Will Heaven

An edited version of this column first appeared in Nouse

The north versus south debate is over. The southerners got bored of it and northerners – well, the northerners are for the most part clinically obese. So they waddled home to eat troughs of black pudding and discuss coalmining and beat up their ballet-dancing brothers.

Fine, you got me. I’m a southern fairy or, as I was once described by a colleague, “a toffee-nosed ponce from the home counties”. But let’s not get bogged down by class warfare or a most unpleasant regional accent competition. In 2009 there’s room for a new debate: city versus country. Over the Christmas break, I experienced both – and have conclusively decided which I prefer.

First, a glimpse of life in the country. It’s 4 am on boxing day and I am in bed wearing a hoodie and pyjamas and thick woollen socks. The house is about minus ten at this time of night and I am awake, for the fourth day in a row, because the cockerel is crowing outside my window.

Now cockerels, you are immediately thinking, are supposed to crow at dawn. Surely, at 4 am on boxing day, it was not yet dawn? Spot on. But this is no normal cockerel. This is a the sort of cockerel that, if it was human, would probably carry a knife and wear tracksuits and you wouldn’t want to look at it on the train in case it came over and stabbed you.

It should be with the other chickens. Safely tucked up in their stinky little coop with lots of hay and places to sleep. But it’s not. It’s roosting in the tree opposite my bedroom window. I consider putting on my coat and boots to go outside and find the fucker. What, you might ask, would I do if I caught it? Vegetarians please look away: I would most definitely kill it. A cockerel, you see, doesn’t lay eggs. So to me it has no purpose…

I’ve slept a bit more, got up, had breakfast, walked the dogs and the rest. It’s nearly getting dark and it’s time to feed the pigs. Yup, you’re right: in the countryside, days are divided into neat little animal-centred slots. “The pigs need one and a half scoops of the nuts which are in the bin outside,” I am told. Right. “But watch out for the sheep – they’ll try to get through the gate as you go through.” Not too difficult – watch out for the sheep. I get my one and half scoopfuls – generous scoopfuls, I feel, for three medium-sized pigs – and march up the slope towards the pen. First, the gate.

Two white mountains bound towards me. They are skidding on the wet ground and can’t stop. Sheep are not clever, but they recognise a bucket with food in it. The fat sheep in front slams into me at waist height, at the same time stuffing it’s nose into the bucket. “No”, I shout, “fuck off”. I heave its solid neck – huge muscles covered in wool – out of the bucket. I firmly, but not so hard that you have to inform the RSPCA, tap the end of its nose. It prances off.

Eventually, I make it to the pig pen. Lots of squeals and mud, a few electric shocks – their fault for getting to close to the wire – and I’m in filling the trough with nuts and getting trodden on. Pigs really are as greedy as you imagine. And you can see why Muslims think they’re unclean – forget cute, they look satanic.

“Hey Will”, someone calls, “can you make sure the chickens are in their coop?” This is really shit news, for two reasons. One: the chicken coop is inside the bit where the sheep are. Two: the chickens are outside the gate – I have to get them through it (no they can’t fly) without letting the sheep out.

I open the gate and pretend to cluck loudly as if I am the big mother bird. They run towards it and I’m hopeful they’ll get through. Bang. One of the sheep crashes passed me. Out of nowhere it has charged passed me and onto glorious freedom in the garden.

A week later, it’s 7am and I am sitting on the tube. I am wearing a pinstriped suit which is too small and holding a copy of Metro. This really is a shit paper, I think. Why on earth do I always pick it up? Why don’t I ever bring a book or something better to read? I look around, everyone is sitting or standing in glum, recession-type silence. The tunnel whistles noisily. I think of home. Right now, someone in my family is probably wondering whether to go and find the cockerel. It’s good to be in London.

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