One day, scarfing down a delicious shepherd's pie in the Ax and Cleaver pub in the little English village of Much Birch, where our family cottage was being restored after a devastating flood, I struck up a conversation with a neatly dressed, tiny little old lady sitting nearby.
Millicent, 72 years old, was a widow. Ten years before, her husband, a minister, had died suddenly, leaving her alone in a drafty parsonage in Essex. One morning she calculated that 46 years had been spent in her kitchen, willingly preparing tasty meals for village fetes, and a myriad of good causes.
Preparing one more suddenly seemed intolerable. Shocked by this revelation she'd grown thoughtful, then, suddenly, resolute. Pulling out a suitcase, she'd packed her Bible, a map, some sturdy clothes, two pairs of shoes and a serviceable coat, and set out to see the (English) world.
The woman was a true nomad. She simply went — wherever, staying a day, or weeks. Sometimes, she admitted wryly, she'd let her faithful Ford Escort choose. Evenings were spent reading, and charting the past week's route. Her frayed map was a linear diary of where she'd been over the years. Lines crossed and re-crossed; some villages had red stars; residents there had become friends.
"I'd never left the village where I'd been born, my dear, so, with no reason not to, I decided to live an opposite life. Each day is a surprise." She grinned. "I haven't prepared a meal in over a decade. I've a reasonable pension, and possess an ATM card. B&Bs are usually run by interesting older ladies, so I'm seldom lonely. And, I like shocking them silly with my lifestyle. They sometimes look at me with secret longing; I think their tethers get wearying, at times.
"I do keep certain rules, such as never driving at night, arriving well before dark so I can choose a reasonable hotel or B&B, and avoiding cities. They're too nerve-racking.
"I use charity shops to vary my outfits; those places have clean, serviceable clothes. It's a wonderful life! I enjoy getting my hair done, though sometimes the color is blue." She sighed, happily. "Blue, white, gray, I don't honestly care. I just want easy and respectable.
"I know where the best cream teas are served, where to find lovely country gardens, and how to avoid officious, snooty, self-important women directing tourists through enormous rooms in drafty castles stuffed with vacant armor, Roman busts and gigantic portraits of more snooty aristocrats. Lunchrooms in these piles serve dismal sandwiches and weak tea, but I love wandering their grounds, imagining intriguing lives lived so long ago."
She sighed again, content. "I hope I can go on for a few more years; after that I'll choose a room by the sea, in a comfy boarding house, perhaps near friends I've made, and settle in. God will decide the rest. I do enjoy making my way through the adventures of Miss Read, an English spinster school teacher in a village so like mine; I've at least 22 more books to look forward to …" She closed the latest one, after popping in a frayed bookmark.
Dabbing her lips she rose, smiled and shook my hand, firmly. "I'm off! I've enjoyed our chat."
She paused. "I suppose my unconventional life seems unthinkable to you, but I've never felt so alive. England is truly a green and pleasant land. I do feel such a part of it. Goodbye."
A sign in her car's back window read: "Variety Is The Spice Of Life."
Who could disagree?
Dee Blair's Sunnybank Gardens are at 325 Sixth St. in Traverse City. Visit her Web site, www.deeblair.com for more information.
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