Did you watch the children’s TV animation Mr Benn? In it, a bowler hatted and suited man enters a dressing up shop, is freshly attired by a fez-wearing shopkeeper, goes through a door to have adventures before returning to his normal life…with a souvenir of his outing.
Imagine how he felt when he returned home: a bit discombobulated? Stuck between two worlds? Struggling to readjust?
Life can be like that, especially when things have been a bit intense, so my friends and I refer to feeling ‘a bit Mr Bennish’: that is to say, not quite sure where we are or what’s going on.
Such was my experience this week. I was dipped back into the old working life, with three 14-hour days with my lovely, former colleagues, in Teesside.
It was a great story (that I can’t mention here as it hasn’t run elsewhere yet) and we enjoyed hearing people tell us what had been going on for them.
My colleagues talked about all the old things that we used to discuss at work. It seemed that not much had altered, other than a few staff changes.
I wasn’t sure what day of the week it was, and truthfully, it didn’t matter.
The morning after returning home, I was feeling decidedly Mr Bennish, so headed out for a couple of short walks to re-orientate myself.
A cheerful group of cyclists waved as they rode by. Dog walkers said ‘hello’. Two truly excellent riders who live on the edge of the village rode steadily along with their three dogs at foot.
I tried to let it compute. This was not Teesside. There was not 24-hour traffic. There were no streetlights. Instead, there were cyclists, riders and dog walkers. I’d come back through the door of the dressing up shop.
Not much may have changed at work, but a lot had changed here in three days. It had clearly been both windy and cold. Though my beloved oak tree is still resolutely green, the village’s lanes are lined with fallen leaves. Autumn has finally arrived.
A robin sang his heart out from high in an evergreen hedge. A red kite soared over head. Grace-the-cat caught a vole.
The church opened its doors at 9am and closed them at 4am as a place of sanctuary. Gardens still bloomed with late-summer flowers, so clearly, though it might have been cold, we hadn’t experienced sharp frosts.
It was good to be home.
A few days later and I’m still walking around slightly dazed, slightly Mr Bennish, grateful for the trees, the horses (obviously), for being in the slow lane, whilst writing everything up for my client.
Do I, like Mr Benn, have a souvenir from my adventures? Yes, I do. It’s the memory of some extraordinary people stepping out of their comfort zones to help other people. They’ll live long in the mind.