Unheard in Ambridge

I used to hear so much about country folk wisdom, wise old saws, the unclouded view of the worm's eye, sage advice given with the background of living in the rural front line that we had quite expected to be overwhelmed with it when moving to it-is -hard-to-be- more-rural-than-this -Hutton. To some extent we were not disappointed.: one villager whom we shall call Jock was free with his history of the locality based on over 40 years living here; our milkman, based in Berwick, a .Geordie Borderer rather than a Scottish one was full of home spun wisdom but mostly with what he would like to do to the English cricket team (that was before last year's Ashes win, I hasten to add) But there was little specific country based philosophy with which I had hoped to spice up Musings from the Merse and put it in to unmistakably rural context. Of course there was a lot of unsolicited comment about Mud, Foot and Mouth, Slurry, Tractors, dangerous chemical sprays, other smells but invariably from temporary country folk, incomers or blow ins as they are called in Norn Iron. Like Us. But where was the wealth of experience gleaned from generations of living on the edge?. 'Red Sky at night-the bonfire's Alight'. That kind of thing.

The man in the brown coat in 'Joes', an obvious countryman working in an urban hardware store in Berwick has however restored my faltering faith in bucolic wisdom. Our outside tap used regularly to freeze in the Merse winter. As regularly thawed and inevitably burst leading to all kind of technical challenges involving the turning off of the mains water half way down Kirk Lane-and the summoning of assistance from Mr R's yard next door. 'You must lag it the pundits insisted and so we did buying and cutting into shape expensive lagging material designed for exterior piping several hundred feet long. We used a tiny part, lost it over the summer and then could not find the remaining 99 metres which we had flung out in August as it was getting in the way every time we took the mower out for a brisk walk. This winter the merry dance started again. I staggered over to the counter at 'Joes' burdened down with lagging stuff.'Whats that for? Asked our eager salesman. 'For Lagging' was my intelligent response. 'Yes but what? 'Our outside tap' 'You don't want that expensive lagging stuff for lagging that' he said, abandoning an easy sale and part of a Christmas bonus. 'What you want is an old tea towel and some discarded bubble wrap. Next please..'

We did. And I bet you have never heard that on the Archers  ¶ 5:55 PM