On Hedgehogs and Not Kicking 2020 in The Nuts

I don't want to kick 2020 in the nuts like so many are doing right now. That just encourages me to focus on the negative, and I did that enough in March/April when my plans were well and truly scuppered on the rocks, leaving me screaming to the unsympathetic sky - the same sky that everyone was screaming about in frustrated and fearful unison. In the end, 2020 showed us we were more connected than ever, DESPITE being torn apart - you can't stop people loving each other tremendously, friend or stranger. And that there was a lot to be grateful for, bruised nuts aside. Actually, mine's a bruised vag, but never mind. I don't regret 2020 happening. We did okay,all things considered. And it doesn't serve us, or anyone for that matter, to dwell upon, lament or relive the past. I seriously can't talk about the hotel quarantine fiasco without feeling uber anxious and a little bit sick.

I'm trying to think of an INSPIRING song but instead, I have an earworm of A DISTRACTING song. So we're in that Dutch barge we stayed in on the Kennett and Avon canal, right, drinking far too much French red wine as the water lapped at the boat. We're listening to some random folk playlist on Spotify, where they are throwing up songs that seem to fit the mood. English stuff. And then this very catchy song comes on, something about a hedgehog, which is cute, as Jamie's Dad is the head of the Hedgehog rescue in Kent. That's not a title I will ever have. We like to think of him having a hedgehog ambulance with a little hedgehog painted on the side and a siren, but that's just our imagination. Anyway, I digress - here's the song:

I absolutley challenge you to listen to this song twice, and then not have it in your head for a week. It's by an English psych folk band from the 60's and definite encapsulates the unique quirkiness of the British folk scene. Being in England in that time was pretty awesome - there were no planes, no traffic - the whole country was shut down. There were deer, and kingfishers, and squirrels all around, the landscape of old that English folk are so darn tied to. The smell of wild garlic drifting from the woods into the boat, stinging nettles in the stew on the fire for dinner, Somerset brie and oat cakes after a day's walking through centuries old villages and an even older barrow, which as you know is a burial mound. Forget the more popular and well known West Kennet or Bath cathedral - there's nooks and woods and hills and streams all over Somerset that quietly boast the whole timeline of history, of course including my ancestors. Some had lived in the village not 3 miles from where the boat was moored, and I imagined them walking along the tow path towards Bradford on Avon for market day, or other business that might be in a larger town.

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For a little while, we forgot the pandemic and slipped into a Britain that time forgot, and that we remembered from a quieter and gentler world seventeen years past, from when we used to live in England's green majesty.

Still bloody never saw a hedgehog though.

In the end we were screaming at each other to NOT BLOODY SING OR HUM THE BLOODY HEDGEHOG SONG.

But boy, it brings back some nice memories - I don't want to forget 2020, but just remember the good stuff.