Living in the country

is most definitely not like living in suburbia.

It was Middle Cat's birthday yesterday. She decided we would have a day out. We had discussed this earlier and decided to give the Senior Cat a surprise.

He knew we were going to take him out but we had not told him what the plans were. Middle Cat was purring as we set off to get him. She liked my "parcel" - the "goldbears" - and my card. The card contained a "voucher" for the hardware store and we will visit that later.

But apart from that? Middle Cat had  rung B.... . B.... is the wife of the Senior Cat's friend who now has Alzheimer's. On Fridays the powers that be give B... a break from the relentless caring. We were taking her out to lunch. The Senior Cat knew nothing about this.

With a little imagination Middle Cat found a rather more circular route to get to their home. It is  on a semi-rural road up in the hills behind  us. 

"We'll just have a bit of a trip through the hills first," Middle Cat told the Senior Cat. He thought that was a good thing. He was enjoying the scenery. Middle Cat turned into the property which belongs to our friends and asked, "Do you know where you are?"

The Senior Cat shook his head in disbelief as he saw B... appear.

"We are taking her out to lunch," Middle Cat told him. He thought that was an "excellent" idea.

We headed off again, not quite sure where we were going but going anyway. There are a lot of small "towns" or villages in the hills. Life there is different. 

Lunch did not need to be extravagant or exciting. Middle Cat stopped at a place where three men were working on repairing a roof and asked if they knew what the pub across the road was like for a meal. 

    "Nah, the cafe just along here. They do great light meals."

And suddenly they somehow had the wheelchair for the Senior Cat out of the car. One of them took the keys from Middle Cat and parked the car behind their van around the corner. Another of them came down to the cafe and opened the other side of the double door so we could get in. He called out to the owner and in no time we had seats and drinks. Food would be with us shortly.

We ate fresh fish, home cooked chips and freshly made salad. It was not expensive either. 

As we ate the local residents kept coming in. There were adults of course. They were buying lunches to take away, milk, bread and the like. More importantly though there were children coming in without adults. They were buying chips and pies, ice creams and drinks. The owners obviously knew them, addressing some of them by name. We heard information being shared and messages being delivered. They smiled at us. 

We were told not to hurry. The only other people eating in were the parents of the owner. Apart from that there was just the steady stream of adults and children buying school holiday lunches, treats and basic essentials.  

When it was time to leave the other side of the double door was opened again - cheerfully and with no fuss. "Come and see us again sometime perhaps?"

Out on the footpath the men mending the roof saw us again. Down they came. The one who had parked the car brought it around for us. They waited for the Senior Cat to manouvre himself into the passenger seat and then folded the wheelchair and put it into the back. 

They waved us off cheerfully as did the cafe owner who was putting something in the recycling buckets on the footpath. Three of the children were sitting on a low wall sharing a large packet of hot chips. They waved as we set off.

It was all so different. The young ones would not be out alone in the city. The help we got would have been unlikely. It is unlikely we would have been given the same sort of cheerful, friendly waves as we left.

Of course there are all sorts of issues living in a small country community - but there is also that community. We had a memorable day out because of it.