Country Girl?

My husband yearns to live in the countryside. He longs to look out of the window and see green fields, babbling brooks, happy tweeting birds and busy bees merrily bobbing from one burgeoning flower to another. Now, I have nothing against the countryside, per se, but I have considerably more problems with the countryside than my husband. In theory for me the countryside sounds idyllic, the smell of fresh grass and corn fields blowing gently in the breeze; the problem is that a) I have raging OCD and b) I’m ultimately a City Girl.

My husband grew up in a house which is both beautiful and in the middle of nowhere, with nearby farms with sheep and cows and horses and little woods in which to adventure. It’s a great place for kids to grow up and I’m not surprised my mother-in-law and father-in-law chose to live and bring up their kids in such perfect surroundings. I, on the other hand, grew up on a council estate in the North East of England, surrounded by industry, grey buildings and graffitied back alleys. As children, if we congregated on the only green patches on the estate to play football or just hang out we invariably terrified the locals, were complained at or had people come over and say ‘I know where you live, I’m going to tell your Mum you’re misbehaving!’ and so as we entered the 1990’s we developed a sort of pavlovian reaction to grass and greenery – it meant one thing, that we were probably going to get complained at. Even my childhood beach experiences involved frolicking in the sand and sea only to look over at the factories and chemical works on the other side of the coast. At one point we used to go to the field at the back of the secondary school we went to and play in the sandpit for the long jump! Even the local park was next to a railway and the fear of the passing trains was pretty intense for me. Also, there was the whole ‘stranger danger’ thing going on at the time so each time we went to the park it was in large groups and inevitably if any adults walked towards the park we would all flee, whooping and screaming. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad place to live, it just could have had a bit more countryside. As my OCD developed as a child I became terrified of certain plants and trees for fear of poisoning and every dog I saw I was terrified would give me rabies. Therefore the countryside became something to fear and shy away from.

So you see my childhood experiences differ somewhat from those of my husband. The countryside leaves him feeling refreshed and relaxed. For me it’s just a catastrophe of toxic plants, bitey insects and scary farming machinery.

I’ve always been used to densely populated areas, as I’ve explained before I lived 19 years in the North East of England and 15 so far in Scotland. When I first came to Edinburgh I was astonished at how big everything was compared to where I lived before. The houses, shops and buildings seemed gigantic and I was surprised at the size of everything. I never really adventured into Edinburgh’s grassy areas until a few years ago. You see, I’m very much a city girl; I can’t cope without knowing there is a shop nearby or a supermarket within 5 miles of where I am staying. Every day I look out of the window to see other tenement flats and I’m sort of fine with that. I like to know that I can buy make up nearby, even if I don’t wear it at the moment. I like to know that there is a good restaurant or take away nearby. I also can’t drive so I like to know there is a good bus service or train station wherever I am. Essentially, when it comes to where to live or go on holiday, I’m a complete pain in the bottom.

Whenever I stay in the countryside, it is eerily silent outside and I inescapably find it almost impossible to sleep. Mainly because I’m used to lots of noise – I’m used to squawking seagulls, delivery vans, drunks shouting in the streets, dance music filtering through the air, the laughter of our neighbours and other multifarious cacophonies. This is what I’m used to and so faced with total silence my brain can’t handle it and therefore continues to witter on to no one in particular all night and so all I get is a string of intrusive thoughts and tinnitus which for peaceful sleep does not make.

There are a lot of downsides to living in the city obviously; the aforementioned noise, it can be a little expensive as is demonstrated in my Dad’s face every time he comes to visit and claims he has to take out a mortgage to buy a meal (he is prone to exaggeration on this matter of course), it seems a little more polluted than the countryside, it’s noisy (I realise that I’ve said this twice but I feel that it needs further emphasis). However, you just don’t seem to get 24 hour shops in the countryside and whilst I rarely need anything at 2am, it’s always nice to know that I could if I wanted to.

I have never been camping and the idea terrifies me. The closest I have ever come to camping was falling asleep in a sun tent thingy that my Nanna had when I was a child – and that was pitched in her back garden...and it was during the day. I think it would be fantastic if I had the guts to go camping but I just don’t. I don’t like the idea that I would have nowhere to wash my hands or go to the loo. I would be terrified that every touch of a plant would lead to my demise. I would be worried that I’d be savaged by a hedgehog in the night. Anxious that any camp fire I had would cause a raging forest fire for which I would be responsible.

My husband hankers after a barge; he loves boats of all kinds. Now, I’ve been to the canal and I know that the water is not very deep but I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep in anything floating in water – no matter how shallow. It took quite a lot to even get me on a boat but eventually I managed to actually feel comfortable enough on a boat that I don’t freak out every 5 minutes and think I’m going to fall over the side (Although on my last boat ride I had such bad vertigo that I almost did fall over the side!). I even got married on a small island forcing me to get on a boat – despite not being able to drive I was permitted to take the wheel for a while, sailing a boat wearing a wedding dress and veil is fun but no easy feat :)

As I get older I find nature more and more fascinating and this had led to me venturing into some of the greener areas of Edinburgh to spot wildlife. For years I didn’t realise what a rich variety of wildlife we have in Edinburgh alone. The first time I saw a heron I was in awe of this vast stealthy bird, creeping through the water searching for a fishy treat. In the past few years, when I have been able to get out and about, I have spent long periods of time, standing silently with my camera, taking photos of wildlife and I love it. I love the feeling that I have just seen an animal or bird that I previously hadn’t. I have learned that not every brown bird is a sparrow, that robins are territorial and fight with other robins when nearby, that some geese eat grass, that there seem to be bunny rabbits everywhere! Things i just wouldn’t have really paid much attention to before. My most recent find is a group of Eider ducks – I’d never seen an Eider duck before and on hearing their ‘ooooooh!!’ call I was instantly smitten and they are now to be known in my head as ‘The oooooh birds’.

I always used to think that most people probably don’t really change a great deal over the course of their lives, it seems like once you get to a certain stage where your personality is shaped then that is how you’ll be. I never expected to make the transition between rambunctious twenty year old and domesticated thirty year old but lo and behold it appears to have happened while I wasn’t looking. Maybe there is room in my life for the countryside after all. While out on a nature walk a few weeks ago I turned to my husband and said humorously I thought “This is your fault!”. He looked at me understandably puzzled and I continued “I never used to be like this before I met you; you’ve made me really into nature and domesticity! And it’s weird!”. The thing is, it’s not weird, not really and it’s not his fault. I have spent my whole life trying to work out where I fit in the world, what I like, what I want to be and it turns out that all I had to do was buy a camera and find the nearest canal, pond or nature park to find something I truly and thoroughly enjoy doing.

I don’t think photography is something I could ever do as a job and I’m not great at it but I adore it. After a day taking photos I can’t wait to go home and look at them. Perhaps when my OCD and vertigo have eased I may get to other parts of the country to spot other wildlife. I may always be a city girl at heart but perhaps there is a little room for the country girl at weekends :)