A coastal relocation diary entry on the surprising discovery that small-town life comes with its own relentless, specific kind of schedule
Everyone warned me the adjustment would be quiet, almost eerily so, after years of London’s constant noise and motion. Six months in, I can report that the adjustment has been many things, but quiet has not been one of them. I have somehow ended up on the harbour committee, the community garden rota, and, through a chain of events I still cannot fully reconstruct, the person unofficially responsible for organising the summer fete’s tombola.
How I Ended Up on the Harbour Committee
I attended one, single, introductory community meeting three weeks after moving here, mostly out of a vague sense that I ought to integrate, and left having somehow volunteered for a committee I did not know existed an hour earlier. I still do not fully understand what the harbour committee does on a week-to-week basis, though I have attended four meetings now and can report the tea is genuinely excellent and the disputes over mooring fees are considerably more heated than I anticipated.
The Community Garden Situation
I mentioned, once, in passing, that I used to have a small balcony herb garden in London. Within a fortnight I had been added to a rota, handed a set of keys to a shed I did not know existed, and informed, with real warmth, that I was “clearly a natural” despite having grown, at most, some slightly sad basil over the years. I now spend two mornings a week weeding a community plot alongside people who have known each other for decades and who have, remarkably, welcomed me into their considerable collective knowledge of slug deterrent methods without a hint of hesitation.
The Tombola, and How It Consumed My Entire Weekend
Nobody warned me about the tombola. I offered, innocently, to help “a little” with the summer fete, and somehow became the person coordinating prize donations from every business on the high street, a task that involved considerably more spreadsheet work and diplomatic negotiation over who gets top billing on the prize board than I had ever anticipated a raffle requiring.
What London Never Prepared Me For
In London, you can go entire weeks without a single unplanned interaction, moving anonymously through a city large enough to absorb you completely. Here, I cannot walk to the shop for milk without being stopped at least twice, once by someone updating me on the harbour committee’s latest mooring dispute, once by a fellow gardener with a genuine crisis involving aphids. This is, I want to be clear, not a complaint. It is simply not the quiet I was promised.
The Actual Slower Pace, Where It Does Exist
To be fair to the original promise, there is genuine slowness here too, just not where I expected it. Evenings are quieter. Nobody expects an instant reply to anything. The pace of any individual conversation is unhurried in a way London conversations rarely were, even when the sheer volume of conversations has, somehow, increased rather than decreased.
Where I’ve Landed on the Whole Thing
I moved here for quiet and found, instead, a different kind of busy, one built from genuine community obligation rather than career pressure, which I have decided, six months in, is a trade I am broadly happy to have made, tombola spreadsheet and all. Further coastal relocation diary entries continue at bohiney.com, with additional coastal town coverage available at prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://prat.UK/