Notes from the country with Vicky Turrell

  It has happened again. I can hardly believe it. Three months ago, to my horror a tooth at the front of my mouth broke off. The dentist took it out and I have had a gap ever since. I have had to wait for three months for everything to heal and then I can have it replaced. Hardly daring to look people in the face I have smiled a gap-toothed smile and waited. By the time you read this the gap will have gone and a new tooth will be in place and my bank balance will have gone down considerably. But now horror upon horrors a tooth on the other side has sheared off in the same way. Pam Ayres poem says that she wished she’d looked after ‘me teeth’. And now I am thinking the same. Though to be fair my teeth have not decayed they have just become weak. I remember from my youth, an old toothbrush that we all shared and the Gibbs toothpaste in a tin had a startlingly pink paste, but there was no worry about teeth. My mother and father both had all their theirs out when they reached a c...

    I have been in the flu queue again. My short-sleeved shirt has come in useful even in the cold weather. I covered it with a woollen jumper and off I went to the chemist for my seasonal Covid jab. But I could see all was not well as soon as I went through the front door. Instead of an orderly queue there was a huddle of worried looking people shuffling about. Then I read the hastily written notice. ‘Covid jabs cancelled’. Our dismay turned to consternation when we learnt that the pharmacist had been taken ill and an ambulance had been called. No one knew what to do. I had booked my appointment on-line and of course the workers at the chemist had no access to the pharmacist website. I rang 119. ‘If you are calling from England, please press 1… For vaccination booking service press 1…’ And so, it went on until I stopped pressing and got a person so I could explain. In the end it was no problem much to my relief. If you do not turn up the service online resets and I ...

  Our lane has been closed again. You might think this was good news as the surface may be renewed, but no, it is about services to a house. The one good thing though is that we all took advantage of the reduced traffic. It was now only used by the locals and so we were able to walk and ride bikes without much trouble. There were whole fleets of cyclers whizzing into the freedom. They appeared out of nowhere and it made me wonder if there is web site that tells you of roads that are closed for main traffic in the countryside so that walkers or cyclists can hurry along and take advantage of the sudden silence. I know of a bird that does this. It is the redwing from Iceland and Eastern Europe often travelling in flocks across the great North Sea. Taking advantage of the early morning darkness, they surreptitiously swooped into our orchard, where this year most of our apples for some strange reason have dropped early. This is an unbelievable chance for redwings to sneak in when ot...

  I have had an email from Shropshire Council. ‘You will need to book a slot if you want to take waste and recycling to one of our centres’. It goes on to say that I will have to supply ID and my car number plate. I must ring up or fill in a form online before I arrive. All this is to make sure we do not have to wait in a queue, but we just turned up last week and there was hardly anyone there. The staff were helpful and we soon finished. Mind you it will stop out of county people coming and reduce trade waste, they say. So, we will have to make an appointment to get rid of rubbish from now on. What a procedure it will be, almost like getting a doctor’s appointment.   All this is a far cry from how we got rid of our rubbish when I was young and living on the farm. Of course, there was little waste, as we grew all our own fruit and vegetables and had our own meat. But eventually we bought tins of golden syrup and jars of marmite.   There was no wrapping paper and so ...

‘Come and join us after your Saturday shopping. Our autumn concert is at the civilised hour of 3.30pm.’ That is a good idea, I thought, because although I would not be shopping on Saturday, mid-afternoon is a good time for a concert for me. All too often shows are late evening and these days of darker nights I do not want to turn out on a cold evening, so I give it a miss. Luckily, we arrived near the door just in time but there was a long queue and we shuffled along, hoping to get out of the wind. But once at the pay desk our luck ran out. Payment was by cash only. I usually pay with my mobile and neither of us had cash. We were not alone and Mr T joined several others making a dash for the town’s cashpoints. These days you usually advertise ‘cash only’. I have seen some shops do it, but not so long ago cash was the usual way to pay. Now cards and mobiles have taken over. And the mobile is not just used for paying, I noticed one or two people reading their screens when the choir...

  He was suddenly there at the end of our country lane. As I was driving onto the main road, I noticed his wooden caravan pulled onto the grass verge almost under the trees. It is a wide verge and he did not have to worry about yellow lines like the Lady in the Van because he was well away from the traffic. On my journey home I noticed his car also pulled onto the verge. Gradually things began to develop. Several rustic poles were hammered into the ground and then plinths appeared on the top. On these plinths he positioned carved wooden animals. They were almost life sized. There were owls, rabbits and what looked like weasels, but it was hard to tell as I drove past. Sometimes I saw him at work carving animals out of the wooden logs stored near his caravan. At our junction there is a little pull-in, and I often saw cars parked there and the occupants going to have a look, and perhaps buy his carved country-side creatures. Eventually a notice went up saying that he could take c...