Moving Out
I’m not going on a trip this winter.
It’s not enough to go away for a few weeks, not even if you seek refuge on an island retreat, wishing you’d never have to go back even as each day passes.
It’s not enough to go away—only to have to come back.
I have to get out of Shitville before I’m going stir-crazy. It’s not the country (although I’ll trade the UK with Australia any day), it’s the location.
John is committed to supervise several PhDs which means another three years on the job. It also means that the company where he works is full of bright young people, but none of them actually live here.
Tadley was never more than a temporary abode. In the three years that we have stayed, I feel that I have aged twenty.
The village had its charms. At least until the smoking ban came in. But the ban means that you can no longer choose your company. We all have to share the same campfire—a wood-burning stove in the pub courtyard—and it turns out that the people gathering there are not of my tribe.
There is only one topic of conversation. No matter that you’re talking to someone else at the time, sooner or later someone will bellow drunkenly, “Where’re you’re from?“.
After I’ve pointed it out to them a dozen times or so, a few actually remember where I am from and chances are they proceed to babble German at me or (worse), start going on about the war.
That’s how I saw in the New Year at the New Inn: barely two minutes past midnight—the clinking of glasses still ringing in the sulphur-laced air—some bloke in his fifties started mouthing off at me, nearly picking a fight with John in the process. Happy New Year indeed.
I’ve had enough. And it isn’t as if the topic was finished with that. Once it has entered their alcohol-addled brains that, yes really, I moved all the way from Germany to Tadley (if not by choice), the conversation turns to—immigrants. And I can assure you that within two sentences of mentioning the ‘Polish’, they will go on about ‘the blacks’ (not that the majority of ‘blacks’ in the UK are first-gen immigrants, but how on Earth would your average village-idiot know about that), unless of course there is a ‘black’ present, in which case they all clam up. Not that the latter happens often—Tadley, chav capital of Middle-Engerland, is 90% tabloid-reading moron and 99% white—but it happened once or twice, so I know.
The New Inn, you understand, is the town’s social hub. Aside from that, we have a shop across the road which sells ground white pepper and rancid Anchor butter, as if we were indeed still in the post-war years and—despite the pictures displayed in the windows—has never played witness to a fresh roll or loaf of bread (I’ve bought a bread machine, but I don’t much like the texture of machine-bread. What I need is a decent dough hook and a gas-fired oven).
You might get the gist by now: Tadley has no vibe, no flavour, and no colour. And getting away for two weeks or three months isn’t going to change that.
We have to get the hell out of here.
I’m almost dizzy with the thought of moving to Reading. Having a vegetable market, a Halal butcher and a Polish deli within walking distance (hey, it’s great to have no religion!), restaurants with jobs on offer (I’m pretty sure I’d have gone back to the kitchen if it had been feasible), shops, music, people, a university, a theatre, being able to take the last train out of London…
And how many times have I said no to people inviting us to dinner or a night out (“sorry, no bus after 17:40”)? They’ve stopped calling, but now we can start all over again.
It means a half-hour commute for John. But he’ll be living close to the university and close to London. There will be many more opportunities for collaboration.
It means four extra hours of car travel a week (adjusted for current shopping expeditions), but I’m not going to move to a cabin in the woods in order to go carbon-neutral, and I’m sure that Al Gore—with his mansion and his jet-setting lifestyle—would wholeheartedly agree. To heck with the environment.
I’m off to chase up estate agents. When we move, I want a big skip to throw away all my old stuff until all that I’ve left are a few cases, my kitchen stuff my backpack and my yet-to-arrive UMPC. That’s right: throw it all away, including the dirty old box with the wobbly USB on which I’m typing this (if you wonder why I’m not uploading any photos to Flickr at the moment, there’s your answer). I want space, wireless internet, and at least one cat.
And the best part is: since our landlord has scrimped on the insurance and left the house in this state, we don’t need to give any notice.
We’re outa here! Soon.
Tags: En-ger-land, Racism, Tadley, Tadley Times, Tag Index
Denni
July 15th, 2008 at 22:57
i grew up in tadley, you sum it up well. no vibe, no flavour, no colour. i hope you’ve managed to escape
July 25th, 2008 at 15:24
Ha, ha—I hope you did too!
Alas, we’re still here. the slump in house prices means that rents in Reading have increased steeply and even if we offer to pay top rates, we’re still always too late.
Never mind, perhaps I’ll go to Trinidad and Tobago for the winter 😉