3 April

We went for an impromptu drink last night with some people we know who have recently moved into the village. It felt quite strange to be going to the pub on a Monday night, but I’m making the most of R being home for a couple of weeks before he starts his new job, our friends were free and suggested a drink, the children were shattered after a hard afternoon’s playing and happy to be early to bed with a babysitter installed, so out we went. Our new friends are both German, new to England as well as this area, and pleasingly delighted with their new life. There’s only one problem; both R and I have this awful habit of slipping into whichever accent is around us at the time. It’s not conscious, and we try so hard not to do it, but in the space of a single conversation we can be Welsh, Glaswegian or Mancunian, depending on who we’re talking to. I used to think it was just me, because I have changed accents myself during my life. I had a Geordie one for the first seven years of my life, then we moved to the London suburbs, where my flat ‘a’s’ were mocked, and apparently overnight I started saying ‘barth’ and ‘clarss’ for bath and class, much to the amusement of my parents. In my teenage years my accent morphed into street-cred norf Lunnon, and has now settled into featureless generic south-eastern. R, however, has no such excuses, as he grew up in rural Kent and has never sounded any different. So there we were, chatting to our new friends, and I could hear ourselves coming out with comments such as “Is that wine not very marvellous?” and “For sure, the weather is being pleasant and mild”. I am always horrified in these situations, thinking that the people we are talking to will pick up on it and think we are mocking their English (which is of course, pretty faultless), but luckily it seemed to go unnoticed.

We are very lucky to have our great local pub, just a mere stagger away across the green, and although small children mean we don’t get there in the evenings as often as we might like, it is a great venue for families during the summer. We have been known to while away entire afternoons sitting out on the huge lawn, along with what seems like the rest of the village. It backs onto woods and streams, so is often an essential stop when family walks just happen to take us in that direction, and it has all the requisite inglenooks and beams to make family Sunday lunches mellow and cosy. The children have often startled city-dwelling guests by asking to go over there after tea (it has the best play equipment in the area), and I believe ‘pub’ was one of my daughter’s first words. The annual bonfire night celebrations are held in their field, just behind, and it retains the feel of an old inn at the heart of the community. There are those (my husband included, sometimes) who bemoan the loss of a traditional ‘drinking’ pub, and it’s true that some of the old characters aren’t there any more, although Skinny John (his name’s John, and he’s skinny; we don’t do any of that superfluous verbal badinage round here!) and one or two others still prop up the bar most nights. Me, I never really went for that ‘Slaughtered Lamb’ feeling of all the locals going silent when you go in, and I love to wander in with the children and know I can get nice food if I so wish. They are relaxed about children, and relaxed about people whiling away their afternoons in the garden while nursing a single orange juice and lemonade, as I have occasionally done. I am aware of how packed such a venue would be in a built-up area, and despite its local popularity, I’m still grateful for its ancient, quiet feel.
It felt odd, last night, to be dispensing local wisdom to our friends. Having been incomers here for so long, they were treating us as venerable residents, who could fill them in on village traditions and local history. It felt quite nice, to have people hanging off our every word (doesn’t often happen!) and to feel so settled, so right, so at home.