Nothing is the same.

High Summer here again. They come and go the seasons and when one is fairly static and don’t go abroad too much there is always the sense of de ja vu because we, the average, silly human being, as we get older tend to repeat and do the same things over and over.

I go on these long summer evenings most nights to a lovely pub in Lavenham. It’s called the ‘Angel’ and its positioned on one side of one of the most ancient squares in England. The old Guildhall dated 1200 AD or thereabouts, is one of the views to the left of the pub, the Church can be spotted if you look down the hill at the opposite edge of the square, there’s an old bakers shop and a general provision shop all housed in mediaeval buildings on the right hand side. I have a glass of dry white wine and soda, put my own chair out and sit there and watch the Swifts and their joyous patterns in the sky or else be entertained by the variety of people that turn up either to drink or eat here. I thought one warm evening when it was still and quiet, just a dim light from the shop, the occasional car and the odd walker that if I were to die sitting here I would die in Heaven.

I’ve been doing this for about seven or eight years. The pub has very pleasant staff who know me and pour my drink as I walk in the door, the main Governor is Roy, assisted by his wife Ann and another partner called John. Every Friday Roy was in the habit of playing popular classical music on the piano in the bar and I, now and again, eat in there with some of my family and its such an occasion that it makes me nostalgic for a time that I probably never ever knew. A time when there were no drunks or ‘oiks, when all people were polite to each other, when men wore hats and raised them in acknowledgement of acquaintance, again I don’t suppose it was ever like that.

The owners of the pub had been there about 18 years and I imagined they’d be their forever so it was a shock to find out that without saying a word to anyone their staff, friends or families they sold up and moved. I found out from a shocked resident of Lavenham, the local undertakers wife as it happens, who found it hard to believe. The whole weekend, it was on a Friday that I was told, I felt deeply depressed. My life had altered, this was an event that would shake my world. It made me think how we are set in our ways and how delicately balanced our lives are. Like the Swallows and the Swifts who travel each year from the other side of the Globe, like the Salmon who go back to their spawning grounds, like the Caribou who travel north and south looking for their moss, like the bees go to their hives, we are people conditioned to do what we are familiar with and what we like over and over again until something drastic happens to curtail our activity, we cannot help ourselves.

Outwardly nothing has happened. The same staff are there, Jamie and Mandy are joint managers, as they were before, Amy and Lynn are the main barmaids, the cooks are the same. They are watching for a month to see how it all goes and will make improvements where necessary. So it seems the same but it is not, no one realises yet but inevitably it will alter, maybe slowly so that no one notices until a year or two has gone by and someone will mourn it’s passing by saying “I remember when Roy and John was here, this was a marvellous pub”.