ENGLAND – A SURVIVOR’S TALE

I’ve not blogged for a bit because I’m been busy surviving England.

Every time I pay a brief visit to the country which was my home for almost three decades, I find it to be a changed landscape – both in the physical and metaphorical sense – and not in a good way.

Having decided to make a road trip out of the necessity to visit England for my son’s wedding, we arrived into Portsmouth two weeks ago, and checked into an interweb booked pub in Chichester.

Instantly three questions flood my mind; why this pub? Why Chichester? And how the heck do you work the pay machine in the public car park which the pub – unenticingly named Trents by Greene King Inns – had advertised on Booking.com as private parking?

Chichester, it transpires, is one of those unfashionably, unquaint, unremarkable English towns which sounds more attractive than it is; perhaps the affix “chester” is sufficient to accord it a veneer of post-Roman sophistication. I chose Chichester because it boasts an Aston Martin franchise, and my car had just about completed the permitted fifty miles between mandatory services.

As for Trents by Greene King Inns, it had looked survivable and reasonably well located on the website; but it transpires that our room overlooks a bus stop on a busy street, is opposite a (closed) Greggs, a (closed) Pizza Express, a (closed) charity shop and one other shop which is permanently closed because no one wants it… not even as a charity shop.

‘Do you do food?’ I ask the barmaid. There’s probably a politically correct noun for a person who tends bars, but barmaid will do.

She looks at her watch in what I’d call a triumphal fashion, and tells me that the kitchen closes at eight, so we have ten minutes to order.

I ask what wines the hostelry might have to offer.

‘Well, we have three,’ she replies.

‘Don’t tell me,’ I interrupt. ‘Red, white and rose?’

‘That’s right. How do you know that?’

‘Ah… I just know things. And might you have more than one white wine?’

She has three, and I ask if I can have a look at the Spanish Sauvignon Blanc. She shows me the bottle, but doesn’t hand it to me.

‘I can’t give it to you,’ she says.

I raise an eyebrow.

‘Company policy.’

‘Ah, yes… in case someone – who would like to buy a glass of wine – might either hit you over the head with the bottle or perhaps even steal it?’

‘I don’t make the rules love,’ she replies, a tad unhostfully, and that ends the discourse.

I’m informed by her colleague there’s a reasonable restaurant (Côte) a hundred yards further up the high street. By now it’s raining heavily; our umbrella in in the car and a complementary brolly is one step too far in the way of hospitality for Trents by Greene King Inns.

One hour later, reasonably vitalled by Côte – but at a hefty expense – we return to the Trents by Greene King Inns to be told that if we want a last drink we have five minutes to order.

‘But it’s only five to ten,’ I plead. ‘And it’s a Wednesday.’

‘Company policy,’ counters the barmaid. ‘It’s dead here after ten, so we’re closing early’.

‘But surely closing at ten will only make it deader, won’t it?’ But her head is already in her phone; my question hanging around like a fart in a Ryanair toilet.

Ah, I think… so this is England, “Merrie England,” the land of Falstaff, Bulldog Drummond, Bertie Wooster, and other jocular, earthy characters with cloth-bare chests and deep throated laughs who liked to quaff ale, or sip port long into the night. No, the utopian conception of English society and culture based on an idyllic pastoral way of life is no longer to be found in this hostelry.

We have an early night.

Sometime the devil deals you the right cards.

*

But not at breakfast.

 Nowhere, for love nor money, is a poached egg to be found.

After a thirty-minute wait following the cereal course, we are informed by a peroxide-dyed crone who appears to have been trapped under a sunbed for several decades, that chef is having problems with the poached eggs.

‘Tesco’s love,’ she says, ‘You just can’t poach them eggs from Tesco’s.’

‘Perhaps chef might try to scramble them?’ I suggest, and this he does. But to show that he’s not been entirely defeated by the Tesco eggs, a couple of small albumen encased yellow bullets stand sentinel to the scrambled ones on my plate.

*

The following morning, we’re in Devon and we’re on the hunt for a late breakfast.

At my daughter’s suggestion, we try Greendale, which began life as a farm shop and now is a sort of IKEA version of what might be described as organically produced local… well, produce.

It has a decent restaurant, is renowned for a sturdy Devon breakfast, and the place is always packed.

Today is no exception, I note as we sweep in hoping for a table before chef magically forgets how to poach eggs and turns his attention to the pursuit of lunch.

I also note a large sign at the entrance which advises us to book early for Santa’s grotto, in order to avoid disappointment.

Fuck Santa, I think. And while we’re at it… fuck Christmas.

One of the very few positive things about the ageing process is that, with each passing year, there is one fewer Christmas which one needs to endure.

It’s the last week of September, for God’s sake. Marketing for this sort of activity should be banned until at least the end of November. And if Santa’s going to be in high demand, just open another grotto at the far end of the farm shop. The bloody place occupies acres of undevelopable farmland, and the little feckers will never notice a second Santa in any case.

One of the very few positive things about the ageing process is that, with each passing year, there is one fewer Christmas which one needs to endure.

I digress.

We’re greeted with the disappointing news from the stone-faced girl stationed at the restaurant entrance that a) breakfast is no longer an option, and b) that unless we have a booking, lunch is not an option either.

We have to settle for unremarkable fodder in an unremarkable garden centre full of raincoat-clad, Christmas card buying old ladies drinking watery tea.

*

A weak English late September sun shines on my son and his bride on Saturday. Had the wedding been the following day, the likelihood of the marquee, and all inside, being blown off the Salcombe Hill scout field would have been high.

Sunday dawns, and we awake to English weather at its worst.

There’s not much to do in Devon on a dreary late autumn day, so we drive around looking for farm shops or garden centres which will serve us food, and this takes most of the day. And in the evening, we seek out pubs wherein chef doesn’t turn everything off at six o’clock.

*

Tuesday arrives and we’re headed back to Portsmouth, dodging potholes, road kill and other sundry debris on unkempt country roads which would have left the Romans shaking their heads, had they been able to witness the decrepitude of their legacy.

So, what to make of England then?

It’s difficult not to conclude that it’s overpopulated, overpriced and everything is either broken, closed, or has the semblance of something that soon will be. And I’m talking about everything from the roads to the National Health Service, and to the time it takes to get anywhere. And for reasons I cannot comprehend, there’s a cultural acceptance that – for the most part – this is okay. One ineffectual government replaces another, NHS waiting lists grow, you’re lucky if you can find a hotel that isn’t given over to the housing of illegal immigrants-slash-asylum seekers, one pot hole grows into another, and public houses close because – now that the Eastern Europeans have returned to their (more prosperous) homelands – staff are unwilling to work past ten o’clock.

I love visiting England because I have good friends and family who I love to spend time with as often as possible – particularly, Ken and Barbie (not their real names) whose hospitality is always much appreciated. I love the Devon countryside – yes, even in the rain – and I love the quaintness of the place. But I certainly could not live there again.

And here’s the reason why.

One evening we were in a small but friendly pub in East Budleigh – heck, I’ll even give it a namecheck… The Dog & Donkey. I was laboriously trying to explain to my Polish wife why the pub was called “The Dog & Donkey,” rather than “The Dog and The Donkey,” when we accidentally got into conversation with an elderly couple on the table next to us (extraneous information I know, as everyone is old in Budleigh). Not long into the conversation the lady commented on my wife’s accent.

‘You’re not from around here, are you?’

The news that she is Polish was greeted with raised eyebrows and a further question.

‘Where are you working, love?’

And while the question was fairly innocent, it was laced with unmistakable lacquer of suspicion, because there’s an assumption that all Eastern Europeans – even post Brexit – either pick fruit, empty bedpans or wipe old people’s arses for a living. We know this from a Czech friend of ours; a lady who is married to a successful local businessman, and the postulation that she is an economic migrant – albeit the kind that works for the minimum wage – she considers to be highly offensive, as would I. And this is the reason I would place at the head of a list of reasons why I would never live in England again.

Chic@s, I’d better sign off now. It’s almost ten and it’s time for dinner. But I’ve plenty of time for una cerveza or dos, because the Moët doesn’t close it’s doors at five past ten and Pablo never turns the fryer off before midnight.

Hasta pronto amig@s!