Country Living: Our Man in Arundel

I was recently emailed by a friend who’d found my blog here. I’ve edited a few names and other personal stuff out, but the brief online rant is reproduced pretty much word-for-word.

I think it'll strike a chord with an awful lot of people!


-----Original Message-----
To: Del Arun
Subject: RE: Blogs

I made the mistake of reading someone else’s blog and got so irritated I've had to stop.

Why is it everyone wants the country 'lifestyle' but no-one wants the country 'life' and why do I get so annoyed by it?


-----Original Message-----
From: Del Arun
Subject: RE: Blogs

Why? A combination of rose-tinted glasses and mistaking "lifestyle" for "reality", I think. People buy a Cath Kidston Nokia and think they're Mrs Beeton. Everyone wants the good bits and no-one wants the bad bits.

My girlfriend said she got thoroughly fed up with badgers digging up anything she planted in the garden when she lived in a rural setting. The neighbouring farmer sprayed silage on his fields - and on everyone's car as he drove his tractor to the fields. There were good bits, of course, but it wasn't all Pop Larkin and Catherine Zeta-Jones.


-----Original Message-----
To: Del Arun
Subject: RE: Blogs

Exactly,

Living in the country (though I only know the city version of the country in truth) is about crap wages and crappy jobs. It's about not being able to open your windows in the summer because of cropping, it's about doing dangerous things like 'tar barrels' (look it up on the internet, it's in Ottery St Mary and tis v. exciting) and not going all 'compo' on it. It's about shutting gates in fields, not letting your dogs run freely near sheep and not throwing litter (don't know where that bit came from, it is my most hated though, 'the word 'lifestyle' is second) and if you don't like all that you shouldn't be there!

What's wrong with moving to a place and embracing it? People complain when people from other countries come over here and create their own community and won't accept Britain’s culture; where's the difference?

Hrrrmpph!

I think I'm jealous too because I wish I was back there, and I'm grumpy anyway pah!

-----Message Ends-----

So there you are. These are not necessarily the views of the management - but, then again...