GIFFORD MORNING

I drove into dreamy Gifford early on 1 June 2012, a Friday.  I had to get away from the claustrophobia of the house and out into the fresh air, to smell the musky sweetness of the honeysuckle and hear the prattling of the exuberant chaffinch.  The rain had stopped, but a sheet of low cloud covered the sun.  The air felt chilly and damp. 

I parked in the row of limes that dominates the village green.  An old man was practicing his golf swing on the grass, watched by his dog.  The dog looked bored.  I strolled into the village, hands clasped behind my back.  A solitary painter was up a ladder, painting the windows of a cottage on the main street.  Outside the dishevelled vehicle repair garage, a car stood sideways against the kerb.  One wheel had caved in completely.  The car's suspension had collapsed on that side.

I went to smell the wallflowers on a strip of land at the junction of the Haddington and Duns roads.   On the wall was a plaque dedicated to some 18th century village clergyman who had signed the American Declaration of Independence, next to one relating to an MP who had represented the constituency in the 1960s and 70s. The busts of both men were carved into the bronze.  The cleric was portly, and wore a periwig, whilst the MP had wavy hair and sported a collar and tie.  

I walked into the graveyard of the prim white church.  I examined the grave of the 10th Marquis of Tweeddale, who is buried there with other members of his family.  His tomb was large, but plain.  I looked at some of the newer graves, and I was moved by the early deaths of some of those sleeping there.

I wandered up to where the old school had been.  It had lain empty for years, but some builders were repairing the boundary walls.  All of the outbuildings had been demolished.  I crossed the road, and followed a footpath that bordered a field of oilseed rape, its cloying smell attacking my nasal cavities as I strolled through. I turned left and headed back into the village.  A middle-aged woman limped out of her cottage and unlocked her car, only yards from the painter.  An old man in a lumberjack hat pulled an unwilling terrier on its lead. A huge lorry roared through the village, the noise of its engine grating, dysfunctional, unwelcome. 

I walked across a tiny bridge, over a stream swollen by the recent rains, and headed for the bowling green and the site of the old railway station, now a smart housing estate. The greenkeeper was mowing the grass of the bowling green.  Builders were completing an annexe to the pavilion.  Of bowlers, there was no sign.  I headed back into the village by way of a crescent of modern bungalows with flat roofs, these dwellings almost hidden away amongst the extravagantly sprouting spring vegetation. 

I returned to my car.  My walk had taken me an hour and I felt that it had achieved its purpose - my spirits had been lifted and I felt once more caspable of engaging with the day-to-day tedium generally accorded to the semi-retired.

GARVALD JUBILEE

They had erected a plain white gazebo in front of the east church.  A line of Union Jack flags hung from the apparatus, sagging slightly in the middle - a brave amateur attempt.  This was Diamond jubilee Monday in Garvald.  I parked my car next to an ambulance in the parking bay.  The ambulance had the legend 'transfer vehicle' on its side.  The morning was sunny, but cold for June.  There was no-one about.  I walked over the playing-field to the footpath near the stream. This stretch of water was bubbling away merrily, like a pan on an open stove.  Someone had piled up a load of old pallets in one corner, and these had formed a skateboard park. The dark, brooding forest occupied the opposite bank.  It dominates the pretty village, giving it an air of foreboding, especially on dank, chill mornings.  There was no foreboding this morning.  The firs and pines merely stood gravely to attention, watching over the village.

Garvald comprises mainly of a single street occupied by various cottages and bungalows, strung out in a pleasing higgledy-piggledy fashion like a line of swallows on a telegraph wire.  The gardens back onto the cottages on the south side of the main street, and these wend their way lackadaisically down to the footpath upon which I was walking.  They were full of blossom from clematis, broom and weigela. In the sunlight, it was hard to conjure up a more attractive sight. 

I crossed the main road and passed a weary old Land-Rover, complete with as many scars as a veteran of the Boer War, and made for the western churchyard. It is a pleasing sight.  The graveyard isn't level.  It meanders up and down like a Dunlopillo mattress, the graves seemingly having been dropped from the sky completely at random.  The west church is a modest but delightful affair, not much bigger than a modern detached house, but entirely in keeping with the charm of the village.

I looked at some of the headstones.  Most of the graves contained the remains of farmers and foresters, the majority of whom were interred in the nineteenth century. Common names were Dods, Hogg and Foggo, which might have been a firm of ancient solicitors.

I made my way back to the church.  Two men had appeared from their houses and were deep in converstaion outside of the Garvald Inn.  One was short and bald, the other white-haired and portly.   The latter wore a blue and white striped shirt that gave him the appearance of a yachtsman who spent rather too much time in the bar of the sailing club than out at sea.

"You'd better blow your back tyres up," the sailor said.

"I was just about to do that," replied the other.   I noticed the bonnet of his car was propped open, and a container of water stood on the ground beside the car.  He was plainly going to do more than just check his tyres. 

Nowhere in the village did I get a sense of the Great Day.  There was no urgency, no-one scurrying about with jugs, dishes, bunting, or folding chairs.  Garvald seemed almost unaware of the occasion.  I returned to the east church and looked at the community notice board.  Amongst the advertisements for Zumba classes, gutter repairs and the minutes of the last community council meeting, was a printed notice which welcomed residents to a 'Diamond Jubilee lunch' which would be held in that self-same gazebo.  The cost was a reasonable five pounds, the food to be provided by the Garvald Inn.  There was a reminder that one had to bring one's own drink. After the meal, there was to be a tug-of-war, and then a service in praise of the monarch, finally, some sort of parade around the village.  I was thankful that fancy dress was not required.

I had spent a pleasant early morning hour wandering at will around the village, but real life once again intervened and with some regret that I wouldn't be around to partake of lunch, if not the tug-of-war or, heaven forfend, the parade, I climbed back into my car and drifted away.

SUPERFICIAL SURPRISE

'Come here, Jude, and you, Charlie.  No you can’t go to the park, it’s too wet.’
I had stumbled on a middle-class, horse-loving, bridge-playing mother and toddler group. That was enough to raise my hackles for a good half-hour.  I had fetched up in Stenton for some peace and quiet, and Jude and Charlie’s mother certainly wasn’t quiet.  Luckily, the group was breaking up and the mothers were all driving away in their very expensive four-wheel-drive vehicles. 
Despite this being early June, this was as gloomy a day as any in November. A great sponge of cloud hung dangerously over my head, threatening at any minute to disgorge its contents down the back of my neck.  I had no umbrella, no raincoat, no external protection of any sort. At least it was quite mild. 
I looked around the churchyard.  A builder was pointing the exterior wall to keep the occupants of the graves safe from cattle and sheep. 
Some of the graves were very old indeed.  I was moved by one little urn which read ‘Maisie Day, died 1945, aged 3 years 6 months’. Someone, a relative perhaps, had placed a couple of fresh flowers in the urn – one, a pink carnation, was broken and leaning at  a crazy angle. I wondered who had done this, for the girl’s mother must be about 90 and be long dead herself – perhaps a sister still had fond memories of the little girl who died so tragically all those years ago.  For poor little Maisie Day, there was no gravestone, just a tiny urn with a couple of desultory flowers sticking out of it to remember her by. 
The tower of the original sixteenth-century church was turned into a doocot in the 19^th century, when the new miniature gothic church was built, so that the villagers could have fresh meat through the winter.  Not for the first time, I felt revulsion at the thought of people eating dirty, scrofulous, stupid pigeons. 
Yards of bunting and several Union flags fluttered bravely in the rain-laden breeze, put up for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, now ended.  I wondered who had the responsibility of taking them down.  I presumed it to be the community council, the minutes of whose last meeting were displayed in the communal notice-board on the western green.  I read them, and they were full of the typical fussy and absolutely inconsequential nonsense that occurs whenever a caucus of people forms a committee to deal with anything.
The community notice-board is located near the Tron, where the farmers used to meet, buy and sell sheep, and trade in wool 150 years ago.  The ancient scales for weighing the sheep and the wool still stand in their original position, looking for all the world like a gibbet for midgets. Nowadays, the village is presumably populated by posh rich people playing at being country gentlefolk and engaging in mother and toddler groups. They have managed to persuade the Council to build them a Rolls-Royce of a playground for very few children, whilst the tarmac tennis courts in Haddington resemble a ‘C’ road in Albania. 
For once, in leaving a quiet, picturesque little village adorned with a bucketload of flowers and awash with the sweet scents of honeysuckle and wallflower, I was quite cross.