Christmas and Boxing Day were over and the next day was a bank holiday because Christmas had been on a Sunday, which cheated people of that extra day off work. Wendy and Sue, feeling worse than poorly, could finally collapse. I had wondered since I first sat in their surround-sound coughing,  why was I not sick?

I left them languishing in bed (except for feeding the cats, running the continual laundry and I was suspicious that Wendy was actually doing some work) and went for a walk to Baltonsborough. All through the pandemic, Wendy and Sue told me about their walks to Baltonsborough (adding the annoying tally of how many miles they had walked.) I wanted to know what they were talking about.

I set off down the narrow road. The wind was blowing but it wasn’t cold; the sun was visible but weak. Few cars forced me off onto the mucky shoulder. Most of the drivers waved—either a thank you or an “I noticed you and refrained from running you down.”

Seeing a church ahead, I verged onto a footpath that followed a little offshoot of the River Brue, thinking I would be okay if I kept the church in my sights. Something I often found myself saying at the entrance to a footpath was, “I wonder how much trouble I will get into if I go that way.”

The Baltonsborough parish church doesn’t have a cross atop it; instead there’s a rooster and a British flag. I pushed the heavy door and went inside where it behaved like most parish churches: dark, smelling of damp and age and with a few piles of leaflets about church activities. No pump organ on which to play “Roll Out the Barrel,” really nothing to keep me so I turned to leave.

I couldn’t get the door open. I pulled and wrenched and finally banged on the door. Oh god. It was Tuesday. They were going to find me on Sunday, mildewed and eating the leaflets. I took a deep breath and assessed the foreign looking bolts and knobs. I leaned hard on the thick door and was able to get the latch up and burst out into the clean air.

In a Panto, the audience would be yelling, “Don’t go in the church!”

I wandered around Baltonsborough. It’s about the size of Butleigh—about 800 people—but with no village shop. I took a few footpaths trying to stay oriented to the main road. I was getting tired. It had been two miles to Baltonsborough plus all my wandering around. Clouds were coming in and I felt a few drops of rain. I turned toward home.

Before too long I came to a three-way intersection that did not look familiar. One of those maddening ones: no signs and high hedgerows all around. I couldn’t see the church. I wasn’t even sure I was going to right direction. The weak sun had disappeared and it was cold. Wind was blowing rain into my face.

I have learned that when an American behaves the way no British person ever would, no one seems surprised. So I took a poll: I asked all 800 people in Baltonsborough how to get back on the road to Butleigh. I knocked on a door, I flagged down a car, I flagged down a bicyclist, I asked a woman who was pruning her hedge. They all told me much the same thing: Go to the top of the road and take that first left, then go right and right again, then left. You’ll get to a triangle called Moor House or maybe it’s Moor Farm, the woman who lives there keeps herself to herself. There’s a signpost that will point to Butleigh, just stay on that road.

How could it be this complicated? I walked straight from Butleigh to Baltonsborough on one road. Here was the answer to my question, “How much trouble could I get into if I took this path?”

I was soaked when I got home.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

Yes, and my five and a half miles gave me license to eat a huge piece of my Christmas cake.

John, the neighbor from next door came for his voice lesson. He didn’t think he could sing. It turned out that he was trying to sing things in keys that his voice range couldn’t accommodate.

“That was the key on the internet.”

“It’s not the best key for you.”

“It said to use a capo.”

“Well, don’t.”

Later I fussed over Wendy and made her scrambled eggs and toast. Sue got up to watch The Lost King about how Richard III’s bones were found under a parking lot in Leicester, a thrilling (to me) story.

The next morning, Wendy got a nurse appointment. Here’s what they have to go through because the NHS is in as much trouble as the American medical establishment: You begin calling at 8:00 when the office opens. You get in the queue, which by 8:05 is 37 people. You get cut off. You keep calling. If you’re lucky by noon you’ve got an appointment for some time that day with a nurse. If you bully, you might get a doctor. Wendy got lucky.

I took the bus into Street for a wander around the shops. I had discovered that a lot of DVDs in the U.K. had Swedish subtitles so I was on the hunt for shows I liked. I bought To Kill a Mockingbird.

“Where’d you get that?” Sue asked

“British Heart Association, I think.”

“I just took that in. I would have given it to you!”

In the chemists I asked about kinesio tape. I had yanked a tendon in my leg in November and that walk to Baltonsborough had caused it to kick up again. The shop assistant showed me where the tape was but said she didn’t know how it was used. I had taped myself up with the last piece I had brought from home and asked her if she wanted to see how I used it.

I zipped down my boot and pulled down my sock and showed her the tape snaking around my ankle. I struggled to get the boot zipped back up because I had broken the zipper pull. (I broke three different zipper pulls on this trip; It was a wonder I managed to stay dressed.)

The shop assistant continued to stand next to me. “It takes me a while to get this back up,” I said by way of releasing her.

Her feet didn’t move.

“You don’t have to watch.”

Her feet turned ever so slightly toward the front of the shop.

“Unless you want to,” I added, yanking on the zipper.

She turned back.

“It must be awfully boring for you.”

Finally she went back to her line of customers. Was this a possible entry for Very British Problems?

After asking directions from everyone on the south side of the High Street, including all the shops, I found my way to Arthur’s Court to visit Pam. Pam, if you don’t remember from a previous post, is Wendy’s mother. She had a stroke a few years back and can no longer speak understandable words. She was in the lounge with other residents and we enjoyed a lop-sided conversation about nothing.

Of all the wonderful experiences I had had so far, one of the most thrilling was to happen that evening.

Stay tuned.