The drive to work normally took Derek 30 minutes, 25 minutes
on a good day. Sometimes snow blocked
the lanes and he couldn’t leave the cottage for days, so he worked at
home. He liked quoting for insurance
cover whilst wearing pyjamas on those days.
He kept promising himself a quilted purple smoking jacket to complete
the look, but never found quite what he had in mind.
His journey to Derby city took him past miles of waterways
whose levels rose and fell during the seasons, but that seemed a little lower
overall each year. Over stony bridges
that relied on a give-and-take system, increasingly fragile as younger
commuters, less willing to give way, became more a feature in village life.
Derek dreaded cow season.
In the winter, cows were kept close to the barns and short daylight
hours meant fewer moves were possible.
Farmers were well known for moving their stock from field to field, and
over time a gentle truce had been achieved.
Farmers waited until after morning commute to move the beasts and local
drivers waited patiently for a herd at other times in return.
The Audi A3 and BMW X5 drivers didn’t want to wait patiently
for a herd of cows. They didn’t want a
hold up at all on their way to the office and the Rotary Club lunch and the
golf course. So they sat and honked and
beeped horns and scared the cows. And
the farmers got angry.
So now there was a warlike situation in the back lanes of
Derby. Farmers took their cows to fields
across the lanes whenever they felt like and they usually felt like it about
8am. Derek mostly took over an hour to
get to work, leaving early every day to try and avoid the cows. Locals still waited with relative good grace
and some thought the farmers moved cows a little quicker if there wasn’t any
beeping and honking to be heard.
Derek spent his lunchtimes Googling quilted smoking jackets
and wondered if maybe green would do instead.
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