A Dangerous Game

Over the summer we've been playing in a cut-throat netball league on courts near the Barbican. As I'm sure is immediately obvious to everyone currently in England, winter is on its way. Our last game was to be this week. Yet Tuesday's final showdown was cancelled for a spot of rain. And who is to blame for this meteorological travesty? None other than Kate in the Countryside. Here's why:

Fig. 1: The Fall

A month ago our Netters Crew strode onto court, psyched and dangerous. Small attractively-spaced clouds dotted the skyline, but the morning's rain had long gone. With minutes to go before half time, when we had already all but routed the opposition, I dived aggressively [difficult to imagine, I know] to intercept the ball. Cartoon-like, I found myself sliding on a slimy patch of concrete [see diagram opposite], took off for a moment mid-fall, then my head slammed into the floor. 

Fig. 2: Our Team

I opened my eyes in amongst a sea of hilariously good legs. The whole episode had gone from Tom and Jerry to Bring It On in a matter of moments. The main thing I felt, as I failed to move much, was embarrassment. A nervous-looking Netball Organiser came over to say that she'd called an ambulance. Cringe. Moments later, a biker in black leather arrived. It was then I worried that something really had happened to my brain. But no - he was just there to check I wasn't planning on dying before the ambulance made it. 

Better Legs Than Middleton (BLT-Mids), a star player from our netball team, collected my stuff and offered to come to the hospital with me. 


Ambulance arrived, I was bundled into a stretcher. I remember convincing myself that it was possible that none of the netballers would see me in my luminous stretcher with biker and three-man Ambulance entourage. Disconcertingly, since I couldn't seem to speak very well, I kept being given options: 'Do you want this wheelchair? Can you walk? Can you see me? Do you want to come in the ambulance now? Do you want your friend to come? ' 

My response - I learned later - was to keep trying to divert the Nice Ambulance Man from asking questions about me by telling BLT-Mids to explain about her own maladies:

e.g. 'BLT-Mids tell the guy about how you fell off your bike that time and nearly died. Go on, tell him - great story.' Also: 'BLT-Mids has hurt her eye! Have you told the man Mids? Maybe we can get it checked out when we get there!'

At this the (mildly alarmed) Nice Ambulance Man finally stopped humouring me: 'You do realise it's a hospital not an optician we're going to don't you? Now tell me if this hurts...'

At the hospital, we waited to be seen: me lolling and babbling in the world's most antiquated wheelchair, BLT-Mids trying to charm the doctors into submission. This worked fairly well. We advanced as far as a preliminary cubicle near to some doctors, but unfortunately achieving this holding place seemed to have no working relationship to how soon I'd be seen. It did mean that we had the benefit of witnessing minor surgery in the rooms around us. Squarks of pain and unpleasant clipping noises were nonchalantly ignored by all. 

Four hours later, a doctor arrived. She looked at me, asked me the same six questions that had been asked by each of the seven nurses that had preceded her, poked me in the ear and scalp, then announced me free to go.


'They never looked at your eye!' I said to BLT-Mids, disappointed, as we fled the scene.

You Shall Not Pass

So freed at last and safely back to London, I find signs of city eccentricity everywhere. Traits I'd thought were unique to the cut-off countryside abound in London, the place with the highest Starbuck-density in the world.

My walk to work has by now been honed with such precision that it now most days falls under twenty minutes in length (the trainers are becoming a fixture, I'm afraid - now teamed with a balaclava to save my pride). This walking record can only be achieved with a slightly anarchic attitude to roads: not for Kate in the Countryside the authorised crossing route. Don't be absurd.



Damn impediment

Past Buckingham Palace I go, cutting across the traffic with cheerful London-learnt unconcern. Occasionally unsuspecting tourists follow me. When a royal motorbike cavalcade speeds round the corner towards us, their shrieks of French or Chinese incomprehension amuse me for the remaining journey.

I sneak through a gap in the railings lining the pavement, which saves an extra twenty seconds, and then march down the Mall to the office.

This gap in the railings was a particular route-coup, only recently found, but it's proving the most difficult to employ. Near the Palace, Police loiter purposefully all day, mostly directing tourists and seeking out idle terrorists on a day trip to see the queen. But one, it seems, has a campaign of his own.

Disclaimer: this is not me



Last week, I reached my special railings-gap to find some police tape fastened across it: 'POLICE LINE. DO NOT CROSS'. A fearsome barrier indeed. In the morning, weakened by sleepiness, I obeyed, and paid the 20-second price. Happily, by evening some rogue had torn it down and fashioned it into a bow round the nearest lamppost.

The following day, things got serious. A large orange cone had been placed in the gap. My opponent means business. Except that if anything, the cone makes progress easier, acting as a handrail when I skip through the still-perfectly-adequate gap.

It was on the return journey last night that I found I had an audience. A parked police car yards from the disputed territory contained a single, focussed-looking gent. I saw him looking at me, smiled, and, in deference to his brainy cone scheme (I assume it's his - what else could he be doing there?), walked round the railings once more.

Defeated today, true. But I'll be back.

To be continued…

Kate in the City?

And while life in London Village feels more friendly every day (with one notable bike-based exception), I fear that Kate in the Countryside might be getting some bad habits from the city in return. Anticipating a brief jaunt to the countryside this weekend, some of my new Londonisms became clear.

Corporate Spice?

Once, I would have been fascinated by the hooded hordes thronging the pavements outside Victoria - now they are an irritating impediment. This morning, a politely chattering crocodile of charmingly uniformed schoolchildren seemed only an obstacle. Even the hardened BOF could only look on in terror as I concussed the nearest two with my bag before toppling the wheeliebag stack of an errant tourist.

But there's worse. Seeking speed for my walk to work last week, I panicked. I admit it. Reasoning I'd gain minutes, I adopted the trainers-work clothes look beloved of businesswomen in transit across the city. Attired in the twenty-something's equivalent of white socks and Jesus sandals, I looked like Sue Sylvester on her way to a party.

I could look no one in the eye. All around me I saw the glinty white trainers shining off reflective surfaces, and when I bumped into a big cheese from the office I could only nod curtly and flee in the opposite direction. The catastrophic combo rendered me incapable of speech.

This horror of human contact teamed with the trainers' super-speed made a post-work trip to buy food hazardous. I braved Giant Sainsbury’s (GS) - a shop so-called to distinguish it from the Small Sainsburg (SS) in Victoria Station, which frankly has nothing in it except manky flowers, 4 Muffins for £1 and copies of Heat.

GS adopts the policy that as long as you're trapped inside, you might conceivably buy. So it arrays items with abandon - draping garlic amongst the catfood, and milk by mustard. The only response is to curl up in a corner rocking backwards and forwards until it closes.

Worth it.

Empowered by trainer super-speed however, I used my trolley to bash through aisles and grannies, grabbed the first twenty things I saw, pushed to the front of two queues, attacked a man for the last of the half price prawns, and legged it. It's not me - it’s GS.

Trainer-free, I was back to restful Oundle to see MD and Dogface. MD fills me in on all the big local news: dog-training is still closed, there's a film on at the local theatre this Sunday and (the best saved to last) ... the Co-op has been refurbished! ‘They’ve moved everything around, it’s really rather good,’ she assures me.

So in we go. A combination of SS’s emptiness with GS’s design flaws greets me. Told they have 'the best cookies - better than Waitrose', I try to stay positive. But it's not long before I'm hiding in the rocking-and-crying corner. No bashing or wrestling allowed here in The Countryside. How do I escape?