We
have been staying with friends in an 18th Century cottage in Barley, a small
hamlet in Lancashire. Everyone in England, it seems, claims to live in a cottage
but theirs is the real deal. The ceilings are low, the creaky stairs are steep
and the walls are thick. Hot waster is available only when they turn on
the boiler and the only time I have been warm is in front of the coal fire
Chris builds in the evenings.
Village
life is quiet; an evening walk or a visit to the pub can be the day’s highlight. Everyone in Barley seems to know not
only everyone else but everything about them, something Connie tells me is
common in small towns and is a major reason she moved away as soon as she graduated
from college.
Life
in a small village isn’t always dull. Take today’s Newchurch Treasure
Hunt, for example, a fund-raising event for the Queen’s Jubilee festival next
year. Each team received a map and a list of 75 clues to be found around
town. We wandered around the church cemetery, down pubic pathways and
country roads. We climbed stiles through ancient rock walls and
across pastures filled with sheep, always searching for the next clue: a date
on the sundial, a particular statue, an abandoned tractor tire, and other
insignificant things that forced us to really look around.
Everyone
who started out returned for the barbeque, which seemed to surprise the
organizers. We didn’t win and we didn’t lose and we had a great time.
We spent much of the afternoon talking and drinking with the locals and met
some people that Chris and Rose didn’t even know. Except for the accents
this could have been Smalltown, USA in the 1960s and it gave us a unique
glimpse of England that most visitors would never see.
