Muddy Lane

Description 
 
Anthony is running away from the mess he has made of his life... again... But this time he is determined to do things differently. And instead of moving to another old industrial midland city, he chooses a remote cottage down a muddy lane right out in the middle of nowhere, not far from the North Lincolnshire Coast, where he has found the perfect job, working on a coastal nature reserve.

Unfortunately his inability to say no, whether in his personal or his professional life is soon leading to his usual tangle of complications. And it doesn't take long for a whole array of different lovers and ex-lovers to take up permanent, semi-permanent or occasional residence at Anthony's cottage.

When one of these unexpected additions to the household then attracts his own unexpected selection of family and ex-partners to join him in the cottage, in desperation, Anthony phones the ex-partner who he split up with before his escape to the bleak country, Steve. And Steve is very resourceful and loves a messy challenge...

 
 
 
About the Author 
 
Andrew Cheffings was born on a small working farm on the Lincolnshire Marsh. But the local small farming culture he was born into was gradually coming to an end after a long decline following the Enclosures, almost two centuries before. His Grandfather still spoke N. Lincolnshire dialect and had a store of stories, aurally transmitted through the generations. Evenings with him were often spent enjoying these stories and those of his Grandmother, who had written a few down decades earlier and sent them to the ‘Farmers’ Weekly’ who published them in their magazine during the second world war. 

Life on the farm had its difficulties. And Andrew’s father remembered a time when every winter was spent digging long trenches by hand, right across the wide, heavy clay fields of the farm, back and forth, right through the day, in order to drain the water-logged earth. 

Andrew's stories reflect his experiences of growing up in a challenging local culture which was in terminal decline, but which was still rich in stories and traditions. And into these stories, he weaves threads of the new life which was being imposed (supposedly by economic realities) and was gradually taking its place. His stories are healings, processing and resolving the wounds where local tradition and colonial modernism meet.

Join Andrew for: local places/local culture through a Queer lens; Queer Romance; a spirituality grounded in Queer Ecology.

 
Book Extract 
 
I, Exile 
 
Train travel. It used to seem so full of possibilities to me: interesting strangers to talk to, pretty places hidden in valleys full of new experiences, the chance of romance. Edward Carpenter met his boyfriend on a train in 1891. Exchanged a look. Happy ever after. It could be me, I thought. Maybe times have changed. That elderly woman by the window with the lovely smile? I sat opposite her, hoping for the benefit of a life time’s wisdom. Turns out, she’s a white supremicist. I feel uncomfortable enough in the cruel sun with my lack of pigmentation as it is, without someone trying to collude me into the master race. And those handsome men, walking to and from the buffet car? As soon as they sat back down, they started talking football in Fucklish. Voices like barking dogs. And all those pretty places, peeping from their valleys? When the train pulled into their stations, all I could see was Wimpey homes and plastic doo-dahs. Same-old same-old.