News from Rachel in Appledore!

We have had an update from Rachel and thought those that knew her would be interested to hear… ”

We’ve been here for two and a half months now; only twenty four years and eleven and a half months to go and we’ll be considered locals, according to local say-so. That’s not to say we haven’t been made welcome as incomers, the villagers couldn’t have been more friendly or warm. We’re already ‘in’ with the local folk band, who are determined, they say, one way or another to get me singing and Ian doing harmonica (he can’t play but he looks the part, they say). I also have rashly promised to bake a birthday cake for an Appledorian’s sixty-sixth birthday party on 6 March. We spent the evening with him (he’s a wonderfully innocent local, his family go back generations here and he makes fishing rods) and he invited us to his party in one of the pubs and I made him this promise. It turns out now that about eighty people are going and he’s got caterers in doing a buffet… I’m slightly concerned I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, and am frantically baking sponge cakes daily to ensure I don’t mess it up on the day.

I’ve recently been offered a job part-time in a school in Bideford, so I start in April, and will be able to cycle there daily. My role will involve sitting on the front desk, tracking down pupils who’ve forgotten their lunch/books/blazers etc and attending the plays and concerts put on at the end of term. I’m really looking forward to it. In the meantime, I’m working in Psychiatry at North Devon Hospital, typing away at clinics whilst the inpatients come and stare at me from the grounds through my office window – slightly off-putting at first but I’ve got used to it. Some of them I chat to very comfortably. Make of that what you will. Anyway, that’s it for now, more later. Just to say that I absolutely adore my bicycle – I’m now notorious for it and one local calls me ‘lady penelope’ as I cycle around with my basket and live on the ‘big house on the hill’. But it’s brilliant, I can’t stop smiling to myself!! “