Consolidating the Reputation.

Earlier this afternoon I saw several vehicles parked close up to the hedgerow of the lane where I live. A young couple were coming up the road, so I asked them what was going on.

‘School well-dressing,’ they replied.

Ah, good. I’ve been meaning to take a few pictures of the well-dressing ever since I moved here, and I always forget the date. Just then, the formidable Christine walked past.

‘Are you joining us?’ she asked without breaking her stride. And then, giving me no time to reply, she continued ‘Come on!’ and strode onwards and upwards regardless. I went back to the house, grabbed a camera and a couple of lenses, and headed up to the school. It didn’t occur to me to change out of my gardening boots.

There was a vicar in attendance, dressed as vicars dress and spouting the usual stuff that vicars spout. The first words I heard were:

‘Although some people say it has a pagan background...’

I turned to the nearest man and said:

‘So what’s wrong with pagan backgrounds? I like pagan backgrounds.’

I didn’t know who he was and he made no reply, so I was briefly tempted to wonder whether it’s politically advisable to utter such a statement to an unknown person in an English country village. I shrugged it off, naturally, and set about taking my pictures.

And then the headmistress took centre stage and said it would be nice if everybody made their way to the village hall where there were cream teas to be had. The vicar had to have the last word, of course. He spouted some more vicarish stuff about being grateful to God for keeping the rain off, and being further grateful to God for sending the rain to water the fields. (And some people wonder why I have a less than charitable view of vicars. But never mind; he was only doing his job, I suppose.)

By then I’d encountered my old friend Helen (not my ex Helen, now Melanie, just in case the disproportionate proliferation of Helens and Melanies in my life’s little orbit is causing confusion.) This Helen is somebody I used to know in my last village. She has two children at Norbury School, you see. So, chat with Helen, and then into the village hall for light refreshment.

‘Cup of tea, please,’ I said

‘A pound, please,’ the serving wench replied after pouring the tea.

Shit! It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be a charge for the tea, and I had no money on me. I made my apologies as abjectly as my state of cool would allow, and the woman didn’t pour the tea back into the pot – probably because it had milk in it, I expect. Instead, she said ‘There’s sugar on the table’ – a little icily, I thought – and I resisted the urge to reply ‘I don’t have any money for that, either.’ I talked to the new headmistress for a while, and then went home.

So the good folk of Norbury and Roston now have my number. He comes to functions wearing dirty gardening boots, he’s obviously a devil worshipper, and he tries to get his tea without paying. I’m not sure which is worse, really, but I expect I’ll find out one day.