Town and Country

Recon mission. We went for a long drive today in the depths of Sussex to see if it had any potential as somewhere to live in the future, given that I am getting older (did I tell you I will be sixty next year?). I mostly sat in the back, a particularly sound choice after a pint of Winter Ale in a pub in the old lanes of Lewes. Taking a back seat turned out to be a good idea as the driver and navigator were using complex personal algorithms for determining their route. These were characterised by phrases such as “you’re going the wrong way”, “Plumpton Green isn’t the same as Plumpton” (actually it was) and the immortal “I can’t go in two directions at once”. On the way back, after a large Pizza and a large glass of wine, D and I opted to emulate long distance interstellar travellers and put ourselves into suspended animation, although I was bought out of my cryogenic state more than once to verify Google Maps view of the traffic on the M25. Some people have no respect for other people’s sleeping habits. And everyone knows that you shouldn’t get people out of suspended animation too early, it always ends badly in Sci Fi movies.

I googled the town versus country debate when we got home. It seemed to breed polarisation and I suspect geography has nothing to do with it. It also, I believe, was at the heart of the Brexit debate. Hence all the stuff about kicking back against the Metropolitan Elite (whoever they are; to my mind whether you live in the country or the city you are either wealthy or not and its an old fashioned class thing). On balance I still think Engels had it right when he said the saving grace of capitalism was that it rescued a large part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. I need pubs, coffee bars, decent broadband, fast trains to London, a good Asian supermarket and a grocer, and diversity of humankind. Country folk seem to like pubs, horses, wellies and diversity of wildlife, particularly wildlife they can kill and eat.

But it was a nice day, although up on the hill above the castle in Lewes I felt like John Snow in Game of Thrones, with the wind blowing under my fake fur collar and a chill factor that at times made you gasp. In short, bloody cold.

Lewes has a rather amazing flea market which looks something like The Room Of Requirements out of Harry Potter. It goes on for ages and is stuffed with everything from mannequins to furniture of dubious provenance (some of that supposedly Victorian pine looked suspiciously modern). But the stuff from the fifties and sixties was memorable, although often sexist and racist; I was particularly scornful of the 1960 Black and White Minstrels Annual, which has no place on anybody’s shelf, retro or not.

K, D and Ms T went off to London in the evening to take over the Yoga Mama’s flat. We had a visitor from Canada, a contemporary of the Dizzle’s who immigrated when they were in their last year of primary school together a decade ago. Lovely lad. The Dizzle took him to the pub for ale and British fish and chips.

Despite sleeping in the car a lot I feel pooped tonight after several full on days. Festive fatigue. It’s a serious condition at any age. Take the two old codgers in this picture, they look like they have been doing their patriotic duty in their local for many decades. We should salute them. After all the pub is the one place townies and country folk both seem to feel at home...