Pin The Blame On The Pony

After a particularly hard night's work, meticulously alphabetising my 7"s and whipping up a culinary triumph in the shape of a tangy orange fish dish, my thoughts turned to the wonders of New Forest life.

The office for the Post Office's sorting office in our beloved town is technically located in the next village, Blashford, which means a bit of a trek when the postyman fails to deliver the large mass of musical treats that tend to get ordered just after pay day. To my horror, I now discover that a proper pavement of gleaming tarmac has been laid all the way to the delightful industrial estate that houses all the lovely red Royal Mail vans.

I used to like to pretend that I was really in the countryside, passing by the profusion of dilapidated barns and rusting farm equipment, as I regularly schlepped down the crunchy mud pathway. Though the illusion was often shattered by the huge lorries thundering past on the adjacent main road to Salisbury.

Oh, the sights and the sounds, I did still get to walk down the rural-sounding Gravel Lane, although it's not so much gravel as ageing, pothole riddled concrete, and is currently cleft in twain by the sodding great A31 dual carriageway. On the way back, I heard the heart warming pop of a shotgun echoing from the next field, as a flock of birds fled over my head in squawky terror.

Ah, Ringwood: all the sweaty inconvenience of country living, with none of the pretty, Sunday afternoon on ITV bits.


Currently listening: Candylion by Gruff Rhys