A quick ‘heads-up’ for anyone considering a visit to Rum Bridge: It’s outdoors.
More specifically: it’s in the countryside.
This is, for the most part, a wonderful thing; what with the nature, wildlife, fresh air, peace and tranquillity… etc., etc..
But there is a downside.
Sometimes, for instance, there are insects.
This rather goes with the territory; Rum Bridge being… well… outside. Next to water. Surrounded by marshy woodland – replete with the myriad flora and fauna that one would associate with a county wildlife area.
This being a fishery, there are waterfowl of many a genus, size and stripe, too. Ducks in particular.
Indeed, you’ll see pictures of those ducks – several of which are hand-reared, and thus absurdly tame – on our FB, AirBnB and other pages. Given this, I’d always assumed that folk visiting our humble home would anticipate, indeed welcome, the attentions of our plumate chums. And that if they had, say, a phobia related to said chums, they’d be judicious in their vacation choices; choosing instead perhaps a city break; or, at a pinch, Butlins.
Same goes for those benighted souls who are hyperallergic to bee stings; vulnerable to mosquito bites; irrationally afraid of snakes, spiders, bats, lizards, etc., etc.; all of whose holiday needs would be better served in a more ‘sanitised’ – cosseted, preferably air-conditioned – environment. It seems, however, that I was wrong. Again.
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been compelled to ‘talk-down’ more than a few timorous types from the precipice of paralysing panic; such traumas induced by, variously, bees around the barbie; over-familiar Muscovys; and marauding mozzies.
Indeed, one poor woman had to be carried screaming from the showers (by her husband, I hasten to stress), having been cornered by a, clearly rabid, crane fly.
Another felt genuinely unable to return to her lakeside accommodation unaided, for fear that a ‘scovey resting on the gatepost might rebel against 60 million years of evolution and pounce – the darkest watches of said guest’s subsequent and sleepless night doubtless spent standing nervous sentry, ever-alert to unwelcome ingress from, say, a particularly emboldened field mouse.
Other visitors still have expressed bafflement that, many miles from the light-polluted city, the hours of darkness really are… dark. And silent too – save for the (nerve-shattering) bark of a close-by deer or fox. In stark contrast to the dawn, when… well, who knew that cockerels kept such unsocial hours?
The answer of course is: pretty well anyone who’s ever ventured beyond the nearest tube station past midnight.
Which, now I come think about it, is a prospect that I would find eminently more terrifying. Hence the reason I choose to holiday at home. In the sticks.
Devil you know, and all that.
