What's In A Name?

I mentioned last week that I was dreading thinking up a name for the town where my characters live. But then I had a brainwave. At Easter I was expecting three visitors: two old friends and a teenage girl, all three intelligent, creative and quirky thinkers. So when they and Top Bloke and I were relaxing after lunch one day, I announced a new party game: a competition to think up a good name for a fictional English town, not unlike the one we were sitting in, that hadn't already been used in either fact or fiction. I poised my fingers over the keyboard to check Google and Multimap and we were off. There were some good suggestions (Bimblebury, Oxenbourne), but then they got sillier (Gimpwell, Blagborough) and then, I'm sorry to say, without even the benefit of any alcoholic beverages, the nature of the competition changed all by itself to see who could come up with the rudest and funniest town. Lower Twattock! Wrinkly Arsebottom!! Frottage on Gusset!!!

So we gave up the game amid great hilarity. But somehow it stimulated that strange back brain process that passes for work among writers, because the very next day I hit on a name that I think will work. Er, no, sorry, not telling. But here's a wee story to explain what kind of a place this is.

Top Bloke and I are planning to get some work done in the garden this year. Our driveway and path are an unappealing combination of sparse gravel, cracked concrete, moss and weeds. Neither of us has any experience of hard landscaping, so we thought we'd get some help. A recommendation from a builder friend led us to a very cheery man called Daniel. He came for an initial chat a few weeks ago and we all got on well. Options were discussed, tea drunk, jokes made, and in the course of conversation he mentioned that he had a smallholding. We agreed that he would come back a week later with some samples of surfacing for us to choose from, and to measure up the drive and path. On the appointed morning he didn't turn up. He'd told us he had another meeting before coming to us, so we assumed he was running late, but after an hour I rang his mobile. He answered, sounding not cheery at all. I could hear a sheep baaing in the background. Are you OK, I asked? Not really, he said. What's up? I've been up all night with a lambing, and we had to get the vet; he saved the ewe but we've lost both lambs. One was a reverse presentation and the other was a big 'un. It's heartbreaking when you've looked after them all year. I'm sorry, I forgot all about coming to see you, and my other meeting, I'd better ring them in a minute. Don't worry, I said, we can rearrange. And we did.

I was sorry for Daniel. And yet, it made me glad to live here, in a place where lambing comes before tarmac; where the pace of life is slow; where people can set their own priorities, and don't always have to be ruled by their paid work. It seems somehow more real, more authentic, than the big metropolis where I used to live. I know cities suit some people, but they don't suit me.