A country convert

I am a country convert. When my husband and I moved to our house in a village near a small market town in Cambridgeshire 11 years ago from the throbbing city life of Newcastle it seemed like we had arrived at the end of the world. Nothing happened here. Accustomed as we were to two incomes, two hectic diaries and no children, we were in the habit of dining out, up to date with the latest films, knew our favourite seats in the theatre and even caught the odd night out at the opera. We enjoyed the delicious titbits of knowledge that are the mark of the urban insider -- how to find those prime parking spaces in the city centre, the rat runs that avoided rush hour traffic, where the best coffee is to be had. Here, the only rat run was a game played at the village fete with an old drain pipe, a stuffed sock and a cricket bat. It wasn’t just the speed we missed, it was the lack of event itself. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do, and every free evening we got in the car and raced off to Cambridge to find something approximating to life as we knew it.
The nearest market town really was a one-horse town. A black and white mare belonging to a gypsy, she lived in the meadow next to the cathedral, lazing under looming chestnuts and hornbeams, swishing her tail in the summer sun. One spring she produced a gorgeous piebald foal whose birth and growth became the subject of daily conversation amongst pram pushing mothers and idling shoppers on the path along the meadow. See what I mean? Nothing happened here. The birth of piebald foal was news. We saved our carrot ends for her. When we walked we had a destination now. We hoped she would deign to approach, nibble from our palms. The gangliness of her delicate legs was heart-stopping.
Looking back on it, that was when the country got its hooks in me. Those walks past the market town meadow now with cows, now with sheep. The horse in her corner, a jay on the water trough. We started going for walks in the evening by the river listening for the honk and splash of geese landing, thrilled by the skill of their v-formation, their feet extended like the undercarriage of a very small plane.
Living here has taught me again what I had in my childhood and lost – the ability to observe and the capacity to enjoy the simplest things. I do not just wait for spring, I watch for specific clumps of snowdrops that mark my daily route. Two at the churchyard lichgate, one in old lady Marlow’s cottage garden, three up Black Bank, a scattered handful in the hedgerow. My life is local now and I love it.