the warmer weather and longer evenings arrive. For now, with a chill in the air, we sit around her log fire and the first book we discussed was 'STILL ALICE' by Lisa Genova. Probably not for the faint-hearted, this is about a Harvard Professor, Alice, aged fifty, who begins to forget little things. She puts it down to the menopause, even though there are no other real symptoms of it, but when out running one day, she suddenly finds herself not knowing which way to go to get home, on a circuit she has done every day for years. Then she knows it is something more serious, instinct tells her what it is, and when it is confirmed as EOAD, Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease, how she deals with it will be the key. The book is sad at times, heartwarming at times, positive at times, bleak too, and the author has really seemed to get inside the head of someone 'losing their yesterdays', as it's put. After we had done the bookish bit, we then sat and chatted about what was going on in the village, and the area generally, and left several hours later, full of home made lemon drizzle cake and excellent coffee. What a lovely way to spend an evening!

A story of love's not so young dream and 'Forever Young' keeps a stiff upper lip.

Along the lane to the church are several cottages, and in Church Cottage, the one nearest the old church, a pretty white painted cottage dating from the 19C, its front door festooned with red roses and white honeysuckle, lives Mr Bartholomew.

Mr Bartholomew, always known by his full name, is a retired bank manager, now in his mid-seventies. A tall gent with somewhat military bearing, and it's said by those who knew him when he managed the bank in the nearby market town, that he ran the operation like it was a military unit. Not a man who suffered fools gladly, who could be a bit gruff at times, nor a man who leant the bank's money willy-nilly, yet for all that, he was much respected, and liked by his staff and regular customers alike. He has been retired over ten years now, giving up his flat above the bank to live out here in the sticks.

Because he is called by his full name, don't get the idea he's a bit of a snooty old gent, or reclusive in any way. He just seems a man who commands respect somehow. It's true that he keeps himself pretty much to himself, doesn't go to the local more than once a month for lunch, isn't a member of any groups in this village or the others around here. He's a regular visitor to the library, and a glimpse through his front door, open on a sunny morning whilst he works in his front garden, will reveal a hallway lined with bookcases, so we know he's a reader. And should you pass him out walking in the village, or on an errand to the post office perhaps, he will always smile and say 'Good day', but makes it clear he's not a man to hang about on the street having a mardle, as they say in these parts.

We also know he's a keen, and very good, gardener. Not only are there roses and honeysuckle around the door, but neat flower beds filled with cistus and hydrangea, old fashioned pinks and lavender... the smell is quite heady on a warm day. There are no weeds daring to poke their way through the Norfolk Red bricks laid in a herringbone pattern, that makes up the path leading to the front door. Behind the house is a well-stocked vegetable garden, with wigwams made of old branches, up which grow purple podded and green runner beans, amongst the peas held up with twiggy pea sticks, nasturtiums grow alongside salad crops and leafy cabbages. Green and red tomatoes tumble out of hanging baskets and grow in his greenhouse. He has a small orchard of trees, one each of cooking and eating apple, a pear and a plum, fruit bushes too with different currants. Nothing grown in large quantities, but enough to keep him supplied. The garden can only be properly seen by those who are lucky enough to be friends with Mr Bartholomew.. the rest of us can just glimpse it through the yews in the churchyard.

In his garage sits an old Volvo, which he lovingly washes once a week, spending hours on the inside and the outside, putting most of us to shame. Well, all except for 'OOH-ME-BACK', one of my neighbours who sometimes walks almost bent over like an old man (yet he's far from being old) and at other times manages a sprightly walk to the local. But if ever anyone asks how he is, his reply usually starts with 'Ooh me back's been playing me up again', hence his name. Yet he can spend a whole day cleaning his car, surrounded by buckets, cloths, hoover, and rubbish bag.

Anyway, back to Mr Bartholomew.. of course we were all curious about him. Rather like Jane Austen we assumed that as he was a single man in possession of, well if not a fortune then a portfolio of stocks and shares and a good pension at least, he would be in need of a wife. Maybe he had had one, 'been there done that' kind of thing. Maybe he was a tragic widower, though he didn't look tragic. (Though what does a tragic widower look like? Gaunt? Big sad eyes constantly red-rimmed from unshed tears? Unkempt? Certainly none of these fit Mr Bartholomew). Maybe he still had a wife, tucked away somewhere... a mental hospital, suggested the same drama queen who thought him a tragic widower at one point. Short of asking him of course, there was no way any of us would find out. A man of few friends, and none of them local for they all arrived in cars, sometimes staying for a few days, so clearly not from these parts, not a man to invite confidences nor offer them, so all we could do was guess, and imagine.

But then something happened to Mr Bartholomew. Those of us who notice these things, namely the drama queen, who I shall tell you is Elsie Drew, self-styled purveyor of village news aka gossip-mongering, has said that every Thursday evening he has been seen in his sitting room window, looking out. How does she know? Well, that's choir practice evening in the church and what better place to gather 'news' than when a group of people are gathered together like this, so not surprisingly, Elsie belongs to just about every group and society hereabouts. Sometimes he goes in the church and sits, listening to the choir practising. He has also taken to going to the library on a certain day, at a certain time, has joined the local history group there which meets once a month on Monday evenings.

It seems he is rather taken with one of the newcomers to the village, who belongs to the choir, the local history group too. Miss Asquith, a retired school teacher in her early seventies, arrived in the village in the autumn of last year, having left her home in the North of England for a new life in the area she had always holidayed in with her late husband. (Thanks must go to Elsie for this information!) As with most villages, once the dark nights set in, although people still go about their business, curtains are drawn early and a lot of it goes on unnoticed. Mr Bartholomew keeps his open on Thursday evenings, and on Sunday mornings, as the choir and other church-goers saunter past, he can be seen sitting reading his paper, or pottering in the front garden. He has been seen smiling, ever so sweetly - and for a man of his bearing this comes as somewhat of a surprise - at Miss Asquith, who returns it, sweetly, which is more becoming a lady of her bearing, a smidgen over five feet, slim build, well-dressed, pleasant, open happy face. Of course, Elsie has them married by now... the rest of us will just sit back and see what develops, but it gladdens the heart to see love, possibly, blossoming for a couple in their seventies.

Of course, not everyone is interested in such matters, some people are too consumed with their own lives. Take 'Forever Young' for example. She disappeared for a few days recently, and we all awaited her return, if not with bated breath exactly, with some interest shall we say. Because whenever she has gone away for any length of time before, she has always come back not quite the woman she was when she left. Some of the changes were not evident to anyone except her 'intimate' friends shall we say; after all, who wants to go flaunting their cellulite (or sudden lack of it) in public? And most of us could have done without the graphic description of the gunk that was sucked out of her by this medical version of a Dyson apparently. But the flap of skin under her chin disappeared, and we all noticed that. Then she acquired these perfect bag-free eyes all of a sudden. A breast implant job meant she was away for a longer period and was quite happy to flaunt the new boobies as she called them on her return. This time she came back protesting her innocence, she had just gone to visit an old school friend she said, with a stiff upper lip. Of course she hadn't had botox, she said, still with a stiff upper lip. Perhaps she'd have done better to stay away longer, let the swelling die down a bit. Because it did, and there was hardly much difference really, though she said it improved her kissing technique.. which was too much information really!

Two T's and a slice of hot gossip please!

When it comes to going out for morning coffee, afternoon tea or a light lunch, we are spoilt for choice in this area. There are several coffee shops attached to garden centres, some in old converted buildings, a couple in bookshops, but my favourite is one owned by Violet, and attached to her studio/gallery where she displays work by local artists and craftspeople. Here at various times of the year you can find examples of batik, watercolours and acrylic paintings too, felting, wood-carving, hand-knitted bags, wonderful cushion covers in silky fabrics, and the pottery done by Violet and Laurie, a tall, willowy blonde in her fifties who hails from California.

Out of season it's quiet, which makes it an ideal meeting place for the knitting group I belong to, along with the aforementioned Laurie, my good friend Rowena, Lizzie the freelance writer, Sue who's married to the vet, and Daisy who, together with her sister Esme, spinsters both, owns a village store in one of the other villages in this area. When we're not meeting at Violet's, we meet in each other's houses... summertimes in gardens or summerhouses with the buzzing of bees, splashing of fountains, and birdsong accompanying the clickety-clack of our needles, the occasional giggles breaking into the gentle hum of conversation, drinking sparkling wine or iced tea. In winter we might meet in Laurie's large kitchen, all sitting around her big old table by the Aga, mugs of home made soup to hand, or in Sue's conservatory, a huge iron edifice attached to the old vicarage where she and vet husband Peter, three children and several pets live in what looks like continual pandemonium to an outsider.

Anyway, out of season like now, it's usually quiet in Violet's coffee shop, nobody to bother us and nobody for us to bother, so it was with a sigh of dismay that I opened the door, walked into the warm, cinammony smell of the coffee shop, and espied the Two T's as they're known, sitting at one of the tables, papers and OS maps around them.

I should perhaps briefly introduce them to you.... they have an almost-unpronouncable surname, one you have to be really careful saying or you'll end up making an embarrassing blunder, so people just started calling them Mr and Mrs T, or the Two T's. They see it as their job to keep these streets safe for the rest of us; they initiated the Neighbourhood Watch schemes in all areas of this village; they were instrumental in getting community police introduced to the villages around here and a mobile police station to visit one of them as well on a regular basis; they were involved in the setting up of a team to keep the green areas planted, weeded and generally tidied; they bought several benches and had them placed at strategic spots in the village for people to just sit a while; in short, if there's anything good going to be done around here, then the TwoT's will be in there somewhere, rallying the troops, getting things done. A nice couple, but despite all their involvement in the village, nobody really knows anything about them, they tend to keep themselves to themselves when not embarking on some village project or other.

Anyway, it looked as if they were up to another scheme now and I was a bit worried our liveliness would distract them, but as I moved over to where two tables had been pushed together to accomodate the six knitters, they gathered up their papers, almost furtively as if they didn't want me to see them, and hastily made their exit.

I smiled over at Laurie, sitting with her first cup of coffee. There was an air of excitement about her, she looked as if she couldn't wait for me to sit down, flapping her hands at me, beckoning me over, making sure I sat close to her. It seemed she had been privy, accidentally, to some juicy titbit of gossip, had been keeping it to herself all week trying to decide what to do, whether to speak out or not, and wanted to tell me now, before her courage failed her and she once again began havering as to whether to spill the beans or not.

Looking over her shoulder to make sure Violet wasn't around, she leant in towards me and I almost expected her to adopt a phony French accent and utter those immortal words...'Listen very carefully, for I shall say this only once.' Of course she didn't.. but what she did say certainly had me listening carefully.

Last week her car had broken down, she'd had to leave it with Vic at the garage but needed to get into Norwich, so had to go on the bus. She lives away from the centre of the village, at the other end to our wonderful Phoebe, in a beautiful converted barn. Luckily there is a bus stop not too far away, and alongside it, a rather dilapidated red telephone box. As you can see from the photo, it's a bit lop-sided, sadly in need of paint, but even so, has much more character than these glass and plastic things that BT replaced them with. (Perhaps the Two T's ought to have a campaign to restore these red telephone boxes, most villages around here have at least one of them, all falling into disrepair, but still operational.)

As she was waiting for the bus, the phone in the box began to ring. This is one of those dilemmas isn't it... do you answer it or pretend you can't hear it? Worse if it's in a busy public place, but here, isolated really, easier to ignore it. However, Laurie is an inquisitive soul and of course, had to answer it. Before she had chance to speak, this rather husky male voice at the other end spoke. 'Look babe, I can't speak long.. she who must be obeyed is due back any minute, said we had to be at someone's place by six and you know what your sister's like about time-keeping. Anyway, I'm going to have to cancel tomorrow evening.. I know, I know... I promised this time nothing would stop me coming over, but it can't be helped, it's a work thing babe, sorry. We'll get together soonest babe, promise. And when we do....' and here he made a deep growly noise which he presumably thought was sexy but sounded more like a St Bernard with laryngitis according to Laurie. Then he suddenly hissed 'Bye babe' and the line went dead.

Laurie said she put the phone down when she saw the bus coming, but something about the voice was bugging her all week. She was sure she recognised it she said, and then last night, it came to her. She knew who this man was, knew who the 'she who must be obeyed' was, and her sister too. And we all knew them!

I was about to urge her to tell me more, when the little bell tinkled above the door, and in walked Sue and Daisy, and the moment passed. 'Later', Laurie hissed at me, smiling in greeting to our friends as they neared the table.

Well, 'later' hasn't yet arrived.. Laurie has been called away for a few days, and so here I sit, wondering who I know who has a sister, who's particularly fussy about time-keeping, and more importantly, who could possibly be married to someone cheesy enough to call a woman 'babe'?

Trouble on t'hill? I don't think so.

Well, perhaps to call the slight bump on the horizon a 'hill' would be to endow it with a greatness it doesn't deserve. As most people know, Norfolk is flat, but in places, that's not strictly true. There are some pretty gentle undulations, even some slightly bigger, from the top of which you are nearly always guaranteed enough breeze to fly a kite. One such is Primrose Hill I think it's called, near the coast, Cromer way. Round here, the landscape is a bit smoother, but not far away there is an area of raised ground, with several acres of old orchards and a small copse, a couple of small outbuildings, in the midst of which stands an old farmhouse, Orchard Farmhouse. Built in the late 1800s, and lived in until the late 1990s, when the last occupier died. He had no family, and nobody seemed to know what was going to happen to the house and land.

It was the cause of many a discussion in the local pub, the possibilities were endless it seemed, but as the months passed by and nothing happened, the months then turned into years and eventually other subjects became the main topic of conversation. The house stood alone, looking sad with no lights inside, flaking paint and all around it the land untended. Not many of the windows have been smashed, there seems to be little damage done to it, probably because you'd have to be a pretty determined vandal to make your way up the rutted track, full of muddy potholes in winter and packed hard and dry in the summer, that leads to the house, several hundred yards from the road into the village.

But last Monday, as people made their way to work, passing by in their cars and on the little green bus that makes its way along the coast, those who were in the habit of casually glancing to look at the house on their way past were horrified. The one thing a lot of villagers dread, if there is any spare land in their village which nobody seems to claim, is the arrival of travellers, gypsies, call them what you will. The sight of a caravan and pick up parked on some derelict unused land can strike dismay into the hearts of even the most liberal-minded local. So it was hardly surprising that there was a larger than usual crowd in the local that night, and that the main topic of conversation was the arrival of travellers, in not one, but two caravans by lunchtime, as it turned out. The fact that one was an old Airstream caravan, quite the noblest of American caravans and much beloved by officianados of caravans, the other a large modern one, and that there were two four by fours parked alongside also, didn't seem to make much difference to the panic that seemed to be rising.

It was the Major, of course, who was the first to say he had got on to the local council 'first thing' about the arrival of the travellers, but he got short shrift from the person he spoke to, which led to yet another tirade about 'little Jobsworths they employ in the council these days' and so on, an argument the regulars had heard many times before. Then Farmer Giles had to have his say, since his land is alongside the old farmstead. (And yes, he really is a proper farmer with hundreds of acres, bright red combines and all, and he really is called Giles!) He could remember a family of travellers arriving unannounced in one of his fields many years ago, and it was 'a devil of a job to get the blighters moved' - and yes, he really speaks like that as well!

Several other opinions were thrown into the discussion, suggestions for how to deal with the interlopers, and when one of the WI ladies pointed out that the caravans and cars didn't look like those that belonged to your average, living off benefits travellers, her comments were not taken seriously.

Halfway through trying to decide between the serious and sensible solution (getting legal advice from the CAB) and the downright stupid and emotional solution (going up there mob-handed with flaming torches and the like) the door to the pub opened and in walked a couple in their forties, accompanied by two labradors. Being strangers they were stared at of course, treated with a little caution by everyone, except Polly, the landlady, who is friendly to everyone.

Whilst the regulars carried on with their discussions, rather quieter this time, it was Polly who managed to find out that this couple were Leonard and Pru, and they had just bought Orchard Farmhouse, living in their caravan whilst they renovated it. You could almost hear the bodies sagging with relief when the locals heard this, their visions of flaming torches vanished with their sighs, along with the visions of hordes of travellers with an assortment of caravans, lorries, cars, animals and children running wild, washing hanging on makeshift lines strung between the caravans.

The weather hasn't been conducive to working on an old house lately, a couple of feet of snow and below freezing temperatures kept the couple snug in their caravan, the modern one that is (the Airstream they use for trips to see family around the country apparently), poring over plans, and colour charts, catalogues and brochures, but they intend making a start soon as it's warmed up considerably over here in Norfolk.

And you might like to know that Phoebe has lived up to her reputation of being eccentric and rescued a parrot! He's called Birds Eye for some reason she doesn't know except that he has only one eye and can sing CAPTAIN BIRDS EYE as on the television adverts. But that's not the only sound to come out of his beak, oh not, by a long chalk. He used to belong to the owner of a beachside cafe, where he entertained customers with his cheery banter and rendition of television ad jingles. Then he began to copy the sound of police sirena, along with somehow managing to mimic the sound of gunshots, and this, not unnaturally perhaps, unnerved several of the more genteel or elderly of his customers. Which wasn't too bad, once the owner of the cafe put up a sign warning his customers this was what Birds Eye did so people knew what to expect. But then the summer came along, and some unscrupulous youngsters from out of town began to teach him swear words. I won't offend you by telling you what they were.. some began with F, lots with B too.

It was obvious he would have to go... and Phoebe heard about this from a friend of a friend and decided, though she only ever had cats, that a parrot would be a fun thing to have. She was going to teach it to say 'More tea vicar?' for when that person decided it was time once again, to try and get Phoebe into church (he seemed to think she needed saving though was never clear from what exactly when she challenged him). But the first time Birds Eye saw the vicar he came out with such a string of vitriole against vicars, the church and religion in general, that it was obvious where his previous owners thoughts lie on that subject, and Phoebe now lives in hopes that the vicar might find someone else to save instead.

Every village should have a Phoebe!

There is a list of things a typical English village must have it seems... including a village green, village pub, village school, village post office, and village shop. These make up the quintessential village, especially if you ask outsiders. But it also has to have a village eccentric. You know, the mad old woman who lives alone in a tumbledown cottage with her cats, shaking her stick at anyone who trespasses into her garden. Or maybe the old gent fallen on hard times, who sits and talks to himself about the good old days, occasionally shouting at strangers from his spot on the bench outside the pub.

And of course, this village is no exception. Allow me to introduce you to Phoebe. In her youth a beautiful young woman, with the kind of looks much beloved by artists.. doe eyes, curly red hair, creamy skin never allowed to be kissed by the sun. I have seen photos of her, being one of the few people she will actually tolerate long enough to have a conversation with, and believe me, she was absolutely stunning. Even now, you can see remnants of this, her skin smooth and creamy still, despite her age of 'somewhere between 80 and 90, shall we say dear?' according to her.

What most people don't know is that she was once married, briefly, to an Army officer, who turned out to be a bully and treated her like one of his raw recruits, turning her from a vibrant young woman to a quiet young woman who wasn't allowed to express her own opinions but to kowtow to his. It didn't last of course, and it was with relief she isn't ashamed to admit, that he died during WWII. The whole experience put her off marriage, but not men by any means. She had affairs with an actor ('always put on a stirring performance!' she would tell me, with a twinkle in her eye); the son of a very wealthy landowner who was friendly with the Royals, or so he told her; a politician ('he liked the sound of his own voice that one!'); and several other men who were charismatic, romantic, interesting, and exciting in their own way, including the local poacher. I did ask, how good a poacher was he if everyone knew who he was, but she thought I was being impertinent and refrained from answering, something she often did when the question was not, in her view, worth answering. He was her 'bit of rough' apparently, something she said all women like, rarely admit to liking, and even more rarely do something about. I refrained this time, from commenting!

Well, people in this village call her eccentric because of the way she dresses, her protests over the years about this and that, the fact that she keeps to herself, gives short shrift to anyone she considers a waste of space to use modern language, which she would never do. Phoebe is incredibly well spoken, loves the English language and hates the way it has been corrupted. She is very intelligent, an intellectual, who did an Open University degree course, achieving her degree in her seventies. She painted the outside of her cottage lilac, the only painted cottage to be seen around here, which wouldn't have been too bad but the window frames were all different colours, turquoise, scarlet, green and yellow. As this stands apart from any other housing, surrounded by her little copse and orchard, nobody complained. She has plastic flowers amongst the rambling roses, the gypsophila, the asters and nigella. And of course a few cats, all Persian.

Anyway, Phoebe's latest rant as the villagers call it, has been about a fir tree which was due to be cut down simply because it's branches overhung the road and could be dangerous. Major Hutton, whose house is nearest the tree, was the one who told Phoebe about it, they get on quite well at times, and said he would not be sorry to see the back of the vermin. The vermin being grey squirrels, who had built their summer drey on one of the stout branches, a perfect ball of twigs and so on, covered with leaves and mosses, beautiful in its way. And Phoebe thought the same, so she got in touch with the leader of the Parish Council, who said it was nothing to do with him, and referred her to the Highways department at the local council. Phoebe wrote letters to the local papers, the councillors, and generally got a bee in her bonnet about this drey, though nobody knows why as she hasn't been averse to having vermin like this humanely trapped, if there is such a thing.

But nobody, not even Phoebe, knows why she gets wound up about some things, but in the end, when letters were ignored, phone calls never returned, she invited the local papers to watch her climb the tree to protect the squirrels! This caught everyone's attention of course, and who knows if she would have gone through with it if it hadn't been for the council having a change of heart and deciding just to get rid of the branches overhanging the road, leaving the rest, warning Phoebe meanwhile that they wouldn't be held responsible if it were lopsided now and blew down in the next gales. Which satisfied Phoebe, but didn't much please the Major!

Heated debate over the coffee and walnut cakes!

Welcome to my blog about life in a Norfolk village, though really it should be 'villages' in the plural, since what goes on in mine is very little and I will need to expand my horizons to find you interesting (I hope!) glimpses into life in Norfolk.

Whilst it is quiet here, around me there are villages all within easy driving distance where there is much going on and much to see, and a favourite visit is to a particular farmer's market, where amongst the usual greengrocery and butchery, you can buy everything from hand-made wicker baskets to micro-brewery beer, hand-dyed silk scarves to smelly cheeses. Not to mention excellent bacon butties!

There is always a cake stall, this seems to be the one most people head for first, and the selection is always mouthwateringly tempting, and diet and calorie counting are words which you need to drop from your vocabulary, just for the weekend at least. Normally trade is brisk, the customers are all regulars, know what they want, and after a brief chitchat about the weather, maybe a titbit of local gossip now and then, said in quiet undertones so that you have to sidle along discreetly if you want to pick up anything at all, they all go on their way, politely, smilingly, happily with their cakes. But this last weekend the stall was attracting more attention than usual, there was a small group of half a dozen or so locals getting quite hot under the collar it seemed to me.

So less than discreetly I walked over to the stall, pretending great interest in the cakes but with an ear on the conversation. And since it was getting quite loud and heated, I only needed the one ear to listen with! I heard comments like 'What about freedom of speech then?', 'We all have our own views on this subject you know', and 'There's a place for such things and the side of a bus isn't it'. Well, this last one was my undoing, I had to join the group. Fortunately this wasn't quite as rude a thing as you might be thinking, as I realised that one of the ladies was Jill, who I recognised from a sponsored walk she and I took part in a month or so ago, for a local charity.

I think we were drawn to each other because we looked so out of place, everyone seemed serious about it and we thought it was a 'Fun Walk', but both raised eyebrows at each other when we caught sight of several people wearing serious walking boots, others doing warm up exercises, and there we were in our flowery wellies, she with her lurcher and neither of us looking very serious about it at all. And when there was a sort of scuffle between two middle-aged gents about who should walk alongside Polly, the landlady of one of the pubs in the area, well.. we seemed to decide silently to just walk and talk together at our own pace.

In a break in the conversation I caught her eye, and she gave me another of her 'Would you believe this?' looks, before bringing me into the conversation. It seemed that Martha, another of the group, had been shopping in Norwich the previous week and noticed a small gathering of people staring at a bus, with much shaking of heads, tut-tutting and so on. A local television camera crew were there filming the bus so she went to see what the fuss was about, and there, on the side of the bus was an advert which read 'There's probably no God so stop worrying and enjoy your life'.

This caused great offence to many people, including this group at the market, who seemed to be divided as to whether or not this kind of advertising was wrong and should be banned. The bus company FIRST has this advert on about 800 of its buses around the UK, and they were put there by The Humanist Society, and apparently, more than one Christian bus driver has refused to drive a bus with this advert. The Humanist Society on their website say that they never intended to offend anyone, and are pleased that the Advertising Standards Authority had decided not to launch an investigation.

I didn't really have much to contribute to the conversation, since I have always maintained that my religion and my politics are nobody's business but my own, and so I was more than happy to join Jill when she broke away from the group and suggested we go for coffee in the new coffee shop around the corner, where the cakes looked suspiciously like the ones on the cake stall we had just left, but luckily, the conversation was kept to a low hum.