Something is happening, and I don’t know what it is. Oh you don’t either. Well, that puts us in a right pickle.
Perhaps it would help if I tell you what’s on my mind. And no, madam, it isn’t a hat. You’re confusing my mind with my head. Two quite different things.
Here’s my official briefing on the matter. When I lived, until recently, in the city, my hoose was in a cul-de-sac. And what fascinated me was that, if I was out working in the front-garden, say, there’d be a car along every minute, either coming in or, if I have got this right, going oot.
With regards to the former in particular, I couldn’t fathom where they were going. There were only a handful of houses down either side of the street, but there was so much traffic I began to suspect there must have been a secret, multi-storey car park down there.
Now that I’ve moved to the sticks, the same thing is happening. I’m not only in a cul-de-sac – not really the mots justes (with apologies for all the French) since we’re a handful of house on a hill – but the main road also leads to a dead-end: it’s a three-mile cul-de-sac, if you will. It’s a road to nowhere. And the traffic never stops.
On our hill road, it’s often tractors and the like and, just as often, delivery vans since, instead of driving 23 miles for a packet of drawing pins, we just order them on Amazon. Not just drawing pins. Unable to buy them anywhere locally (or at least fit them in my hatchback), I’d 10 5ft fence posts (from eBay) delivered recently. Marvellous.
On the main, single-track road, there’s a car every 30 seconds. And, again, it’s only serving maybe 30 houses. Where, in the name of the Wee Man, are they all going? Is there a multiplex cinema down there that I don’t know about?
Although we get tourists, we’re nowhere near the main visitor attractions. True, there’s supposed to be a decent beach at the end of the road but, as it’s three miles down a single-track with plentiful traffic, I’ve been too frightened to drive down to it.
It’s also true to say that, since summer’s end, the traffic has lessened slightly. But it’s still busy. Whenever I waddle along the road to the Fairy Glen (a pleasant, wooded walk to a rocky shore), I have to stand aside on the verge constantly to let vehicles past (with only around half the drivers thanking you with a wave).
I know that, in the sticks, you have to go everywhere by car. But there are only so many people. And, as in the city cul-de-sac, there isn’t really anywhere to go. There was one bloke in that city street who would get in his car about 15 times a day. I guess it’s a man-toy, a kind of dodgem. But as many of the Drivers to Nowhere are women.
I suppose I’ll just have to chalk this down to one of life’s unfathomable mysteries, like UFOs or ghosts or why people eat cauliflower voluntarily. But I still suspect there’s some hidden amenity at the end of the road, a McDonald’s maybe, or a big Marks & Spencer that’s for private members only.
