Chapter Three (early draft)

As George made her way down toward the end of the lower garden which looked positively Arthurian, all magically overgrown and verdant, she took a moment to look back up at the cottage set back on the hill. It looked so pretty with the sun shining on the golden limestone. She had rarely felt more enchanted with anything than this newly acquired secret sanctuary of theirs. It was almost as if the dream of Eden had been made a reality. Returning to nature, like Eve in the heavenly garden, seemed a most appropriate anaology to George somehow, though Dan, with his propensity for egomania, was more God than Adam. Of course, they'd worked hard to afford the considerable asking price for this earthly paradise. But it was worth it.

Without question it was the symbol of a new life free from the dirty, polluted city.

Disappearing into the leafy woods as if entering a timeless portal, she felt an ancient sense of existing outside of time itself. As long as she remained in this sacred place, she would be eternal. Wasn't that how we everyone felt as kids she thought to herself, free from the burden of minutes and hours. And this, surely, was the essential reason why they had moved here - to escape the tyranny of conventional living and the rat race groove that they had found themselves stuck in for so long. With every crunch of forest path beneath her feet, George felt like she was turning back her personal odometer on all those hellish years of stress in the city. Even when she had convinced herself they were happy back then, she always felt deep down an intuitive yearning for something better, something purer. And now they’d found it, even though she’d really been the one who chose it. Dan had been initially much cooler about moving to the country than George. Sometimes she wondered if all her husband really needed was a couple of plug sockets for a kettle and his laptop. She knew all about the historical cliché of women being homemakers, but this was the 21^st century and that kind of stereotype was going the way of the dinosaurs. Nevertheless, she did feel that the feeling of belonging was something that resided deep in the human psyche, be it man, woman or however you personally self-identified.

Through the trees, she could hear the sound of teenagers laughing and cavorting around a makeshift tree swing. She loved the sound of their wild abandon and almost felt tempted to join them. Resisting the urge to kick off her shoes and go “full Jane”, George held back for now.

There would be plenty of time to unleash her inner wild child which she felt she had lost in recent years in the same way Peter Pan temporarily loses his shadow in her all time favourite childhood book.

As George made a further descent down the endlessly steep valley, she met a fast moving stream that she followed all the way into the edge of town until it eventually disappeared beneath the ground where the abundant nature she had been surrounded by became streets and roads signalling she was ever closer to the town centre.

Continuing down the narrow, yet picturesque Willow street, George could almost believe some of the residents might be from the fairytale realm, so small were the doors of some of the houses she passed. Enchanting was the word that had sprung to mind the first time she visited the town of Greenbury. Even after half a dozen visits, she had yet to find a single feature of the town that had been anything less than positive, though it was not in her interest (outside of general risk assesment) to be looking for flaws; after all, moving here had been a huge decision for them both and not one they had taken at all lightly. And now, all their endless months of procrastination had been finally and fully vindicated. As she heard the sound of a distant penny whistle calling to her from the town centre like a rural Orpheus or vagabond Pied Piper she knew somehow this walk would soon become as routine to her as if she’d been here all her life.

The hustle and bustle of the small town centre was quite something to behold on a Saturday morning, akin to that of a medieval pageant with a diverse group of characters assembled to play their part in this rural carnival. From pamphleteer activists, eco warriors and musical nomads each with their own unique sound, to hipster poets and Morris dancers all colliding into one another, the town was clearly a place of distinct originality. A samba band brought an extra intensity to proceedings and forced George to put her hands over her ears as they marched past her. This eclectic weekend live soundtrack bordered on the discordant at times but generally managed to keep a sense of harmony amidst its chaos, a perfect metaphor for the town itself, it could be said.

George and Dan had looked at other towns in the county but the other places seemed so much more twee and sedate. They weren’t looking for a retirement village and Greenbury had an edge to it that made it reminiscent of the more interesting London boroughs they had lived in back in the city. Although Dan had somewhat sceptically mentioned reading something about the increasing gentrification effect of the area, he was finally swayed by the eye popping landscapes surrounding the town that were irrefutably beautiful.

Now it was tempting aromas that led George by her nose to investigate the busiest part of town where sweet pancakes, thai curry and cider infused pork seemed to find greater unity in smell than the eclectic music acts she'd just witnessed did in sound.

Greenbury’s Farmer’s Market had become an institution for the town and had also received huge amounts of positive publicity in the national press. For those outsiders visiting for the weekend, Greenbury would appear to be the very centre of the South West, with its packed throngs jostling for niche doughnuts and solidly packed falafels as well as organic everything from vegetables to milk and cheese.  It was as if the circus had come to town every Saturday and brought a vast selection of highly desirable food stalls with it.

George took her time, examining the stalls and making a mental note of which ones she would return to each weekend from now on. Every new experience would become the blueprint for her burgeoning relationship with the town, and in this way it felt almost as seductive a courtship to her as when she first met Dan.

Yes, there was no point in denying it.

She was in love again.