The Big Problem
When I saw Sybil a week before lock-down for the Covid 19 virus, I had a real problem on my hands.
We had a chance to meet still at our special little French Patisserie, Patisserie Angelique.
Sybil had already demolished one of our favourite pastries, the rum baba, when she suddenly became aware of my face.
‘Nellie,’ she said sharply with her mouth full of cream. ‘Nellie, what is troubling you? You are not your usual annoying self. You are very quiet.’
‘I am upset! I have a battle on my hands,’ I replied downcast.
‘Oh God no,’ she uttered. ‘Which of your children or grandchildren is it this time?’
I do not approve of her blaspheming and taking God’s name in vain, but then she is Sybil and God made her, so He must know what she is like and is prepared to put up with her. At least she hasn’t had a thunderbolt thrown at her yet.
‘It’s not any of my family,’ I replied. ‘It is the wretched headmaster of the school behind that is causing trouble.’
Sybil ordered another rum baba. ‘You don’t need to worry about headmasters,’ she said. ‘I’ve had them for breakfast! Go on tell me then.’
‘Well,’ I said with a certain amount of hesitance, ‘you know we have that lovely ancient oak wood behind us?’
‘You mean the one with the bloody foxes and badgers that you are always on about? Not to mention the European Tree Bumble Bees and stag beetles?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘I know you don’t view wildlife in the same way as I do but they are important to me.’
Sybil gave a snort. ‘I thought you had plenty of wildlife in the back already with the boys from the school in the lunch hour.’
‘Well yes we do,’ I replied, ‘although we all put up with their swearing and four-letter words, and terrible noise in general. It is only during an hour at lunch. Later we sometimes get the School Corps training in there. Where they all try to kill each other by saying ‘bang’ all the time. But that is only once a week.’
‘Didn’t you say there was a girl’s school nearby?’ She asked. ‘Maybe they were not playing soldiers when saying ‘bang’ but indicating some other sort of game!
‘So, what’s the problem then?’ she asked, her voice muffled by cream.
‘The school are insisting they need that wood to be cut off from all access by the public for safeguarding purposes. Thereby giving them an excuse to stop all ancient rights to the wood and public pathways. It is outrageous! This has been an ancient right of way for 100 years, long before the school was even thought of let alone built.’ I said staring in a depressed fashion at my untouched rum baba.
‘And not only that, but they are going to erect this 9-foot wire and metal fence right on our borders so that none of the residents can use their gates for access anymore. It will feel like an internment camp.’
Sybil stopped in mid munch. ‘That is indeed outrageous,’ she said. ‘I think we should visit the headmaster and put him in his place.’
‘Do you think you could do “one of your numbers” on him?’ I asked her hopefully.
‘Possibly not the sort of “number” I would usually deploy,’ she said with a cunning smile spreading across her face. ‘But I have some ideas for a different sort of “number”.’