Outdoors Diary - Friday 4 August, 2006

Muckthwaite, Friday 4 August, 2006

Alfred's asked me to write something about a woman's life in Muckthwaite, well, he didn't so much ask me as pass out on t'floor last night after a night in the Arms and some fella called this morning demanding words, so here they are...

Rubbish, oppressed, demeaned, maltreated, undertrodden. Nice words aren't they? Truth is that life for womenfolk here is like summat out of Dark Ages. Don't get me wrong like, my Alfred loves me, really he does, but the other night when I were grooming the goat, I wondered what sort of life this is for an intelligent woman.

While Alfred's out gallivanting across the moors and getting up to gawd only knows what, it's up to me to run the abatoir, shave the kids' noses and wash the blood oot of carpet.

Of course time has moved on and some things change - Vanish is great for stains where in old days I'd have used Goat's urine, but the old bastard's too mean to shell out for a proper cooker. Aye, it's still dried yak dung here.

That's the nub, I call it my little Shakespearian dichotomy. Muckthwaite may seem all very well and pretty to tourists as visit or read my Alfred's pretty words about the natural world, but as I said the other day, over an otter sandwich, there's something dark under the surface of Muckthwaite and try as I might, all the Vanish and elbow grease in t'world won't make it right.

You know, I think it might be blackberry juice. I'll have a word with Alfred when he wakes oop.

Agnes Todger