So, I am now going to tell you about
the area that we live in.
Our village, Adstock, is surrounded by
fields and hedgerows – typical English countryside. Scrubby green
grass, dotted with sheep, cows, a herd of bulls which are scared of
Juliette, some Roman mounds, which are, well, grassy mounds, and are
apparently Roman.
Our nearest town is Buckingham, which
dates back to A Very Long Time Ago. Though there are a few modern
buildings, for the main part, the town is made up of narrow, cobbled
streets, which wind betwixt golden stone 18th century
buildings – amongst them a turreted County Gaol – Victorian and
Georgian buildings and medieval terraces. A great golden swan – the
emblem of Buckingham - presides over the town from the top of A
Building, its neck arched, wings raised in warning.
This is fairytale England, probably
rather Tory England - an England where grim, grey stained terraces
and pound shops are another world away. My mother was appalled and
shocked to hear that there is not a Marks and Spencer's, though I
rather like the fact that the town isn't just a repeat performance of
the same old chains. There is a Subway, but apart from that, there
are no fast food outlets, but rather a lot of tea/ice cream shops,
where you can get delicious pasties and dreadful coffee. There is a
music shop, LOTS of charity shops, three pubs and two restaurants,
one called Prego and the other called Prezzo, just across the road
from each other.
Amongst many other things in its long
life, it seems that Buckingham once had a mint, and just a couple of
weeks ago, in a satellite village, Gawcott, (incidentally just 4.7
miles from our house!) the locals surprised themselves by digging up
one of the biggest hoards of Saxon coins ever found in Great
Britain. Many of the coins looked as though they had never been in
circulation – bringing to mind visions of terrified Saxons, under a
wild grey sky, hauling their new-minted coins to safety. Clawing sod
and mud from the earth with their bare hands in the driving rain:
“Come on Ethelred, put your back into it, the Vikings are coming!”
“I'm digging my fastest, Ethelwren -
if we don't get them buried deep enough, the dogs will find them sure
enough.”
“And while you dig yourself to
countries as yet undiscovered on the other side of the globe, the Red
Haired devils draw closer to our homes, with nothing but rape and
pillage on their minds – think of our wives, Etheltracy and
Ethelsharon! Get on with it!”
Tipping the barrels of coins into the
ground, hessian shirts soaked through with mud and water, beards
bedraggled, faces red and sweaty, eyes shining with panic. They
trample down the earth over the barrels, replace the sod. “Come,
Ethelwren, we must away, back to our families....” But as the men
turn towards Buckingham, they see the smoke, rising above the
buildings, the orange sparking flames, hear the hoarse cries of
battle, the screaming and wailing and the clunk and clash of
swords....
I was going to tell you about Milton
Keynes as well – and about my new job, but that might have to wait
for another time....
And this is an interesting link if you
want to look at it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-30654568
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