The Wansdyke & District Forums

The chatroom where we used to natter of an evening has been empty for weeks. So I am putting it on the board where it can be seen, for theres no one in the chat to say it to any more and I dont think I have known it as quiet as this. I am not having a grumble. I just looked in tonight and realised I could not remember the last time more than one of us was here at once, and that used to be the whole pleasure of the place. Where has everybody got to. Nan, you usually cant keep away of an evening. Janet, Anne. Even the ones who only lurked, I used to feel you there. The kettle is on, same as it ever was. Come and natter. It does a body good and Lord knows the news doesnt.

Hello Pat. We are still here, just not up your way, and I am sorry to be the one bringing it into the Snug because this was always the happy corner. Clive and I have talked it over and over and we think we will give next summer a miss. The K&A I mean, your end of it. I cant put my finger on it and I feel daft even typing it. It just doesnt feel right up there any more. There were men about the moorings last time, watching, and the village we used to tie up by has gone so shut and unfriendly, and Clive said in the night what are we even going up there for if it makes us feel like that. So we will do the Thames, or the Llangollen, somewhere that still feels like a holiday. It breaks my heart a bit if I am honest. We found ourselves on that water. But there it is. We will still natter on here, dont think youve lost us. We just wont be coming up.

Oh Dawn that has made me sadder than I can say, though I cannot blame you a bit, we feel it too and we live here. Pat, since you ask where everyone is, I will say the thing I have been worrying at on my own. Has anyone heard from Nan? She went very quiet on the other board a while back, said she would rather talk about it all privately, and I messaged her like she asked and I have had nothing back. That is not like her. She always writes back, you know how she is, three paragraphs and a saying. I have left it a fortnight not to fuss and now I am fussing. If anyone has heard from her would they say.

I have messaged her too, Anne, twice, and the same, nothing. I have told myself a dozen ordinary reasons, her health, the time of year, the wretched computer her grandson set up that she never trusted. Any of them could be it. I will only say that Nan was the one who first put words to the feeling some of us have had, that we were being tidied away a little at a time. She said it years ago in a thread about a lost village and we all rather gently teased her for it. I think about that a good deal lately. I do not like that the quietest she has ever been came straight after she said she did not feel safe speaking. I expect I am doing exactly the joining-up of dots she used to be scolded for. I should be very glad to be scolded for it myself, if she would only come on and do it.

No word my end either, and I have asked along the cut for her grandson without any luck. I will keep this short because I am not much good at this sort of thing. I have lit the stove tonight the same as any night, and put the kettle on, and sat with it, and there is nobody come. That is all right. A man who lives aboard learns to sit with his own company. But it was never only my own company in here, that was the whole of it, and I find I miss you all more than I rightly know how to say. The kettle is on. It will stay on. Come back when you can.