Incomers

          As newcomers to the area, the process of ‘fitting in’ is a work in progress that includes familiarising ourselves with the surrounding area. So, this week, we took a bracing circular walk from the village of Noss Mayo, up to the cliffs on the coast and back down to the village through woodland along the side of the creek, ending up at a pub for lunch. The route is a varied delight, especially when all the elements are perfect, as they were for us last week. The weather was bright and dry, our company of three was affable, the staff in the cute pub were friendly and the menu was appetising. We sat outside, overlooking the creek – dry because the tide was out – and the picturesque hodgepodge of houses on the other side, with the wooded hill rising steeply behind them.

          A woman dressed in a faux country outfit came out of the pub in search of a phone signal. She was a bit anxious and explained, in her conspicuously metropolitan accent, that she was expecting a delivery but could not contact the driver. “If you see a John Lewis van,” she said to us, “please let me know,” whereupon she went back inside and I made a snide comment about the gentrification of small villages by wealthy incomers and second-homers bent on uniform, off-the-shelf John Lewis makeovers, although I am aware that, but for the presence of these people, lunch might have been bread and cheese, rather than seafood linguine. Anyway, as to the acquisition of pretty rural residences by outsiders, it seems there is no way to stop a process that began when the first ‘local’ sold up and retired to the hinterlands with a substantial windfall.

          After a while, we spotted a van arriving on the other side of the creek but, since it bore no obvious logo, decided against alerting the lady Londoner. Still, she must have made contact, for she was soon seen lolloping over the causeway towards it. “It must be John Lewis. There she goes!” I said. But our amusement was cut short when a man sitting behind me, whom I had not previously noticed, turned and said, in a not-too-friendly tone, “She is my wife and that’s our new bed being delivered.” He left soon afterwards with their lunch in takeaway containers.

          Incomer-resentment reared its head again this week, closer to home. While out with my trusty litter-picker, I heard a hearty “Hellooo!” from a car that had pulled up behind me. I turned and saw the woman driver beaming at me as if she were an old friend. In fact, she was a stranger, but we soon established that we both belonged to the voluntary litter-picking group, Clean-our-Patch. She was, at first, doubtful of my credentials, since I was wielding not the standard-issue stick, but a nifty folding model that I had got from the internet and was trialling that day. “It’s nice and clean around here,” she said. “Well, I do come round most days,” I replied, beginning to suspect that she was an inspector. I wasn’t far off the mark. It turned out that she was an organiser, not locally, but of a group based in the distant suburb of Plympton. She explained that she was scouting for a suitable area for their Thursday mass clean-up outing. “The trouble is, there are 60 of us and we have picked our area clean. Do you know of anywhere around here that might benefit?” It didn’t take me long to direct her to the arse-end of a housing estate nearby that is considered by some of the locals to be a community waste disposal facility. That will teach her to come round here, interfering, I thought, uncharitably, as she drove off with a cheery wave, no doubt to convey the news back to Plympton that the inner city is in dire need of a Thursday clear-up.

          Every Thursday, preferably.