Latest Homes Sussex magazine

Andrew Kay on woolies, wellies and four wheel drives

Are you as concerned about global warming as I am? I mean it has been a particularly mild winter so far, a bit wet and drab maybe with a few cold snaps. But on the whole it hasn’t been a three woolies and a vest type of winter as yet. That said, by the time you read this it could be sub-zero, with drifts of snow and black ice.

I grew up with snow, living as I did in Lancashire. When it snowed it stuck, and when it stuck the school buses did not run. It was a four mile walk from our house to school along a winding country lane. Being on the edge of the Lancashire plain meant that the wind would blow in from the Irish Sea and whip across the flat open farm-land like a blade. If there was snow it would very soon drift on the bends in the road and make matters far worse.

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Andrew Kay on how being made redundant gave him a dog’s life

Having grown up with dogs, my London years were for the most part a canine wilderness. I did live in lodgings with a posh girl who had a cocker spaniel for a while but on the whole the metropolis was a dog free era. And probably rightly too. I had neither the time nor the space for a dog in my life back then.

I didn’t have time once I moved to Sussex either, commuting each day as I did to Victoria with hoards of other liars. Oh yes, all commuters from Sussex to London are liars. Ask them what it’s like and they will tell you it’s fine, it takes less than an hour. Liar, liar pants on fire. On a good day the train part alone will take 55 minutes. Add to that embarkation etc and onward journeys and getting to the station and buying a coffee and a paper… All commuters are liars.

‘‘All commuters from Sussex to London are liars. Ask them what it’s like, they will tell you it’s fine’’

Once I gave it up, I was made redundant, I discovered that there was life beyond commuting. Before long I had carved a new, if slightly less stable one than my life in hardback books, and I got a dog.

My first was Buster, a big old brindle boxer which I found through a charity called Boxer Rescue. What a great organisation, efficient and kind. Buster came everywhere with me, and was universally loved. He died at the ripe old age of 13 and I cried for days.

When I moved out of the city centre I decided it was time to get another dog. Smaller this time but definitely a rescue dog. I went to Raystede Animal Welfare. It was an amazing experience. Forms to fill in, home to be checked and compatibility to be measured. I could not browse for a pet, they would pre-select a few for me to look at. It was a great idea and in the end, after a week of checks, I left with Holly, she simply insisted.

Holly now goes everywhere with me and is loved by everyone who meets her. She is quite distinctive, a cross of collie and whippet I reckon but she looks very refined. So much so that I soon became tired of describing her as a mongrel. I subsequently told people that she was a Belgian mackerel hound. I still do and you’d be surprised at how many people ‘know’ the breed or have a friend who also has one.

I know that it’s wicked, and a terrible lie, but then I am after all a reformed commuter.

Raystede Animal Welfare, Ringmer, East Sussex, BN8 5AJ
01825 840252
www.raystede.org

Andrew Kay watches the tumbleweed in Newhaven before loitering in Lewes

I’ve just had three glorious days with my brother, his wife and two sons. They are very lovely and very lucky, living as they do right by the river Wye just outside the crazy empire that is Hay-On-Wye, where the brilliant self publicist Richard Booth holds court over a town built on second hand books. Hay is like no other place that I have ever been, except Lewes which has a similarly wayward and rebellious streak. I love Lewes, not that I would want to live there, but to visit I can think of few places locally that hold my attention for as long.

‘‘We ogled the shags as they sat menacingly on wooden piles sunk into the muddy river bed’’

I decided for the family that a trip to Lewes was a topping idea for a day out and so off we went. Only to have our journey interrupted in Newhaven for an emergency tyre replacement and tracking adjustment. I have to say the local tyre man at Arrow was polite, efficient and cheap. We had to wait only one hour for the entire job and I was impressed that the price quoted included VAT. How often have you been caught out by that at a garage?

But what do you do in Newhaven for a whole hour. I took them down the quay to the fish merchants, we ogled the shags as they sat menacingly on wooden piles sunk into the muddy river bed and we went to a camping equipment sale where to my dismay there was nothing new to add to my battery of camping equipment. We then ambled up the high street through a drab market and back to the car.

Lewes was, in contrast, a complete delight. Within minutes I had lured them into Bill’s where we lunched on fine steak sandwiches, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs and pink lemonade. Hay has nothing that comes even close to Bill’s despite it being at the centre of a fabulously foodie region.

After that we did a spot of light window shopping. I can get as much pleasure from window shopping in Lewes as I can from spending money. I love the fact that it retains its gentile hippy quirkiness, that combined with a few truly ‘county’ retail experiences and the always slightly edgy world of antiques. My brother was in search of a pineapple ice bucket. I could do little to dissuade him. In the end he settled for an oversized pink cocktail shaker. There is clearly little to do in the rural borders of Wales as the nights draw in. I now have visions of him shaking toxic concoctions and then spending the evening coming up with silly names for them. Ah, the country life.

Andrew Kay – Town mouse or country mouse, that is the question

If I’m known for anything it’s my appetites. Yes plural. I have a capacity for stuff that can be alarming, whether it’s food, drink, art, theatre or country dancing. Oh yes, on one level I am urban man, city smart and sophisticated, on another I am happy whirling up and down a village hall, stripping the willow in a twister of enthusiasm and perspiration but seldom with precision. I am also happy swinging some innocent victim around to a jive or swing band. I guess that gives me what are commonly referred to as catholick tastes and I have come to terms with that status over the years (pogoing is now longer an option is the simple ‘up-down’ action of my body can be detetced on the seismograph at the San Andreas Fault’s laboratories).

‘‘I’m not easy to pigeon hole but how people love to pop us into envelopes for ease of filing’’

Other people can find my particular brand of catholicism hard to deal with. I’m not easy to pigeon hole that’s for sure. Nor do I want to be. But how people love to pop us in convenient envelopes for ease of filing.

I rather enjoy the fact that these days my shock value comes from the fact that I enjoy country living. It’s quite a laugh dropping a rural gem into an urban conversation. I have known people wobble on their bar stools when they discover that I can often be found walking the dog for miles through local forest or along river banks.

It’s much the same when people learn that, despite my ‘gourmet and gourmand’ leanings, I actually really love simple food. I adore fish and chips and have a thing about Heinz Salad Cream that I am not even going to start to justify. You see there again people build expectations about my role as a restaurant critic but they shouldn’t. I love fine food but when busy I will bolt a burger and in my cups I might kill for a kebab.

So town mouse or country mouse? Who cares, I’m all for taking a chance and giving things a go. I love my home in a suburb that borders on the real Sussex countryside. I like my nights out at the theatre, eating oysters, dining, dancing, drinking cocktails as much as my nights in playing board games, reading books, listening to music or watching the television.

I do have one enduring passion and that passion is Coronation Street. I cannot abide any of the other soaps and in particular I hate Emmerdale. Maybe I can use that as a guide and say that I am clearly town mouse but a bit of a country mouse on the side.