Rural Angst

Being in Devon puts me in a funk, and by that I don't mean a genial sense of rhythm and mild inclination to boogie. I mean a fug, a rut, a state of unmotivated living death. In short, it's quite a lot like being a teenager again.

(Editorial note: I quite wanted to write "fug, rut, fugue", but I'm pretty sure that last one is a technical term from the world of classical music, so I steered clear. It does have a nice leaden sound, though, doesn't it?)

By and large, I avoid contact with the animals here. That leaves isolation as the chief salient feature of life and that, I think, explains the prevalence of binge-drinking in rural parts. Young people here are preoccupied with escape, and see each other relatively rarely, so any social event has to be a major party. It actually wasn't until I went to university that I realised that I much prefer social events where I can consciously choose where to sleep, as opposed to falling into a giggling, dribbling heap.

This week, though, I'm alone in the house as the rest of the family scatter to colleges or holidays. As such, I'm now the steward of a few dozen much-loved fluffy witless cheeping creatures, a good number of slinking athletic shapes and some baying bounding mouths, bred through history to break the necks and carry the limp bodies of fluffy cheeping creatures.

To me, farm life is life whose accoutrements are filth, fear and inexorable decline. This is what I mean by a disinclination to boogie.

On the bright side, I'll be in Bristol this time next week.

Bearing that in mind, I decided to take a bit of R&R with a walk from Sticklepath to Okehampton. This takes about an hour and I like it because you can get a taste of Dartmoor if you want, but there's also enough cutting across carparks to make you feel like you're defying social convention- always a sensation to relish.

Plus, in Okehampton I managed to rent the Best of REM CD- which (this being REM) has three new tracks on it. Things are looking up.

Song in my head: "All the Right Friends" by REM