Really Not My Field

Yesterday I got horribly lost within a few minutes' walk of my work.

My scooter had packed up on the way to work in the morning, and I had had to leave it in a quiet cul-de-sac and return for it later. Since I was supposed to be working, I tried to minimise the time I took to collect it by taking what the Bristol A to Z suggested would be a brisk short cut.

The route I'd deduced from the map took me first through an industrial estate, which was easy enough. It then entered a field. Given the lack of buildings on the map I had been expecting some kind of parkish sort of area, or possibly an industrial waste ground. But this was definitely a field, which made me nervous. Parks count as City, but fields are definitely Countryside as far as I'm concerned. Someone had planted a huge chunk of countryside right in the middle of my city.

(Well, that's how it felt. In fact, work is on the South-East outskirts of Bristol, but these days it makes more sense to consider Bristol and Bath as a single conurbation, rather than than as separate entities. Certainly everything around the afflicted area consists of city -- industrial estates, garages, schools, police stations, lots of houses, all that sort of thing.)

On the other hand, the field had a huge electricity pylon in it, which was a clear sign that there must be further civilisation on the other side of it. I climbed a stile, stepped onto uneven turf and followed what I thought must be the route of the footpath I identified.

I usually have a pretty good sense of direction -- but then I usually operate in humanity's natural habitat, where there are grids of roads, walls, lamp-posts, street signs, offices and shops to act as clear direction markers. In the countryside the best you have are trees, fences and mud, and those aren't laid out with any kind of planning or consistency. It wasn't long before I had lost sight of the comforting pylon, and had no idea where I was.

Now, I wouldn't like you to misunderstand me here -- I do like the countryside. I approve of its being there. I like to look at it from motorways and trains. It's definitely a Good Thing.

I've even been known to walk in it voluntarily, using a map to navigate between pleasant country pubs. However, when I do this voluntarily, I don't usually do it in: a) April, b) the rain, or c) my work shoes. Now I was doing all three. The area of countryside was surprisingly large once you were in it, and had nothing you could reasonably call a path, although occasional stiles in the fences implied directions in which notional paths might be considered as existing. Otherwise, mud, trees, fences and grass were about it.

It became clear that I'd lost myself badly when I eventually came to the point where jungle turned into city again, and I couldn't find any way through. One field skirted the edge of a primary school, which was fenced off with barbed wire and guard posts. (I exaggerate, but only slightly). There seemed to be no access there. The next field held cows.

I'm very fond of animals, and I have nothing against cows usually, but these ones were malignant. I'm a vegetarian, but I consume dairy products, and I'm convinced that these cows somehow knew. Their moist brown eyes said to me "You have colluded in our imprisonment, and you will pay. One day we will rise, heffer and bullock, Jersey and Friesian, down to the tiniest newborn veal calf, and we will take this planet back. Our children will roam the ruins of your primate cities in vast herds, munching gently at the uncultivated remnants of your lawns and bushes. On that day your hypocrisy will not protect you, vegetarian. MMMRRRROOOOO!"

I'll be honest. I felt cowed.

Braving the bovine gaze, I eventually reached the other side of the field, and found a stile through into an alley. This was grassed over, but it sat behind a terrace of houses: it therefore counted as city, not as untamed wilderness. If I looked over the fences of the houses, I could even see down a driveway to a relief-ridden view of tarmac. Fighting the urge to hurdle the fence, run down the driveway and throw myself joyfully into the path of any oncoming car, I walked along the terraces until I found a route back to a street.

I was nowhere near where I'd intended to emerge, nowhere near my scooter and perhaps three minutes' walk from work. There was no conceivable way I could have walked in the direction I had walked and ended up where I was. I had passed through some kind of space-warping trap for the unwary city-dweller, or perhaps been a victim of the trickery of the wild god Pan.

Chastened, I walked the rest of the way on pavement, as nature intended.

The moped was fine, oddly enough.