The sun was just poking its head above the horizon as Vivienne left home the next morning. She had high hopes for the weekend despite not having anywhere to stay for the next few days. The traffic was light at that early hour. It was just before 05:45 when she reached the start of the M3 close to Kempton Park Racecourse. The battery gauge on the dash told her that the battery in her car would get her to the charger at the Supermarket in Wincanton just as she’d planned. She hoped that she could get a late breakfast while the car was also fed but with electrons rather than her choice of Sausage, Bacon, Eggs and Hash Browns all washed down with a large cup of tea.

Once again, Vivienne had to thank Maxine for giving her all sorts of tips about driving an Electric Car including about using a few different web sites and phone apps to help her plan longer trips. She’d never had to worry about it before as she had a charger at home and she had never covered anywhere close to the full range of the car in a single day. That was then and things were a lot different now and would be for the foreseeable future.

The M3/A303 traffic was pretty light even at the notorious Stonehenge bottleneck so she arrived at the supermarket without incident and with 10% of battery remaining and when she found the charger parking spot empty, Vivienne allowed herself a small smile.
The app on her phone told her that in just over thirty minutes she’d have a full battery again. Now it was time for her to get some breakfast.

Feeling refreshed and ready for the next part of the journey, she stopped the charging and disconnected the cable. The display on the dash said that the battery was 95% full. That would be more than enough to get her to Totnes. She planned on getting a charge there and also to find a place to stay for the next three nights.

As soon as Vivienne turned onto the A303 and almost immediately passed a sign giving the distance to Exeter, she started to have doubts about her possible infatuation with Jacques. What would happen if she messed it all up or that he wasn’t interested in an old hag like her. What if he was gay?

All sorts of doom scenarios went through her mind as she carried on towards Exeter. As a result, she nearly missed the turning that leads to the M5 because of the machinations that were going on in her mind.

“Don’t be such a wimp,” she told herself as she negotiated joining the Motorway near the Somerset town of Taunton.

---

While her car was getting another charge at a local Supermarket, Vivienne wandered into the town of Totnes in search of a bed for the next few nights. It didn’t take long to find a place right in the middle of the town that was perfect for her needs. Once she’d booked in, she returned to her car and waited for the charge to end.

With a full battery and a few hours to kill before her room for the night was ready, Vivienne headed south which was the general direction of Jacques’s smallholding.

Vivienne had remembered the directions that Maxine had given her on the previous trip to the area and she soon found the turning for his place. She stopped the car and marked the location in the car’s SatNav. As she did so, she hoped that she wasn’t putting the cart before the horse. Nevertheless, she started up the track that led to his home.

When she arrived, it was obvious that Jacques’s Land Rover wasn’t there. The place was deserted apart from his motley collection of Chickens, Ducks and Geese. No smoke rose from the chimney that poked its head through the thick thatch of the roof. It looked abandoned as far as human life was concerned.

The still air lent an air of peace and tranquillity, apart from a load of Crows that were nesting in some nearby trees and the chatter of Chaffinches and other small birds as they came to the bird feeder that hung near the back door to the cottage. The feeder was full so it appeared that someone was visiting to care for the birds. That pleased Vivienne but it didn’t answer her question, ‘Where was Jacques?’.

The place was just as she’d remembered it but there was one very essential thing missing… Jacques himself.

A feeling of disappointment came over her. Then she realised that she should not have expected him to be there waiting for her especially as he didn’t know that Vivienne was coming.

Vivienne returned to her car and after turning around, she drove slowly down the track as if she was hoping to run into him coming the other way. No such luck. The track ahead remained empty as did the road both to the left and to the right.

Indecision took over when she reached the road. Should she turn left or should she turn right?

Turning left won her mental toss of a coin and she found her way back to Totnes. After parking the car at the Supermarket charger, she headed for one of the several Estate Agents that she’d passed earlier in her wander around the town centre.

Even though Vivienne clearly said that she was browsing they were all reluctant to give out property details unless she registered with them. For a moment, Vivienne was very, very tempted to give them Suzanne’s address but she resisted and gave them the information they desired. Doing that would tell them where she was moving to so she resisted.

The newly awakened devil on her shoulder made her think…
“What if I went to places like say Cumbria, West Wales and North Yorkshire and registered with Agents there and used her daughters addresses on the registrations.”
The idea seemed very appealing indeed but she put that particular little devil back in its cage for the time being and went into the Agents Office.

Their eyes lit up when they saw her address on her details. It was obvious that the pound signs were flashing before their eyes. Vivienne soon put them in their place.

“I am looking to radically downsize but I certainly don’t want a pokey little retirement apartment. If I wanted one of them I could take my pick within a couple of miles of where I’m living now. I want something that is not in the town and has a decent electricity supply, not some bit of wet string.”

Then she added,
“I might be selling a property that is worth several million pounds but I’m giving two-thirds of it to my Daughters. That means, don’t go trying to sell me a mansion. I am a single woman and can spot sales pressure a mile off. Before I retired, I worked for the HMRC as a Tax Inspector so I’ve heard about every chat-up line in the book as a few more besides.”

The bit about giving money to her daughters was a total lie but she hoped that it would stop the jackpot signs from flashing before their eyes.”

The agent, one Duncan Phelps looked surprised when she described in more detail, the sort of property that would be ideal for her.

“I’ve not had that as a priority item before?” he said pointing to her list of essentials.

“I drive an electric car and I will be getting something a little larger than my Nissan Leaf very soon. That means a larger battery which needs a 100amp domestic supply for the charger. If the property has at least 2.5kW of Solar already installed then that’s even better.”

The agent still hadn’t gotten with Vivienne’s train of thought. Well, it wasn’t all hers but she was using very much the same words that Maxine and her had talked about on Vivienne’s previous visit to the area.

“Do you have such a property on your books?”

“I don’t know. Your requirements are a little unusual to say the least.”

“Really? If they are unusual now then in the near future they will become very common.”

“I don’t get why they would?”

Vivienne just managed to avoid a sigh.

“Don’t you know that the Government will be banning the sale of new Petrol- or Diesel-powered cars by 2035[1]? They could very well decide to make it earlier.”

He still looked bewildered. One of his colleagues tittered.

“Never going to happen,” he muttered.

She smiled back at him.

“If that is your attitude, then I’ll take my business elsewhere. Perhaps the agents next door won’t be as out of touch as you clearly are. Petrol and Diesel engine cars are just like the fuel they use, Dinosaurs.”

Vivienne was surprised at just how direct her words were. A lot of what Maxine had said and what she’d read since had really changed her mind on many things to do with Climate Change.

A newly invigorated Vivienne didn’t wait for any reaction but walked out without another word and straight into the next agents. Maxine’s words about conventional cars had proved very useful. She’d only bought her Leaf because it had zero road fund license, was exempt from the London Congestion Charge and she could charge it at home. That was enough to get her to buy it even though her daughters poo-pooed the thing at every opportunity.

---

The visit to the second agent’s was altogether more successful. The Lead Agent, a Kathy Morris agreed that Vivienne’s desires were perfectly understandable but as far as she knew there were no properties with even Solar Panels on the market at the present time in the area and in the price bracket that Vivienne was thinking of.

“You may well have to install them yourself?” she commented.

“Oh well, one can hope. My current home has twelve panels. Saves me a lot of money when it comes to charging my car. If fact, they produce more electricity in a year than I consume even with charging the car.”

Kathy gave her flyers for half a dozen properties ‘just to look at and to get a feel for the market in the area’.

That was much more the sort of guidance that Vivienne was looking for.

“Thanks very much Ms Morris. I’m down here until Tuesday morning on this visit. If there is anything that interests me, I’ll be back to arrange a viewing.”

Vivienne left the shop full of hope for the future.

After returning to her car, Vivienne started to look at the properties that were on offer. None of them leapt off the page and said ‘Look at me! Buy Me’. She began to realise that she needed to visit a few more agents as well as those who were mostly ‘Internet-Based’ in order to cover the market a little more thoroughly.

Vivienne looked at her watch. It was just before four in the afternoon and she was starting to feel a little tired. The lure of the Hotel was starting to win over both her mind and body. A nice bath or shower and a forty-winks would set her up for a nice dinner this evening.

The Shower was great as was the brief nap that followed it but, the Hotel Restaurant was playing host to a very rowdy wedding reception. She lasted less than five minutes before she followed all the others out not only of the Restaurant but the Hotel itself.

Vivienne wandered into the centre of the town. Most places were pretty busy. It was Saturday night after all. In order to quell her hunger pains, she went to the Chippy and bought herself a ‘Fish Supper’. Vivienne sat in a garden near the river and ate the excellent fish. The chips tasted pretty good as well.

It was getting late when she returned to the Hotel, the wedding reception guests had either dispersed or gone onto somewhere else to continue getting ‘rat-arsed’. The place was much, much quieter so she went into the bar for a night-cap.

After a glass of red wine, she went to bed hoping that the drunks would not wake her up too often.

Once she was lying in bed her mind inevitably turned back to the subject of Jacques. She wondered where he was when she turned up unannounced. Just before falling asleep, she reasoned that he was probably out making a delivery and she should not be so … so bloody stupid to think that he’d be there for a random visitor at a moments notice. He hardly knew her from Adam…

---

A new day dawned. It wasn’t bright and clear like the forecast said it would be. Instead, there were overcast skies with that steady drizzle that seems to be able to penetrate most rainproof jackets after about half an hour.

Vivienne took one look at the weather and shivered. Putting that out of her mind, she took advantage of the breakfast buffet and had seconds. Her plans for the day didn’t include a stop for lunch so she ‘struck while the iron was hot’.

With a full stomach and her car with a fully charged battery, she was set for the day. was Her intention for the day, was to scour the area for suitable properties. Anywhere with a ‘For Sale’ sign outside was at that point in time, fair game. It wasn’t until she saw the stalls being set up for the Farmers Market that she realised that she’d forgotten all about it.

Putting aside her quest for a new home for a while, she wandered past the stalls that were being prepared for business until she found the place where Jacques stall had been at the last market. The space was reserved for him but was empty. It looked like he wasn’t coming. That made Vivienne a little worried.

From the time little she’d spent with him and from what Maxine had added, she had realised that he was a man of habit. Going to the Farmers market was an important part of his life. She’d seen him use the cash from the sale of herbs pay for the groceries he’d need for the next week or so. If that was the extent of his income then it explained a lot. Living off-grid and with such a low profile was just about all he could manage given the amount of money that she’d seen him take at the previous market.

Yet, he seemed pretty happy. Happy at not having to worry about all the things that bind us to our gadgets and things. Gadgets that were supposed to make our lives easier yet most of the time, they just got in the way, or simply did not work as they should.

Vivienne stood alone for several minutes in the drizzle looking at the empty space. All she could think was that Jacques was a man of mystery and that was part of what made her so interested in him and his life.

She walked back to her car wondering what she should do next. The absence of Jacques from the market made her revise her plans for the rest of the day. Vivienne decided to spend the day looking for houses between Totnes and the lower parts of Dartmoor. At the end of the day, she would make another visit to Jacques home.

---

Vivienne spent well over an hour driving down a number of narrow roads with high hedges on each side. This seemed to be typical for the area. Thankfully, there was little traffic to interrupt her wandering. In this time, she noted down a number of properties and marked their location on the Ordnance Survey map that she’d bought the last time that she was down here. She remembered professing… no admitting to Maxine that she’d never been in this part of the country before. Maxine had admonished Vivienne for being a Londoner. Vivienne had felt rather indignant at her suggestion until she’d had realised that Maxine was pulling her leg.

Nevertheless, she’d bought a map of the area at the first opportunity. Maxine had marked some places of interest on it. One of those was the location of Jacques Smallholding.

Vivienne had parked up in the entrance to a field and was looking at the map after marking a very possible property when she realised that his place was less than a mile away. In an instant, she decided that it was the right time to see if he was there and if he was if he was not ill or something.

It only took her a few minutes to get to his smallholding. Almost right away, she could see that it was deserted. One again, his Land Rover was nowhere to be seen. She stopped her car almost in the same place as she’d done before and then simply sat there for a few minutes feeling rather sad that he wasn’t around.

After nearly ten minutes, she got out of the car and listened. Just as before there was nothing but the sounds of nature. The Wind. The Birds in the trees. The ducks and chickens searching for their next meal. Even with the damp conditions, the place was beautiful calming and actually quite serene after all the hustle and bustle of London which seemed a million miles away at that point in time.

Part of Vivienne’s mind was telling her to stay right there until her returned. The other part was telling her that it was hopeless and stupid to wait for something that might never happen.

Feeling torn between the two options, she felt into her coat pocket and pulled out a boiled sweet. She’d always been partial to a Mint Humbug. Instead of just one, two came out of the pocket. One dropped to the floor.

As she bent down to pick it up, she noticed one of her footsteps from the previous day. The problem was that it had been partially destroyed by a tyre track. She looked at the tread pattern of her tyres and it was clear they were different and she also knew that they were also too narrow for his Land Rover. Someone else had been here since Vivienne was last here.

That worried her a little. More than that, it was somewhat unsettling. Who had been here? Why had they been here?

Then she stopped. What was she thinking? At that point in time, she had no claim on Jacques at all. If he chooses to go away for a few days and arrange for someone to come along to feed his animals and to water his plants, what business is it of hers?

She suddenly felt so small… Very much a ‘Silly Billy’.[2]

[to be continued]
[1] The date is now 2030. It was changed in late 2020
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_Billy