Sports and Sabotage

I was concerned to learn what a festive sports bout was planned for Christmas this year. True, the Christmas Day Run with Daddy Mason (DM) has long been a fixture in Kate in the Countryside festivities, but I could not have known that Mother Dearest (MD) would be adding to the sporting burden. The rents, it seems, cared little that such dashing about would interrupt the murder mystery watching and compulsive eating that really ought to characterise Christmas. 

Footie: days of yore

Of late a rabidly enthusiastic football fan, MD has taken her support for 'The Wolves' to the level of kick-about participation. So I was surprised to learn on my return home that Boxing Day was to be football day in The Countryside. Some public-spirited teacher had arranged a scurry of teams (largely composed of tiny children and old-ish women) for a high-stakes tournament. 

Team MD was a motley crew. Though Mother Dearest had cannily kidnapped two chaps to uphold our footballing honour, Dogface the dog was not allowed to participate. As a result, these almost adolescent ringers were fairly vital: the rest of the team comprised a non-moving man in goal as well as three tiny children. Though enthusiastic, the children frequently disappeared off the pitch whenever Dogface (mascot) was being particularly entertaining. 

'I shall be captain,' announced the younger of the two kidnapped children, Harry, adorned in full Premiership football fan attire. 

'But, Ced, I want to be captain!'
Tale as old as time itself

'No you won't!' said MD, ruffling his hair so as not to appear patronising. 

The captaincy was to go to our other ringer: blonder, charming and older. The Cedric to our Harry. Harry became sullen. So much for team bonding. 

The first match began. It wasn't long before all such tiffs were forgotten at the sight of MD moving with miraculous speed towards one of our (tiny) opponents. There was a clash that drew gasps and - seconds later - a yowling infant hit the deck. Amazed at the (for her) unusual experience of being the taller, MD raced on triumphantly, ball in possession.

Our second game saw Team MD extend our dominance. MD's assassination tactics on those half her size continued contentious. When a girl with pigtails scuttled towards me - her body almost concealed behind the ball, so small was she - I was terrified of going anywhere near her. Not so MD. 

Another child was floored, and the ref had had enough: 'Yellow Card! MD! If I see that again - you'll be off.' 

That was the end of MD's star footballing career I'm afraid. Fearful of the Red Card, she managed to stay out of trouble, but the aggressive flair was gone. However, Team MD won the tournament, so a managerial career might be more her style.

When Kate in the Countryside went to meet the Goths

Yeah. Bit like this.
With less sex

A friend of mine invited me to his gig the other day at an alternative music festival in Camden. So far, so unlikely. He performs experimental cello music to people with names like Sky and Heather, often in dingy basements. Occasionally he attends dinners and says belligerent things to very important, somewhat elderly people in the classical music industry. They love it. With his media-ish glasses and youth, he's exactly the old folks' idea of what an engaged young musician should be.

But this was something else entirely. Instructed to arrive after lunch, a pal of Pegson's (I've not been very inventive here) and I made it for 5ish, and found our way to the venue's central chamber where Pegson would be performing. There, dim lights, silent glassy-eyed individuals and distant drumbeat from upstairs meant the place felt oddly like a library under attack.

Girls in holey bodystockings stood behind men in adolescently daubed t-shirts sprawled out across the floor while grown women bobbed enthusiastically, eyes closed, tapping their bottles of sparkling water. Yet more glared pointedly about as they danced, to check that the rest of us were really enjoying it enough.

'Stoat-on-Trent'.
In case you missed it

Pal and I exchanged uneasy looks (might we be ousted for not being truly alternative?), made some cursory attempts at interpretative dance and then resigned ourselves to the fact that we stuck out as much as two stoats in a supermarket. I was wearing purple leggings for God's sake. When Pegson said quirky festival attire, I thought he meant Glasto. Not Marilyn Manson tribute.

Round the next corner was Man in Leather Waistcoat. I began to fear that sullen hostility might turn to open warfare when Pal pointed excitedly at the chap to attract my attention. But happily Pal was soon distracted by a small man in full bondage gear, hanging out with a girl with more piercings than face.

It was the terrifyingly attired that seemed to find Pegson's set the most moving. They mobbed him afterwards to wring his hand and hail him a mystical man of music. As for Pal and I, we were richly rewarded for our attempts to blend in by Pegson. He treated us to a share in his artists pass twenty quid meal voucher, before nicking us some free beer from the green room after we were shrilly ejected from the space ('This is for ARTISTS!').

Once safely home in Pimlico I regaled BOF with an account of more brushes with the law, goths, ardent music fans and piercings than I'd ever encountered in my life. I'd forgotten what a cool kid young BOF used to be: he looked only mildly bemused as he humoured my wide-eyed tales. They don't have alternative music in Oundle. Or goths. A Londoner I still am not.

Bugs' Life

Back in The Countryside, it is quarter past 12 at night when I discover the cockroach scuttling towards my toilet.



Who needs carpets anyway?

It's my first night in the non-Childhood Home back in Oundle. It would be difficult to imagine anything less likely to make me a fan of the New Place Down The Road (NPDTR). The place is quite short on carpets. And curtains. Also kitchen comforts, food, floorboards and doors. One thing we do have is - to MD's delight - one of those 'futuristic' [MD] ice-and-water dispensing fridges. 

But something else we seem to have acquired  is a pet cockroach. The house is dark and sinister. I retreat from the loo, feigning casual indifference lest it senses my fear. Dogface is in bed and, in any case, would be no use in the face of such a monster. The room is pretty short of useful bug-trapping accoutrements, crammed instead with boxes of childhood tat.

Eventually, tin in hand, I face the nonchalant bug. Cramming it inside, I lop off a couple of legs in haste. I assure you, dear Kate in the Countryside reader, the beast could hardly fit, so large was he. 

The following morning, leaving the bug beneath its box (with an additional bowl over that, for reinforcement), I tell MD: 'There's a cockroach in my bathroom MD.' 'No there isn't,' she says.

The good end. Fact.

Our former neighbours are visiting the NPDTR (see how friendly it was that end of Oundle...). 'There's a cockroach in my bathroom,' I repeat. 'Is it dead?' asks Lovely Neighbour 1 (LN1). MD shoots angry looks behind his back Mrs Bennet-like - don't mention the cockroach -which become frantic when LN1 offers to rescue the beast. 

Moments later, beetle unveiled, we all laugh at my bug-illiteracy: 'That's not a cockroach!' MD - who had been transfixed from fear at thought that The Countryside would know of her cockroach concerns - is nearly crying with relief. LN1 liberates the nonchalant bug onto some rubble, while Dogface skips about awkwardly, uncertain where he fits in the bug hierarchy. I can't concentrate: the rubble is a bit near my room for my liking.

Nearby Dogface is now worrying a wasp - my beetle is too tough. Stoically trying to munch the stingy beast, he gets whimpery and irate each time it fights back. Finally, the frustration is too much. He uses his last and most potent weapon. As MD squawks horrified, Dogface confidently pees on the wasp. In the middle of the new kitchen floor. He smiles his success.

Put outside, he barks at MD's new car. I know how he feels. We neither of us like change. A NPDTR neighbour pops his head around the corner, ostensibly to say hi, but with a virulent glare at noisy Dogface. Meanwhile, a duststorm arises from the building site chaos and I'm instructed to re-move removal boxes.

That night - Easter - the reincarnated beetle finds my room for the second time. A homing cockroach. Frankly, the new place needs to try harder if it's going to ever win me over.

Next episode: Back in the Gym Agane.

The Village of London

I suspect that my enthusiasm for befriending our whole building may be symptomatic of my rural upbringing - a feeble attempt to impose the friendliness of village life on a community of hard-nosed Londoners - but I persist with the belligerent optimism that more usually characterises BOF.

BOF, by contrast (a Londoner), doesn't like it when I smile indiscriminately at mad drunken old ladies in the off-license next door: 'She looked pretty harmless, I know, but did you see the size of her walking stick?'. But he has been making friends with the off-license proprietor himself.

A heavy night at the Pad

Mr Shop is clearly a man of fine taste, displaying extravagant brands of ribbon pasta alongside his bargain baked beans. A non-drinking, softly spoken Muslim gentleman, he appears to have decided that BOF is a bit of a lad, such that every time we pop down to pick up pasta, Mr S wows us with fictionalised tales of his weekends spent getting 'battered'. BOF, keen to fulfil the lad role, supplies long-recycled drunken anecdotes from his past, before retreating upstairs for a cup of tea and early bed.

And since we still don't have Pretty Neighbour's name, when we arrived back upstairs at the pad yesterday to find a 'Sorry we missed you' parcel slip on the floor, we were excited indeed. The slip, you see, said our parcel had been left with 'our neighbour'. No name on this either – but what possibilities.

Hair coiffed, we stepped politely into the hall predicting instant date success (BOF: ‘How about "that’s so kind of you, could I take you for dinner?"’). A bedraggled man ambled out of our other neighbouring door, and eyed us cheerfully.

'Ah, I've got a parcel for you!' he beamed, dashing off to get it.

Drat.

We recovered with a quick jaunt to the pub (not our 'local' alas, a seedy hostel always occupied by the same three patrons), only to find yet more local good-will. A man was carrying his bike through the bar. When we offered help, he offered us the bike – it had been living in the pub and he was getting rid of it.

I really wanted the bike. I played it cool, of course – pleased both by the find and the opportunity to prove London's villagey friendliness to BOF. I offered the bike man money, which he wouldn’t take, and pedalled it home excitedly, making extensive bike-based plans for the following day.

Next day, I scurried down our stairs to work, stopping to check on my wheels on the way out. My pub bike was gone.

Not the countryside, after all.

Escape to the Countryside (Festive Episode)

Mutual adoration

At Christmas, Oundle is riddled with festivities. I trekked back to my Kate in the Countryside homestead on a snowy eve, dug out some glittery clothing (first outfit Mother Dearest vetoed 'not Christmassy enough') and scurried out.

Dogface has not had much of a time over the festive period. In such demand is MD that she's been attending bashes by the dozen. I'm told that Dogface is not an eligible enough escort, so has been left at home with only our Angry Cat (whom he fears) for company.

The first bash we discover, too late, is dog-friendly. A competitor to Dogface's village mascot status skips jauntily about the room, reaping adorers, young Dogface all but forgotten. Moments in, this pretender is defined 'the loveliest dog ever' by some ill-informed enthusiast. At this point, the little chap chose to relieve himself in the corner, dance excitedly at the sight of so many witnesses, then pass out (from booze?) beside his stool. Now I know that house-training isn't competitive, but still....

Later that week, over a glutton of meat joints (MD's vegetarianism fortunately forgotten), small-town tensions surface.

MD - making polite dog conversation - finds herself thronged by wronged locals. Scandalously, a local dog-training venue has been shut down by the council. It has asbestos. They say.

Paul the Trainer isn't so sure. He has the dogs' best interests at heart. He smells conspiracy:

'They say it's because of (inverted commas) "health and safety". Health and Safety gone mad, I say. The dogs don't care do they, eh ... eh, they don't care about forms do they? (Reflective pause.) They're dogs.

(Wisely, the room is unwilling to offer an opinion. Paul seems encouraged.)

'My dad was the head trainer of the queen's dogs. Of the corgis, yes. So I do know what I'm talking about actually. All I want (mournfully) is to be able to train dogs. I know what they're up to ... (whispers) The Council ... they're gonna sell it off. Make a mint.'

In the facing corner is a man who will fight for the council: for the right of authority to form whatever toxic material-based decisions it deems fit. Cracking knuckles, shifting, frowning, rubbing his brow: this is a man suffering from all the pangs of righteous indignation. For he is on the council. Or knows someone who was once on the council, same thing. Point is - he has the inside track. How dare this dog-trainer's son cast aspersions?

He interrupts (stiffly). And treats us to an extended and deeply boring monologue about the benefits of health and safety and the trauma and soul-searching each and every member of the council went through before deciding to close down the training and so forth. And so on. Strictly speaking. He uses such phrases to imply a wealth of knowledge behind his words that we would struggle to properly understand. We're enthralled. Such a showdown has not been seen in Oundle since the great pub quiz debate of 2001.

Sun-reading superstar Paul submits with unprecedented speed. Deferring to pomposity with feudal inevitability - 'But hey what do I know? You know all about it mate - of course.' - he returns to his meat.

The Council celebrates 'HAWhawhaw' and order in Oundle is preserved. 

A Dog With No Name

Snuggles?

The naming of a dog round here is a dangerous business. Because, firstly, the Oundle community takes a very active interest in new local dogs. Secondly, our puppy (hereafter known as 'Dogface') isn't even a proper dog yet. How are we to know what will suit? Over the last few days I've heard endless dog names. Plenty are catastrophic. Turns out many monstrous beasts are called things like 'Snuggles', because the proud puppy-owners spoke too soon.

A trivial issue, you'd think. 

One day, pre-puppy, MD popped round to see Dogface's original family and take him to visit his future home and meet our cat Spikey. On MD's return, Mrs Dog-Owner asked MD what she was thinking of calling young Dogface. MD, poor fool, flippantly told Mrs Dog-Owner some of our thoughts. The puppy is an Irish Terrier, so most of our ideas were names like 'Paddy', 'Seamus' and … 'Beckett'. But of course. Mrs Dog-Owner nodded vaguely:

'It's very important to have a name early, you know - vital for training.'

'Oh yes, well we'll think of something soon,' laughed dogless MD, 'but at the moment he's just little Dogface.'

Mrs Dog-Owner (instantly insane): 'How can you insult him like that? I knew you weren't dog people! He doesn't deserve it - it's just appalling. I've a good mind not to let you have our little baby now.'

MD (sheltering from spit and clods of dog-poo that Mrs Dog-Owner secretes in her jeans to throw at the inept dogless): 'Ah, OK. Sorry, er. Bye. Bye Dogface.'

MD Flees, as motherdog of Dogface chomps her ankles vengefully.

Happily, Mr Dog-Owner later tranquillised Mrs Dog-Owner, and we took young Dogface while she slept.

Poor Nameless Dogface

My contribution to the Name Game was 'Baldrick'. I, uniquely, find it an endearing and dog-friendly name. MD not so sure. I'm told it's supposed to be the ugliest word in the English language. Soon after we took Dogface home, I snuck the name 'Baldrick' onto the Vet's records and tried to convince MD that Dogface looked so much like a 'Baldrick' that the Vet had just guessed this was his name. She wasn't fooled. 

As we trotted through the Market Place yesterday, Dogface and I, he was the most admired chap in the village. Top Dog. Little old couples stopped us to enquire after his health. We were nearly home when we were stopped by a Smiling Elderly Lady.

SEL: Oh what a beautiful little chap. Ahh. What's he called then?

Kate in the Countryside (still convinced by 'Baldrick'): He's called Baldrick.

SEL: Sorry dear?

KitC: Baldrick.

SEL (loudly): What?? (Angrily, to Dogface - who is, recall, a dog) What are they doing to you? How could they call you that? You're a beautiful dog. 

Dogface: er.

KitC: er.

SEL (to me again, voice raised): What a horrible thing to say. He's a nice dog - how could you do that to him? What a disgusting thing to call him. (Lunging forward grabbing me hard by the wrist) Don't you dare call him that. (To Dogface again) If I were you I'd run away.

KitC: OK, sorry. Have a nice day. Bye then.

We managed to outrun her, but it was a close thing. So that's the end of Baldrick. Poor Nameless Dogface. How long until schizophrenia sets in?

The Eternal Question

Yesterday Mother Dearest and I went to an Oundle gathering (I’m not going to lie – we’re big on the village scene). It was tremendous. However, early on sneaky old MD palmed me off onto a bloke called something extravagant and absurd like ‘Beverly’.

‘So what are you doing in Oundle then?’

‘I’ve just finished university.’

Pause. Damn. Now, inevitably, here comes The Question. I try to head him off with

‘It’s a lovely...’

(Interrupting) ‘Right. So what are you doing with yourself then?’



Good with non-words



Too late. Agh. Taking Boris Johnson as my model, I mutter non-words and shift from foot to foot, hoping Beverly will interpret this as an answer of sorts and move on. The temptation to shout ‘GCSEs’ and dive for the nearest bush is overwhelming. Those were the days.

‘Ah well I’m sort of – ah – living at home.’

Eyebrows. Silence.

‘Bit of temping, y’know ...' [Not strictly true – two weeks pending at a publisher thanks to the charm of a delightful friend]. 'And, erm, applying for jobs.' [Not true either. One job. Didn’t get it.] (Nervous laughter.) [From me, not him] 'I’m doing bits of writing as well, talking to editors...' (Gabbling now) 'Er, and teaching the violin a bit, and I’ve, I’ve just startedablog.’ [I’m not a wastrel! I’m not!]

I finally stop and gaze into the middle distance. When I was applying for Cambridge (good old days of youth when things were simple) we had the odd practice interview. The advice given me was always the same. Say what you think – as clearly as possible – then stop: ‘Please Kate if you can resist the temptation to talk about nothing for a further five minutes you should be fine.’ The advice comes back to me now, slightly late.

He looks at me. ‘What’s it on?’

I pause, considering. [This is Good Interview Technique, remember, and I’m now applying it to real life. Observe:] ‘Well, it’s about...’

He interrupts. ‘You’ll never get anywhere with a blog you know. Just silly, all that stuff, crazy. Now a friend of mine, he’s...’

And then I realise. While I was writhing about trying to construct a socially acceptable account of how I’m spending my time, my chum Beverly was merely searching for a window of opportunity through which to segue into conversation about himself.


Good hiding place?

But please, Bev (and all you Bev-a-likes), if what you want is to talk about your mate, your mate’s mate, that time you almost met a celebrity, or your pig-rearing hobby – just do it. I’m happy(ish) to listen. Don’t preface it with two minutes of questions / cynical silence that I feel duty-bound to fill. It’s not fun for either of us. And if the next time we meet I flee into the undergrowth, you’ll only have yourself to blame.



PS. Thank you very much to everyone who read the first episode. And especially to my charming and brilliant 'followers'. Comments encouraged. Positive comments.



e.g. Am I too harsh on Beverly? Do you wish you lived in Oundle? Let me know....