Writing for Fun
December 2016
High Voltage - Jenni Bowers
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ murmured Julia as she gazed up at the blue sky, hills in the distance and green or gold fields for miles around. Their picnic had been a lovely surprise, Ralph had arrived in his MG with a hamper and refused to tell her their destination – her twenty first birthday was to be very special, as hidden in his spectacle case was the diamond ring which would adorn her finger for the rest of her life.
‘Wonderful,’ he agreed, ‘it’s such a shame about the pylons they are planning to put right across our view, that’s why I brought you here before they start work.’
‘What?’ she shrieked, ‘you mean there will be high voltage power lines crossing this vista?’
Ralph answered her query by showing her the plan he’d copied from the National Grid’s own website, it had been a shock to him too.
‘Why can’t they put the power lines underground, surely that would make more sense’ she carried on – now warming to her subject.
‘Well there is a bit of a protest going on and they are saying that Nat Grid have got it all wrong, that it would indeed be cheaper to bury cables way underground than build ugly, eyesore pylons with wires stretching for miles across this gorgeous part of the country’ he told her.
‘OK, so we’ll join the protest.’ Julia was always looking for a ‘cause’ and this would be just the thing to interest all her Uni friends too – they’d be ‘up for it’, a good old march, banners, shouting etc – about time some of them got off their bums and did some good before settling down to serious jobs and families. ‘I’ll text Sammy, she’ll get the gang together, then we can organise a plan, maybe a sit in and bring tents right here, when are they planning to start work?’ Horrified now, Ralph tried to defuse her explosive reaction to his ‘little bit of info’ – perhaps he should have kept quiet, proposed and taken her home. ‘Well I don’t think it’s as quickly as that, I’ve only just seen this consultation document, so don’t worry Sammy yet,’ he stuttered.
‘Come on, let’s walk amongst the poppies and see what other wild flowers are here, that way if we do a protest we can use the flora and fauna as a back up to our campaign – you know, threatened species and so on.’
Julia allowed him to pull her to her feet and they wandered hand-in-hand amongst the flowers trying not to step on too many as they discovered wild orchids too. ‘Oh, wow – now we’ve definitely got something,’ she cried, ‘I must take photos,’ and clicked away on her mobile happily.
Ralph watched his pretty, dark haired girl-friend, seeing her in a new light, ‘Didn’t realise she was so into nature or motivated to ‘save it all’’ he pondered to himself, turning away from her to check the ring was still safe in the specs case. It was, but he wasn’t sure anymore – maybe it was too soon, she was too independent, wouldn’t be a ‘good wife’ – he’d wait a year or so just to see if he still felt the passion for this free spirit after all.