Little Numbly-by-the-Graveyard

Cute little villages on the edge of nowhere where your money buys you a nice enough pile, large for this country, inglenooks and wooden beams, big kitchens and wrap around gardens, and an ooh! for every half acre, and an aah! for every pleasant view. We could afford one of these now, something like 5 miles or so from the nearest railway station and a commute into town*, a pretty place that's like something out of Midsomer Murders, right next to the old, old church, rife with English Eerie and possible Hookland references.If it didn't have the possibility of sinister magics with a little bit of Machen and a lot of Saki, the horror might come simply from residing among nose-picking Brexiters who last read a book when they were at school, and fear immigrants mightily having seen some on the telly.

And if that's a harsh judgement based on nothing real, it's a fitting payment for all the other unreal rubbish they've inflicted on the country. I suspect my judgement of them is far more accurate than theirs of Brexit, and don't fancy ending up in their wicker man, despite being neither a virgin nor a fool.



But the subject has come up, because there is such pretty stuff out there, and if it was truly gorgeous, I might succumb. But by heck, it would need to be stunning. Then I would probably be the local madwoman, urging fetes and festivals and parades celebrating obscure village history, or kitting myself up as some scary custom just to remind people that they're not in the graveyard yet, and even when they are they may not stay there...

*London, though I hear other cities do exist in the UK.