Tales From a Village

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The exodus from our cities to a rural idyll seems to be more popular than ever. People even endure six or more hours of commuting, just to finally come home to their dream home in the stix.

What images does living in the countryside conjure up? Roses around the cottage door? A Labrador or two spread out in front of the Aga, perhaps? Friendly rustic types popping round with home reared honey and eggs? Above all, you would expect a bit of peace and quiet, wouldn’t you?

Some years ago, my husband and I moved from Leeds to a small, East Yorkshire village, to escape the rigours of city life and enjoy a more relaxed atmosphere. A row of twelve old chalkstone houses had been modernised and we moved into the end house. The village’s claim to fame was the Great Flood of 1888, when it’s said that a grand piano and also several pigs were swept away down the streets. Imagination conjured up an image of a pig, perhaps playing the piano as it sped to its doom.

Inclement weather could still have an impact, as winter power cuts were quite common. Sometimes, the village could be cut off entirely, to the delight of the local school children who enjoyed a day’s sledging instead of lessons. One year, an RAF helicopter had to drop supplies onto the village green.

We came to realise that it was actually easier to go for long walks in the countryside environments in and around Leeds than it was around our village. We were surrounded by farmers’ land and there wasn’t much public access. When there was, you had to keep your dog on a lead. We began to envy Londoners who lived near the freedom of Hampstead Heath.

There were two shops, one pub and one bus a day to the local market town. Apart from church and PTA functions and the Women’s Institute, entertainment was at a minimum, though rumours of wife swapping were rife. A mobile library called, which tended to sway like a storm tossed canoe, as you were trying to choose a book   It was debatable whether the literature on offer was worth the inevitable sea sickness.

Peace and quiet was the last thing we got. It was soon apparent that the local fly boys liked nothing better than to terrify the life out of us by skimming over our chimney in their fighter jets, making a noise that made your head burst and your windows rattle. Also, there was a coach depot opposite the houses, by the name of Riley’s, which only had a few coaches pottering about when we moved in but then seemed to breed overnight. Suddenly, there was a whole fleet of them – clapped out, rusty wrecks that limped home on a wing and a prayer. They had the contract for the local school run, often breaking down part way. The kids were even asked to get out and push on one occasion.

You really took your life in your hands if you trusted one to get you to Scarborough. Remarkably, a coach trip did manage to go all the way to London. A resident from the village happened to be walking down Regent Street on a sightseeing holiday in the capital, when the sound of a dodgy exhaust made her turn around. Sure enough, there was a Riley’s coach struggling up the road, belching fumes all the way. Periodically, they would light a gigantic bonfire of old, unwanted tyres. The acrid smoke spread throughout the village and the indescribable smell lingered for ages. You couldn’t hang your washing out that day.  We were usually woken by the revving of an engine, which was the driver making it warm and cosy, while he went to eat a three-course breakfast; that’s if the cockerel or bird song didn’t wake us first or the merry church bells ringing at eight in the morning.

Sometimes, people would have long conversations at six in the morning directly underneath our bedroom window. It was tempting to throw a bucket of cold water over them. At night, dogs would be constantly barking and I would just be dropping off when the big, hairy man at No. 8 would start calling his cat in for the night, with a high pitched “Twinkle, Twinkle”. There was also the hooting of the owls, the roar of boy racers on motorbikes and the shouts of the returning revellers from the village pub at chucking out time. Just to ice the cake, there was a pig farm in the centre of the village, which was fine unless you were down wind.

As for neighbours, the small community seemed to attract eccentrics in disproportion to the population. Across the road, in the aforementioned coach depot, there was an old man whose name no one could pronounce. Inexplicably, everyone called him Albert. He was from Estonia and he had been a POW in the nearby camp during World War Two. After the war, he dared not return to his homeland for fear of being shot as a traitor, having fought for the Germans. He worked on the coaches as a mechanic and was rewarded with a wooden hut to live in, in the yard alongside where the coaches were parked. This was just a step up from homelessness. The owner of the coach firm had unlawfully rigged something up that tapped his own electricity supply into the mains. It was an all mod cons hut. The coach firm has since, unsurprisingly, gone bust and they built posh houses on the site. I bet Albert is still there, defiant in his hut with his flag of independence raised, surrounded by commuting yuppies.

Beatrice was a pensioner who lived alone but liked to talk to herself and dressed up like a femme fatale from the French Resistance, complete with caked-on stage make up and a beret worn at a jaunty angle. Taking her dog for a walk involved dragging her reluctant little terrier behind her, but she wouldn’t let her cat out because the sunlight might damage its fur. It used to sit on the window ledge and look outside, forlornly. Her favourite hobby was going to people’s funerals, regardless of whether she had known them or not. This was an opportunity to really dress up. Her son was a famous television presenter, whom she persuaded to open the Village Fete one year. This was done in great haste. He couldn’t escape quickly enough, not even stopping to sample the homemade rhubarb and ginger jam.

Then there was Bill and Doreen. Bill, a Brummie, who would engage you for hours, if you let him, in a discourse on the internal combustion engine and the performance of his latest banger and Doreen who made all the neighbours cringe in terror. Her temper was legendary and caused me to hide until the coast was clear. They too had dogs. Doreen’s favourite rant was “Act your age, not your shoe size”. One was never sure if this was directed at Bill or the hapless dogs. Early one morning, after a skinful, Bill fell down the stairs and landed in the fish tank, which sat at the bottom of the staircase, breaking the glass as he did so. There was water and fish everywhere. It was later reported that as he lay bleeding and concussed, Doreen completely ignored him and calmly rescued the fish. This incident passed into village folklore.

They kept a couple of goats, which were once savaged by Jack, a huge St. Bernard who resided at No. 5 with Steve and Julie. He was a lovely old thing, continuously salivating, partial to stealing eggs, downing Mars Bars and swallowing the odd child here and there (Jack, not Steve). Doreen’s father, however, who was staying with her at the time, took great exception to this attack on his daughter’s livestock. It all ended in an unseemly brawl between himself and Steve as they rolled around the garden.

Steve and Julie were ardent vegetarians but seemed to live on a diet of veggie burgers and chips. If Julie couldn’t be bothered scrubbing, which was more often the case, she would throw a saucepan in the bin and simply buy a new one. She was quite friendly to me, trusting me to lend her countless cups of sugar, onions, eggs, etc. However, this did bring its rewards. She did not replace these items but instead, felt so beholden to me as to shower me with gifts. I got a nice pair of eggcups from Habitat, a new colander and a smashing Delia Smith cookbook. Julie would pack her bags once a fortnight and leave Steve. You could set your watch by it. She always returned, to burn more saucepans and borrow more sugar.

Steve was a builder and had a shiny red pickup truck. There was a wood pigeon, which had taken a shine to all our gardens, eating up everyone’s seedlings in the process. Steve kindly volunteered to remedy this. Not by shooting it; they were vegetarians after all but by driving it far away and releasing it. He didn’t drive far enough. It kept coming back. He took it further and further away. Three times. Finally, the fourth trip was successful, just when we thought we’d have to put it on the train to Inverness.

Speaking of pigeons, it soon became apparent to us that life is too short to pluck one. One day, a man with a shotgun appeared at our back door. He was an acquaintance of ours and he’d brought an offering of a brace of pigeon. We were rather taken aback. It turned out he wanted to help us poor city folks with a bit of country goodness. We thanked him very much. Unfortunately, he took this politeness to be a sign that more pigeons would be welcome. It takes hours to pluck a pigeon. It’s the most tedious chore on Earth and you end up with a teaspoon of meat for your effort. A dry and tasteless teaspoon as well. But those pigeons kept coming. Thankfully, our benefactor moved out of the village. Or did my husband load him into Steve’s pickup and send him far away?

Watson’s fulfilled the traditional role of the corner shop. Everything under one roof. Unless you wanted basic food items (not counting the rotting bananas in the window). You couldn’t get garden peas; they only had processed. You couldn’t get tinned peaches either – “There was no demand for them”. But you could get prunes, string and amusing books written in the Yorkshire dialect.   They had a one and a half hour lunch break and always shut for two or three days during bank holidays. The youngest son of the family was the village milkman and delivered every other day. He liked his bank holidays off too, which meant that he delivered a double order sometimes. One morning, we were met with eighteen bottles of milk on the doorstep.  We worked out that the milk, which was frequently sour, had last seen a cow seven days previously. It was being transported from Leeds, where people got their milk nice and fresh!

What you couldn’t get at Watson’s, you could possibly buy from the various provisions vans that toured the villages.  There was always a long queue at the butcher’s van. George had his scales and his till in the back of the van, where incredibly everything he weighed was “just a bit over”. He was a jolly soul, until his wife ran off with his brother, resulting in bitter diatribes against her and all women in general, which his customers had to listen to, while they waited for their sausages.

There was a general feeling of insulation there. Some elderly people had literally never been further than a six-mile radius, perhaps just visiting the nearby market town occasionally. There was a ‘them and us’ attitude towards newcomers. Remarkably, this tiny place had French and Dutch residents and a gay couple that were all much more accepted than people from West Yorkshire. Wessies, as we were affectionately called, were the most unwelcome. My husband was once accused in the pub of coming to take “our jobs and our women”. You weren’t considered a proper villager until you had three generations in the graveyard, but in fact, the incomers actually contributed to the life of the village more than most.

Beautiful, peaceful countryside, full of people living in harmony, enjoying nature’s bounty?  Forget it. It was too much stress for us; we went back to Leeds for some peace and quiet. And fresh milk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

British Rock Meets a Soul Queen – ‘Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook’ – Bettye LaVette

Track Listing:
The Word (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
No Time To Live (James Capaldi/Stephen Winwood)
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood (Bennie Benjamin/Gloria Caldwell/Sol Marcus)
All My Love (John Baldwin/Robert Plant)
Isn’t It A Pity (George Harrison)
Wish You Were Here (David Gilmour/Roger Waters)
It Don’t Come Easy (Richard Starkey)
Maybe I’m Amazed (Paul McCartney)
Salt Of The Earth (Michael Jagger/Keith Richards)
Nights In White Satin (David Hayward)
Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad (Eric Clapton/Bobby Whitlock)
Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me (Elton John/Bernard Taupin)
Love Reign O’er Me (Peter Townshend) [BONUS TRACK]

Released 2010

When different musical genres mix, it doesn’t always work.  Sometimes, it’s a mess and fans of either side of the fusion are left dissatisfied.  So, what happens when veteran soul singer, Bettye LaVette, takes on rock and pop classics from the British canon?  The result is superb.  Hers is the voice of smoky clubs at midnight.  At 64 years old, it’s not a fresh voice but one that oozes experience of loves won and lost. Imagine if Tina Turner, Mahalia Jackson, and Aretha Franklin morphed following a night on the bourbon and you get the idea.  She takes these songs where they have never been before.

Don’t be put off if you are not a fan of the originals.  This is a Bettye LaVette record through and through and I suspect she would make a Julie Andrews song sound sexy. She may not be a well-known face in the UK but she’s on the must have list for historic gatherings in America.  Her duet with Jon Bon Jovi on the Sam Cooke classic, A Change Is Gonna Come, was one of the highlights at the Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.  LaVette has dipped her toes into rock and country before this release.  She’s recorded with the rock country band, Drive By Truckers and she performed the bonus track here, Love Reign O’er Me by The Who, at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2008.  Apparently, she made Pete Townshend cry.

This album goes further than Bettye’s previous rock outings with renditions of songs by psychedelic rock bands, Pink Floyd and Traffic, and stadium giants, the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.  There is a bias towards the Beatles with one Beatles track and one cover each of Paul, George, and Ringo solo records.  Less surprising is the selection of the bluesy Nina Simone song, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, which was a hit for The Animals.  She doesn’t go for the obvious, preferring to perform the lesser-known Salt of the Earth by the Stones rather than (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

LaVette strips each song down to its raw emotions and the musical arrangements are sympathetic.  This record neatly closes a circle, back to when white boys first played air guitar in their bedrooms in England to the American R&B blasting from their transistor radios.  They went on to become the ‘British Invasion’.  LaVette is simply returning the compliment and it’s a reminder that there are no boundaries that can’t be crossed.

 

 

 

 

The Art of Losing

I don’t want this to sound like one of those ‘I remember when it was all fields round here’ rants, but I do think our modern society is in danger of losing something precious. There’s nothing wrong with the digital world in itself. There’s nothing wrong with a virtual world for entertainment, escapism or even education. The trouble for me is when it starts to dominate every aspect of life.  We are losing the tangible world. Yes, that smelly, dusty, world of touching things. We take our five senses for granted and they don’t have as much fun these days.

Take down a book from a shelf in an old second hand bookshop and open a page. Ah, that glorious smell, equal to any rare orchid. Pull out a vinyl from its sleeve and listen to the click of the needle when you put it in the groove. Move characters round and roll the dice on a shiny new board game.

Ok, so we can store six trillion books or whatever on the Kindle and streaming music is easy and we can select the individual tracks we want and so on. We have gained. Of course we have. But we are losing something too. We have even seen the Borders and HMV chains crash. Almost three in four independent record stores have shut their doors over the previous decade. High streets up and down the land are in decline. They were already competing against out of town retail parks before the internet came along. However, certain independent bookshops and record shops still thrive, probably because they offer something different that the online transaction can’t replicate. Staff get to know their customers and it’s an opportunity for shared interests and experiences. Independent video stores will have to offer that same personal interaction to survive against the onslaught of DVDs by post and movies through streaming.

Now, I must declare my hypocrisy. I shop from Amazon. I buy from iTunes. Hell, I’ve even got my own eBook for sale. I’m just as much to blame for the closure of shops as anyone. I’m just as much to blame for our dislocation from reality. Kids growing up today are totally dependent on what they see on a screen. I’m not advocating some sepia-tinged vision of rosy-cheeked children playing with mud pies all day, but come on. If it isn’t on a screen, it doesn’t exist. Six year olds have mobile phones, their TV in the bedroom stops them from getting to sleep and they’re allowed to play their hand-held games at the dinner table. At the dinner table, don’t you know! Digital versions now exist for classic board games, such as Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and Cluedo.

What warped sense of reality are we living in that we come home to a virtual fireplace displayed on the TV? Mmmm, feel the cosy warmth from those virtual flames. No time to look after a pet because you’re sitting in front of a computer all day? No sweat; just order a wall mounted virtual aquarium or adopt a virtual version of your pet of choice. Your online dog, cat or turtle is waiting for you to bond with it and have lots of virtual fun!

I see a future. Record shops, bookshops…in fact, any shops are a rarity, like quaint olden days museum pieces preserved for the ‘nerds’. The physical world is the domain of social anthropologists. We don’t touch anything. We don’t have to. We don’t even need keyboards anymore; we just talk to our computers and phones and all our devices to get them to work. We work with our screens, socialise with our screens, shop with our screens and play with our screens. In the comfort of our homes, we virtually warm ourselves in front of our virtual fire and we express our sentimental side by seeing to the needs of our virtual pets. Perhaps we’ll have a virtual partner. We can turn him / her off if they annoy us.

I am in the last bookshop on Earth and I’m clutching the very last copy of a first edition David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I can smell that heavenly, musty smell. I can feel the pages that a craftsman lovingly put together. I read the words of the world’s greatest storyteller as he intended the words to be read. But the book turns into an electronic reader and it feels cold and hard in my hands. The weight of lost bookshops and libraries weighs heavily on me and I sink to my knees. Later that day, I relax in the comfort of my living room and turn on my wall display. Selecting from the menu, I tell the device to display the virtual bookshop.

Alas, it will come to pass. We can’t put the genie back in the lamp. The American poet, Elizabeth Bishop, wrote, “the art of losing isn’t hard to master”. Oh, yes. We do it so well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give Peace a Chance – John &amp;amp;amp; Yoko’s Bed-in for Peace: A Review

Some Background

Following John Lennon’s and Yoko Ono’s marriage in March 1969, the couple embarked on a campaign for peace from their hotel beds, beginning in Amsterdam and moving on to Montreal. In addition to the bed-ins, the campaign involved sending acorns during April to world leaders to symbolise peace, hoping that they would plant them. In the spring of 2009, Yoko again sent acorns to world leaders in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the acorns sent in 1969. In that same spirit, Joan Athey sent copies of this book to world leaders, including Prince Charles and President Obama.

Continue reading Give Peace a Chance – John &amp;amp;amp; Yoko’s Bed-in for Peace: A Review

The Good, The Bad, Kermode and Me

Film critic and presenter Mark Kermode goes by many names, including The Good Doctor and Flappy Hands. You may know him from BBC2’s The Culture Show. His most devoted fans, however, tune in to hear his pithy comments on Kermode and Mayo’s Film Reviews on Radio 5 Live every Friday afternoon with Simon Mayo. Kermode and Mayo are a long-standing double act and they squabble like an old married couple.

I met Mark when he was touring his second book, The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds. A very long queue formed after his talk for him to sign the copies we’d bought. He spent a long time chatting with each one of us, including me, was charming and seemed genuinely interested in all we had to say.

He even gave an impromptu blast on a harmonica that he whipped out of his pocket (Mark plays in a rockabilly band, which explains his haircut). He’s better looking in person, but I digress.

One of the things I like about him is that he’s not a snob. In fact, he’s the very opposite of a snob. If an action blockbuster comes out and he likes it, he’ll say so. Conversely, if a low budget, art house film comes out that he thinks is a load of rubbish, he’ll say so. He often defends films that are considered to be ‘uncool’. Mark simply likes good films, of any genre or time period.

I don’t always agree with his verdicts but he is never short of well informed, witty and entertaining. When he loves something, he is delightfully eloquent, but he is most famous for his rants and also for his pedantry. The rants can go on for a very long time, delivered with much hyperbole and unsurpassed fervour.

Mark has been passionate about films since he was eight years old. Other critics are deeply knowledgeable and entertaining but, for me, no one exudes that pure love of cinema like old Flappy Hands. After watching what must be thousands and thousands of movies (and an awful lot of crap), his enthusiasm is still intact. That’s why he gets so angry…because he cares so much.

In his previous book, It’s Only a Movie, he describes how he got into the world of professional film criticism. In this second book, The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex, he gives us his take on the modern Hollywood scene and the multiplex experience.  There are amusing anecdotes in both books with this latest one kicking off with his hilarious account of trying to get an assistant cinema manager to fix the screening of a film starring Zac Efron wherein the top of Zac’s head was missing. One of Mark’s many soap boxes concerns showing films in the correct Aspect Ratio and when cinemas GET IT WRONG!

As for multiplexes, his tenet is this: there is nothing inherently wrong with them provided they are run properly, but so many of them are run badly. They are like glorified sweet shops with a film casually thrown in. Selling popcorn is the priority and digital projection (digital doesn’t always equal efficiency) is left to its own devices, often without anyone capable of fixing something if it goes wrong. Mark’s opening chapter is aptly titled, ‘Would the Last Projectionist Please Turn Off the Lights’.

Does anyone really like their local multiplex? They are soulless places and they all look, smell and taste the same. Going to the aforementioned Hyde Park Picture House, a charming cinema dating from 1914, is a much pleasanter experience.

Another of Mark’s soap boxes is 3D and there is a chapter devoted to its technical shortcomings. The decision to invest so much money in this recent resurgence is not for any intrinsic artistic merits but as a defensive measure against piracy and to lure us away from watching Blu-ray on our 42-inch TVs with surround sound.

So much money is thrown at so many mediocre projects and it’s disheartening. Mark makes the point that a mainstream, big star film doesn’t have to dumb down. Audiences don’t need to be talked down to, including the all-important 15 – 35 years old, male demographic. He poses this question: Why not make it intelligent while you’re about it? As he points out, it didn’t do Inception any harm.

I’ve been thinking about the level of writing that goes into a lot of hit U.S. TV shows these days, in contrast to a lot of the bland releases that hit our cinema screens. Look at the series, Lost, a brain twister if ever there was one. Give audiences something to challenge them and they lap it up. Meanwhile, original filmmakers outside of the system, including some brilliant British ones, struggle to get their films distributed.

Mainstream cinema would benefit from more intelligent scripts. Mark’s proposal is that it wouldn’t damage the takings, at least. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with car chases and explosions or indeed, charming rom coms. Just spend some of those millions on the screenplay and see what happens. We’re being fed a diet of prequels and sequels with nary an original thought in sight.

Another issue Mark addresses in his latest book is Hollywood’s insistence on making its own versions of foreign language films. These re-makes are rarely as good, but try persuading the industry that distributing the original films would be a more worthwhile venture. When it’s a case of art versus money, there’s only one winner. So, audiences go to see an inferior movie, like feeding on the crumbs or wearing hand me down clothes.

Finally, the book ends with a sad farewell to celluloid, its history and traditions and the magic it has given us. As we boldly go into the digital future, we gain and we also lose. The closing paragraphs may just make you cry.

Film is one of the greatest art forms to come out of the 20th century and look how we treat it. Next time you’re sat in the dark, sucking on your mini-buffet, ask yourself this question. Is this screening worthy of the legacy that the great writers /directors / producers / actors have left us?

It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare every time. Heaven knows, America needed its share of fluff to get it through the Great Depression (the difference being it was mostly well made fluff) and we need it today too. Just every now and then…make us think. In the meantime, I shall bask in the glow of Mark’s rants. And for any Kermode fans reading this – “Hello Jason Isaacs” – they’ll know what that means!

 

 

 

Will You Still Need Me? Will You Still Feed Me?

A bit of bad news plopped through my letterbox this week. It was a letter from the Pensions Department stating that I won’t get my state pension until I’m two months shy of my 67th birthday. I had known it was going to be delayed until I was 64+ some months, ago but this new development is the result of the government’s latest plan to raise the retirement age.

I’m not looking for sympathy (well, a little bit) and I moan and bleat about it whilst knowing that lots of other people have far worse problems. It’s just that growing up to think you’ll retire at 60 and then being told otherwise at this late stage feels like a low blow. But I hear lots of men shouting at their computers now saying, “ But you women wanted equality!” Yes, we did….and we should be equal at some point in terms of retirement age. Hey, women live longer anyway! However, many women of my generation gave up working for years to raise a family and our pension prospects consequently suffered. Is this what my older sisters (symbolically speaking) burned their bras for?

If only I’d been born a couple of months earlier…or years. Okay, I’m moaning again.  I’ve taken this very badly, I’ll admit. The next generation will grow up with a different mindset, I’m sure and previous generations had to work ‘till they dropped. There was no welfare state to send them into a blissful halcyon of gentle leisure in the twilight of their years. As the rules stand now (unless the Pension Campaign can create a revolution) my children will get their pension when they’re 68. Alas, what will it amount to anyway? I urge any young people reading this to get that private pension sorted now….don’t delay…put that cup of coffee down, turn off the Hollyoaks omnibus and do it now.

The thought of old age is scary. We don’t know what’s ahead of us. Old age with good health and faculties intact is a whole different ball game to old age without those advantages. I know, I know, 50 is the new 40 and so on. 80 is the new 70, ha ha. The fact is there is a vast range of 70 year olds and 80 year olds. The retirement age could go creeping up more and more and who knows where it will come to rest? Many older people are amazingly sprightly in mind and body…and some are not.

Have we thought this through? Does a 69 year old really want to be plastering or mending a roof? We don’t all sit in nice warm offices and even those that do will have to cope with new technology as it rolls out and it will keep coming because it always does. This isn’t meant to be patronising, just realistic. Thousands of older people will cope with whatever is thrown at them, but many won’t and whilst I’m in the mood for brutal facts, here’s another one.

Why are we doing this? The reason the government is doing this is because we’re living too long. Someone has to pay for this. Something has to be done. This, unfortunately, might be a temporary situation. Go into any city centre late at night and you’ll see an astonishing capacity for alcohol. Fat and salt drenched processed food and lack of exercise will do the rest. There is a whole generation, unless they can be persuaded otherwise, doing everything they can to not live to a ripe old age. Brutal but true. Obviously, this is a worrying situation and an unwelcome antidote to the problem of caring for an ageing population.

So, here I’ll be, still working at nearly 67, or maybe they’ll put it up again. And again. And again. I’ll just slave over my keyboard, messing up the keys with my drool, until my arthritic fingers can’t take anymore and my brain longs for respite. Then they can put me out to pasture. It used to be all fields round here y’know…..