Skip

     

          Working here on my my own has its disadvantages. Aside from the obvious ones such as doing all the labouring, mixing mortar, wheelbarrowing it through to me etc, its putting up scaffolds on your own and passing things up to me when i'm  pointing old stone walls up. For instance, on friday I had knocked out an old stone doorway that had been blocked up for whatever reason a few years ago with concrete blocks and it took me a while to fill up the trailer ready for the tip. Needing a baguette for lunch which I could get from the village boulangerie where the tip was, I pushed on as they close at twelve. It is only about five miles to the village, but I had to take it easy as the trailer was heavy and I was driving the car as the old van didn't possess a toe bar. The Council tips in France are good, and the one here is no exception. Swinging in the gate, I gave a few extra revs and pull up the slope that leaves you above the skip so that you can just drop your rubbish into it. Finishing level with the one that is specially designed for rubble, I got out and after handballing a few bits of the heavier lumps, decided to un hitch the trailer and just tip it in. Just then an old chap wearing a beret pulled alongside me and after a smiling bonjour, began emptying a pruned laural bush into the gardening waste skip opposite. After hitching back up, I got back in and to my dismay, and without any warning, I turned the key and all I got was a click. The battery was dead. Hearing the old chap say something, I got out and shrugged my shoulders in a galic manner which speaks for many things here and he replied with one of his own. My french, although still on the amateur level, was good enough to understand his solution. I was to get in whilst he pushed me the couple of metres to the edge of the slope to jump start it as it went down. I had two qualms. The first was that if it didn't start, the steering and brakes were as good as useless and a turn was required at the bottom of the slope to avoid going through the hedge and into someones garden at the bottom. The other was that being a big car, the old chap would not be able to push it, judging from how he was struggling with the branches of the bush.  But he was insistent, and putting his shoulder against the back, bade me to get inside. Turning the key and putting it into second gear, I must admit I felt a little anxious looking at the hedge down below, that looked closer the more I looked at it. But incredibly, I felt a shove with what sounded like a war cry and we were off. The engine burst into life halfway down the slope and I swerved round to the left as I heard a great hollering sound and looking in the mirror, saw the old chap come running down the slope waving his arms. Leaping at my open window and throwing his arm in, he suddenly stopped, and stared in relieved disbelief that I was sitting behind the steering wheel. After pushing me over the edge, he had looked up to see me sitting to him, inconprehensibly in the right seat headed towards the hedge. Roaring with laughter, I couldn't understand, but could tell from his gestures that he thought he had sent this Englishman to his fate in the hedge. Of course, he was not to know that I had changed the numberplate to a french one but was still right hand drive. We parted still laughing, my smile leaving me when nearly home whn I realised that I would have to buy a new battery the next day.

Seaside

I am not terribly keen on thunder and lightening. I suppose thinking about it, I have never met anyone that is, but its effect seems heightened when sitting in a compact caravan alone, feeling it slightly shudder as the subsequent rain hammers seemingly on all sides. The day has been warm though, the leaves beginning to fall from the poplar trees, the first tell tale sign that Autumn has begun. It was so nice this afternoon in fact that I decided to go on a little drive. A man can only take so much working on his own, that, tiring of lime mortar, yes it is possible, I went to the hilly compagne to the east of here as Jean Pierre told me it was particularly impressive. And so it was. Well wooded with oaks and chestnuts, I drove up winding lanes briefly emerging into the sunlight before plunging down valleys under the canopy of trees, my old Peugeot van chugging as I climbed up again as though complaining at having to go further than the local building merchants. The roads seemed like a labyrinth, and I was almost enjoying being in the position where I was not exactly lost, but not all together sure where I was, when I crested the brow of a hill and was confronted by a lovely view of a lake, framed perfectly by woods and the odd sunlit field populated with a few cream coloured cows. The vista seemed timeless and I pulled over to savour nature at its best, when, listening to the crowing of rooks high in the treetops, I began to realise I had seen a similar view before. The water may not have looked so azure blue and the trees so profuse towards the water’s edge, but in its own way it was as beautiful. It was perhaps thirty years before when my Dad unlocked his mini bus and urged the youngest of us to get inside whilst he talked with the couple of older men out side. Grinning, they climbed into the front three seats, my dad taking the wheel, and after starting the engine he turned to address the men in a manner which he believed evoked the spirit of Henry the fifth before Agincourt. After giving a brief outline of the job we were going to, which I knew was to be at a power station, I was then surprised when he turned to Dave, who was the young apprentice and told him that he was in for a treat as we were working at the seaside. As I began to open my mouth to say that I knew the power station to be only about forty minutes away and that as we lived in the midlands at possibly the furthest point in the British isles from the sea this was impossible, I saw my Dad staring at me with his keep quite look. He then went on to say that as it was a long drive and we needed to get cracking when we arrived, that it would be a good idea if Dave had a little sleep on the way. From being quite sluggish after a night out with his mates though, Dave sat up, grinning like a kid on a school trip. Drives to work in the mini bus usually follow a similar pattern. Different to the drive home when there would be excited voices talking of football, girls and the night ahead, to work it would be crumbles about the weather and the traffic and any number of misfortunes to complain about and this day was no exception. After about half an hour, tired of listening to the conversation of the older men talking of cars I settled back in my seat and looked out of the window at the weak sun lighting up an autumn scene of trees halve shorn of their leaves and realised we were near the reservoir where many times as kids my parents used to take us for walks around the water’s edge and in and out of the woods. About to tell my Dad that I remembered those days, I was surprised when slowing down the hill that presented such a panoramic view of the reservoir, he braked before turning into the small car park that often used to have an ice cream van parked there, much to our delight. "Here we are then young Dave, the seaside." Dave, who had in fact been dozing, suddenly stood up with an incredulous look on his face. I found it almost unbelievable that in this day and age that a young guy like that had never seen the sea before. But as he got out with one of the biggest grins I had ever seen on somebody’s face and rush to the water’s edge with a look of wonder, I realised that there are still people who have perhaps never left the confines of their own towns and cities. Feeling a little sorry for him and thinking it was possibly a little cruel, I got out of the mini bus and started to walk after him. "Leave him," said my Dad. "I will tell him soon enough, let him enjoy being somewhere different." He never seemed to notice the grins and sniggering of the others as he climbed back in, or even that we were driving across a bridge to the other side of the ‘sea’. But later on when I saw my Dad take him aside and tell him that in fact it had not been the sea but a reservoir, I asked him if he didn’t mind.
"No" he said, "I ain’t seen one of them neither."

Dragonflies

I don't know what it is about rivers that make me feel a little thoughtful. If anyone tells me its because they are reflective I will throw something at them. No, maybe it's the way the water flows non stop like life itself, supporting a whole host of life forms as it makes its way to the sea. Sitting this afternoon on a small pebble beach after giving up trying to work in this heat, I was taken by the dragonflies in huge groups flitting over the surface of the water, landing on the smallest scraps of plant life, their only thoughts I suppose, procreation and food. A bit like Danny. After walking some way upstream in the shallows, I then hopped on to one of the large rubber rings I bought for the kids. With my hands and feet trailing in the cool water and my bum stuck in the middle so the water crept up to my chest, I floated silently back round the bend in the river towards where I left my towel and bag. A couple of vibrant blue dragonflies landed on my knee and through half closed eyes watched as other birds and fish came close, my motionless sprawl giving them confidence. Its funny when at times like these, with no other person in sight or sound, the trickling of the water the only background to the screeing call of the buzzards, where your mind takes you. Transported maybe thirty years, I thought of the rushing dark waters of the river Trent, and my brother and I, leaning against an old wall that divided the garden of a manor house we were working on in Nottinghamshire from the small lane that led to it. We were lime rendering the old outside walls, and as we finished an elevation in a day so as to have no joints, it meant a long day and it was about seven o'clock and we needed a break before the last push. The wall was only chest high, so we sat, chewing the fat about what we were going to do with our lives and sipping form a coke bottle whilst flicking stones into the river, when we heard the noise of a lorry roaring closer before pulling up nearby. Surprised that a lorry would even drive down this small lane off the beaten track, we decided that we didn't want our break interrupted by a lost driver asking for directions, so kept our heads down, certain he would ask at the manor. Both of us jumped though when a loud clattering sound followed by excitable voices and the crunching of boots on gravel made us more than curious. when the voices came so close that they were on the other side of the wall where we sat, I thought it time to take a peek. Standing up; I came face to face with a grinning miner, who with many of his colleagues was peeing up the wall. "Alright mate," he smiled before zipping up and turning towards the lorry. I stammered something which seemed to make many of the miners laugh as they made there way back, some with pick axe handles in their hands. These were the days of the miners strike, and I mused later on this group of men, who looked for all intents and purposes that they were on a jolly day out somewhere, mates together, instead of being embroiled in industrial strife.
Walking back home down the track, over shadowed with maize growing each side I noticed that the rubber ring started to deflate. Should I repair or replace it? Oh well, I have a few days to decide before the kids get here.

Martyn Walker is the author of Stopcock, available globally on Amazon