Moving back to the countryside has summoned all kinds of surprising childhood memories. So much has changed since I was a kid, but some things are reassuringly the same. If we leave our beloved bit of Wales to go back to England to visit family and friends, our entire journey is punctuated by a pastoral poetry of handwritten signs. With easy access to cheap printing in the city, I had forgotten about the wobbly beauty of a knocked-up sign, painted in whatever colours are kicking about, on a bit of wood you found in some shed. This would look unprofessional anywhere else, but in the countryside it’s an indicator of something good, something worth stopping for.
Whenever I see one, it takes me back to watching my mother paint her own, with her very particular Es, to go with her roaring trade in free range eggs sold from the farm gate. There were duck, goose, guinea fowl (very nice hard shells), hen and occasionally peahen eggs (great for a five-person omelette, in case you were wondering)
