Tag: rural

#oneaday, Day 267: Go Outside!

It’s funny. I’ve never particularly thought of myself as an outdoorsman, despite growing up in the country and despite semi-regular trips from primary school and Cub Scouts (yeah, deal with it) to various campsites. This is largely to do with being a nerd, of course, because everyone knows that nerds, like vampires, tend to shun sunlight in favour of the glow of a TV or computer screen. Or sometimes candle-light and books. But books don’t glow. Unless they’re on an iPad.

Anyway,  the point I was getting at is that I appear to have spent most of the last couple of days outside. This is partly due to the Couch-to-5K running programme I’ve been following which, by its very nature, requires one to go outside to do said running. Today, though, I decided to just go out for a walk. Of course, I had the flimsy justification of putting various GPS trackers on to try and measure how far I went yesterday (3.75 miles, as it happens) but mostly it was a desire to actually go out again. The place I went yesterday—a nearby wood—is a place that’s nice and quiet and peaceful and has literally nothing surrounding it on Google Maps. Today, rather than running there (or run-walk-run-walk-ing there, to be more accurate) I just walked and took my time. I had some awesome tunes on for the duration and just enjoyed being out, feeling the breeze on me (until it got a bit cold later) and the feeling of being surrounded by nature. Evidently I have some sort of latent hippie/wood elf tendencies.

Of course, any kind of sudden change in one’s routine is normally down to external stimuli, and of course there’s one in this case. A few online chats with a very nice person (who may be reading this right now… hello! *waves*) inspired me to go out and spend some time in all this countryside I’m surrounded with. This countryside I grew up in, and pretty much took for granted, and then became a teenager and thought was boring. So I have. So, special person, thank you for being the one to give me a nudge in the correct direction. It just takes the right person to say the right thing and… well, you find yourself in the middle of the woods listening to Shpongle.

For those who are keeping up, this person is also the person who bullied me (not very hard) into picking up a copy of Firefly and then sat until the early hours with me yesterday watching it “with” me. Which was nice. But also made me forget to write my blog. Although that was mostly my own fault for not writing it earlier and then engaging in a conversation I knew would continue for quite a long time.

Anyway. Yes. Going outside is good. So do it. Especially if you’ve just finished watching that DVD box set or beaten that game you were playing. Don’t pick up another one (yet)—open that door and go and enjoy the lovely mild Autumn sunshine and the crispy brown leaves under your feet. Unless you live in the city, in which case you can go out and enjoy the howling Autumn Peugeot chavmobiles screaming past at all hours.

I have been outside most of today, so I now have no guilt at settling down under a warm duvet with a mug of hot chocolate and a Firefly box set. Can you say the same? Can you?

Oh, here’s some photos. These were taken using the iPhone 4’s fancy-pants HDR setting and haven’t had any processing done to them. Enjoy! I’m off to watch aforementioned Firefly.

#oneaday, Day 237: Town and Country

I’ve experienced both town and country life for significant proportions of my life, now. My childhood and teenage years were spent living in a country village which had a shop, a couple of pubs and not a lot else. Then I spent my university and beginning of my “adult” life in various urban areas, mainly Southampton. In said urban areas, there were lots of shops, lots of pubs and lots of over things too. Now I am back in the former place. (The country. Keep up.)

I’m in two minds as to which I prefer. On the one hand, it’s nice to live in the city and be able to walk to anything you want to do. On the flip side to this first hand (there may be a few hands, so be prepared) are the things I’ve commented on before; the casual rule-breaking, the dirt, the filth, the chavs, the people who think it’s acceptable to talk shit at you in the street when you’ve never met them before, the fact that the police come out any time there’s a football match, the fact that dogs shit in the street… wait, there was something good in there, I’m sure…

On the other hand (that’s two, keep count) the country is quiet, peaceful, serene. You can go for a walk outside and not meet anyone else, least of all someone who wants to call you something unpleasant. As a matter of fact, if you do run into someone in the country, they’ll probably politely say “hello” or “good morning” to you, which is a practice that would probably get you a punch in the neck in most built-up areas around the UK. They’ll probably also be walking a labrador or golden retriever called Horatio or Barnabas (whose poop they will always clean up) and have a walking stick, even if they’re only in their twenties. On the flip side to this second hand (so that’s the back of hand number two) living in the country comes with its own downsides. Having a village shop is all very well, but some places don’t even have that. And there are plenty of times that the shop here has come under threat of closure due to the “scandalous” way in which some owners have run it. This being a tiny country village, of course, someone running the village shop in a way which is different to how it used to be run by people who were liked by the village is seen as a crime roughly equivalent to raping a kitten whilst butchering orphans and laughing maniacally. I apologise profusely for the mental image you may have in your head right now. Pervert.

Then there’s the fact that you actually need a car to get anywhere. This village I’m in now did, for the longest time, not have a bus stop. The nearest bus stop was two miles away. Meaning you had to drive to it. And said bus stop went to the nearest town (seven miles away) once a week for market day. And then once back again. Meaning that if you missed the one coming back, you were either stuck in St. Neots for a week (which is not a place you want to be stuck for an hour, let alone a week) or you had a long walk ahead of you.

I don’t know, though. I’ve been here for a day and a bit now and it’s been relatively peaceful. Granted, I have been housebound while shifting heavy boxes, setting up computers, TVs and consoles so I haven’t felt the need to go out and do anything just yet. Perhaps the stultifying boredom will come soon. Or perhaps I’ll feel the urge to become one of those people with a massive house, three dogs and a roaring log fire. You know, like a proper English person.

Hmm. After checking my bank balance, that may be some time off, yet. Oh well. It’s something to aim for, right?