2 hours ago
1
I am sitting in my office shed, cut off from the house by a driving rain. The misery and boredom of the English winter is, I have to admit, beginning to get to me. I spent January talking about the days getting longer, and used up all my optimism.
For the last 10 minutes I’ve been scrolling through the website of my American home town newspaper, which is full of pictures of the recent snowfall – over a foot, with more predicted in the coming days. Extreme weather has a tendency to make me homesick – I hate to miss a hurricane.
Another local headline catches my eye, one I find difficult, at first glance, to believe.
“The town is about to get its first ever roundabout,” I say to the oldest one the next morning. “At the intersection of Wilson and Meadow Street.”
“You told me this yesterday,” he says. “You came running in.”
“My worlds are colliding,” I say. “I’m not sure I can handle it.”
The US, in the 30 years I’ve been away, has gone from being a country that knew nothing of roundabouts to one that cannot build them fast enough. In the paper, the town’s director of transport was quoted as saying, “I think it’s going to look great,” as if they were installing a new fountain.
My wife walks in.
“Are you coming on this dog walk?” she says.
I pull on my boots and my coat. In the car my wife suggests going somewhere new – a different park.
“There’s nowhere new round here,” I say. “We’ve been everywhere.”
“I found a country park I’ve never heard of,” she says. “It’s only about 7 miles away.”
My wife drives while I navigate. Traffic is heavy heading west, and conversation fitful.
“It’s near the ice rink,” I say. “Past where the old community college was.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” my wife says.
“The new roundabout,” I say.
Fifteen minutes later we find ourselves in a lonely car park with three other cars in it. The other cars all have people in them, just sitting there.
“This looks fun,” I say.
“It’s something different, anyway,” my wife says.
In a steady drizzle we follow a winding wooded path, with me staring at our current location on my phone, trying to orientate myself.
“What’s that way?” my wife says.
“The motorway,” I say.
“And what about that way?” she says, pointing south.
“The airport,” I say.
The dog tears through the trees and splashes along the bed of a shallow, rubbish-filled stream.
The path opens on to a meadow.
“So they got a foot yesterday,” I say, “and they’re expecting more.”
“Wow,” my wife says.
We make a large circuit of the open space, dodging vast puddles, until we end up back at the car park.
“There’s a church,” my wife says. “Do you want to see the church?”
“Why not?” I say. “We’re here.”
With the dog on a lead, we take a path through some trees until we come to a churchyard surrounding a chapel with a squat brick tower. A woman is scrubbing the front steps. She nods and smiles, and says it’s all right to take the dog in.
Inside it becomes clear the church is very old. A man is crouched in the corner, treating the damp where the wall meets the floor.
“What’s the history of this place?” my wife says.
“Well,” the man says, slowly getting up off his knees. “There’s been a church here since Saxon times.”
“Really?” my wife says.
He shows us the monuments, and points out the 14th-century wall painting above the altar. He sees me staring at a marble tomb tucked in the corner, with the carved effigy of a woman on top.
“That’s Anne Boleyn’s great-great niece,” he says.
“Huh,” I say. For a long time there is no sound, apart from the roar of cars on the M4.
“Well, that was weird,” I say when we’re back at the car.
“It’s good to do different things,” my wife says.
A left turn out of the car park takes us under the motorway, and on to a crowded roundabout.
“Guess what this reminds me of,” I say.
“Shut up about your stupid roundabout,” my wife says.
