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| Gingerbread House |
With the nipper at her dad's for half term, I seized the opportunity to go investigate whether I, a life-long townie - well more than that - a bona fide born & bred, beer swigging, wine sloshing, whisky soaked, gig loving, culture hungry city dweller could actually cut it in 'the country'. I've long mused on the idyll of one day getting out of the big smoke for the slower, more traditional way of life and this week, I was going to put myself to the test.
A lot has to happen I know. School places, job options, an affordable home, a willing child and an understanding ex-husband are pre-requisites. But actually even before all of those practicalities, I need to be sure I'm quite, quite done with the city. The zen question has to be: Can you handle village life? Are you ready to take it all down a notch?
I say it every day - London kills me! but I always come back for more. However, this time, I'm not talking about emigrating, I'm talking about moving 30 mins up the A1 or an hour tops down the M4/M40. I'm talking Great Balls of 'Shire'.
So I took this week off, packed a couple of bags, bundled my cat into her basket and drove off to a little village in Hertfordshire. I'm in the kookiest, smallest cottage you can imagine and I mean the tweest, most dainty little biscuit tin house-ette you can conjure. And the inside is just as delicately pretty. I really did take my cat. Surely that alone is an indication that I'm ready for 'Dibley' no?
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| Loving every minute of country living |
So far then this week, I've taken strolls, walks and hikes through farm and woodland and quaint little high streets. I've cooked sausage rolls from scratch and developed a taste for gin. I've gone to bed with the ruddy look of one that has gorged on fresh field air by day and cocktail hour by night. And I've slept like a newborn baby. The closest to dodge I've been this week is Cambridge where I almost went to the famous Kettle's Yard. I was handed a time ticket to say there was an hour's wait to get into the celebrated cottages and at that point realised it would take more than a week away from London to get me to work on anything but London-time. An hour...to see a few artefacts, beautiful, rare and esoteric as I have heard them to be - I don't think so. Perhaps this is the first clue as to my readiness for a switch to the slow lane. Besides, if I want the Kettle's Yard experience, I need only visit my friend Mary's home in Islington which takes it's interior design lead from this place.
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| Mary's house or Kettle's Yard? |
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| Proper Bo |
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| Refined Clutter |
And maybe all that tells me is that I'm an impatient bint because I'm almost at the end of my week here and were it not for my Lish Losh and my job, I am not entirely sure I'd go back immediately.
But let me not waste the time I have left here with thoughts of urban slog and polluted routine. I still have three more nights away from
Shitsville. Three more days of saying hello to people on paths and cobbled streets, three more days of friendly local shop keepers and three more days of freezing my bazookas off in the glacial chill of the rural terrain.
Three more days of waking up and looking out of the bedroom window at the anti-bustle of the village high street.
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| Total gridlock out there |
I've said it before, thought precedes action. And anything can happen when you put your mind to it. I think I'm going to put my mind to this.
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| Beam me up |
