On my way to the butcher’s I meet Peter Hopkirk wheeling a large
home-made trolley containing a builder’s spade and a complicated device for unblocking
drains.
He is wearing his best boiler
suit and waders and gives me a cynical glance before steering the contraption scornfully
past the satellite van and the array of media vehicles by the green.
Peter Hopkirk disapproves of newcomers with a
silent bitter intensity; of the media, obviously, and of the Hunts, who will
soon have been at Cobblers’ Cottage for thirty years. They are throwing a celebratory party at
Christmas. As if staying in the village for
any length of time is something to celebrate!
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