Making connections

When you first move somewhere new everything is strange. You feel like you're walking down other people's streets, shopping in other people's shops, sending your kids to other people's schools. Then, gradually, some of the many strange things around you start to join up with each other and this somehow gives them the illusion of familiarity.

Last night we went to QE lower school (the maturing ruin up on the hill) to see the massed local primary school choirs in action. Our nine-year-old daughter was in there somewhere. Anyway, the conductor and composer of the evening's main event was Elfyn Jones. I had already met Elfyn at the Arts Centre where I have persistently gate-crashed the Measure for Measure workshops on the off chance that someone might recognise me or at least make an attempt to include me. Elfyn is the production's musical director - a gentle, talented, neatly-proportioned chap who taught us all to sing and to inject an assortment of metal items with rhythm. So Elfyn has become one of my tenuous reference points. Yesterday morning - to my great surprise - I bumped into him in a corridor at work. He looked at me blankly. "You don't remember me out of context, do you?" I suggested. When I described the relevant context he looked like he felt he ought to remember me. That's a good start, I thought. And then I saw him again that evening at QE. I begin to feel as if people who know Elfyn must know me.

Anyway, the concert. Fabulous. And witnessed by a throbbing mass of delighted parenthood. It was all cheerfully compered by a Rotarian who rejoiced in a bow-tie and shiny waist-coat. To raise some funds, raffle-tickets were sold on the door and I splashed out on 30 tickets. Can't lose, I thought smugly. The raffle draw came towards the end of the evening and there turned out to be numerous prizes: a bar of soap, an insulated flask, a plastic duck, and so on. At first I was outraged that I wasn't winning but soon I began to feel relieved. "And the last prize," the Rotarian announced, "is the best: a one-and-a-half hour full body massage. And it goes to pink ticket 206." I'd won! I proudly waved my ticket above the assembled masses and waited for the delivery of my prize. Eventually I spotted a grey-haired gent making his way towards me, wriggling through the crowds. "Oh, oh," I thought, "Here comes the masseur." I began to take off my clothes - cautiously.

The first four months

I moved to Crediton with my wife and two of our children on Nov 10th 2006. Our oldest three children had to be cut loose to continue their 'education' at various SW universities.

Moving was a shock for all of us. At the beginning of May 2006 I would have predicted that I would still be living in the Bristol house we had inhabited for 25 years until the moment they carried me out feet first in my burn box. Then I whimsically applied for a new job in Devon and - to our collective shock - got it. Crediton was the best we could find in the short time-scale available.

One reason why moving was a shock was that we had lived all our lives in big cities - latterly in Bristol where IKEA was our corner shop, but we were both brought up in South London. Life in a small town was going to be a complete unknown for all four of us. The first thing that struck us was how windy and wet Devon was, and having a house that was as leaky as a harmonica meant that a sort of weird Stockhausen-style symphony was coming through the doors and windows every day. When the wind died down, it was just quiet - very quiet. It wasn't that our old neighbourhood in Bristol was wildly noisy all the time, but any of a variety of background noises were pretty much omnipresent: the chattering of the hovering police helicopters; the shrieking of domestic arguments; the thump-whoomp of the bass from passing tinted window cars; and behind everything was the constant swish of traffic on its way in and out of the city centre along the M32. Crediton was quiet - except for the wind, and the birds, which we didn't have in Bristol.

So how have the first four months gone? In a blur really. We've tried to adjust to our new neighbourhood: we've used the local shops. Isn't Adams fab? We've religiously visited the monthly farmers market and paid their double prices with a cheerful grin. We've developed a preference for the Trawlers Catch over the chip shop opposite. We've gone on the walks around Shobrooke Park and down to Sandford. I've got a bit involved with the Arts Centre. We're becoming part of the place, slowly and unsurely, but we are getting there.

If I ever continue this blog I'll tell you how we get on in this interesting project of transplanting from big city to small town.