Hattiegate

29 December 2007

The Trouble with World Domination

World domination is a concept that rarely enters the mind of Wessex folk. Until now that is: suddenly my local area is awash with Big Business. New supermarkets are springing up all over the place, and as far as I’m concerned, they are on my patch. This, in my eyes, is as good as world domination.

I am, of course, talking about a certain store, and their arrival in Ilminster – although my view extends to supermarkets new to an area generally. But back to Ilminster…

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with supermarkets coming. I didn’t sign the petition to move the site, or the petition to stop the one way road; I haven’t stood with a picket sign in the market square or even written angry letters to David Laws. In fact, I’ve been quite passive about the whole issue. But now they have annoyed me, not because I may lose my job in the other supermarket in Ilminster, not because the trade may be taken from other shops, and not because I now have to drive the long way round to get to my friend’s house. No, this is worse. They have taken away my fields.

Technically speaking they aren’t mine. They belonged formerly to a nice old lady who died and whose family sold the fields to the store, so I should not be cross with the store. And I’m not even cross because they cut sown some beautiful trees that I used to climb when I was younger; I’m cross because now I have to find somewhere else to walk my dog. Now my dear pooch - bless her heart - started life with a bit of a rough ride, so therefore HATES other dogs. This, of course, presents a little problem when trying to walk her at normal dog walking times, so those deserted, forgotten-about fields were perfect to exercise an anti-social dog. Now, however, they are a car park. Now I have somewhere lovely and new to leave my car but no-where to walk the dog…

Admittedly, this isn’t the sort of issue that Hollywood films normally show when depicting world domination (there’s usually a hunky bloke and a scantily clad bimbo) but this is big in my household. Not only does ASBO-Dog still need walking, we have to find another quiet, dog-free zone to do it in, which in Ilminster is trickier than you may think! So we searched, long and hard, and found some new fields, very close to the old ones, in which to unleash the beast. But this is where the certain store have really got my goat… In actual fact, they have got my gate.

In the old fields (now the car park) there was a very lovely five bar gate, which is the perfect height for leaning on – that well-known Westcountry tradition. Through this gate, many great things have happened: it is my ‘thinking gate’. It may sound corny, but leaning on a gate, while watching a slightly deranged dog chase a black bin bag round a field, actually clears your head and lets you have a really good think about stuff. Coursework has been rewritten; events have been mulled over, hangovers cured. So imagine my horror one Thursday morning, as ASBO-Dog and I strode into the new fields to see my thinking gate being attacked by a man - with a bulldozer. In a moment of madness I thought reasoning with the minions of the world dominating folk would be a good idea. So I approached the group of builders doing what builders do best, watching someone else working while they drank a cup of something that looked slightly like tea. I begged, I pleaded, but all in vain. The gate had to go. When I asked if I could have the gate, I was simply laughed at. “What’s a girl like you going to do with a gate?” When I told them that it would go in my garden – well I could here the laughter until I got home.

The next time I walked my dog, I saw the gate - in pieces on the skip. Part of me thinks they broke it up just to spite me. Maybe being quite so childish is all part of the world domination thing. But now they’ve got me really peeved. It’s a gate for goodness sake, does it really matter what happens to it? Surely me taking it makes more room in the skip? And what’s worse is now I have no thinking space. Yes the new fields are very nice, but there is no gate – just a wire fence. You can’t sit on a wire fence, let alone lean and have a good think! So what is a girl to do? Give up thinking, mulling stuff over and generally being very reflective, or find an even newer location – perhaps one with a nice new shiny gate?