2. Every person you know is a complementary therapist, a Steiner teacher or a Steiner student
3. Cheese straws and Danish pastries from the Cyrnel Bakery have been the snack/breakfast choice forever
4. You remember what the village was like before Tesco Express and the Co op – Alldays and a small chain petrol station
5. You have worked at or known pretty much every staff member at Java and Jazz and you feel disloyal going anywhere else for a pizza or coffee
6. You want to meet a person who’s lived in Forest Row long enough to tell you about the day JFK visited, go check out the plaque on the Freshfield outside wall if you don’t believe me!
7. The Craft Shop beside Java and Jazz and Al Fine next to Den’s is the perfect gift store and every big commercial place afterwards seems a travesty in comparison
8. You have attended at least one politically green rally at the village hall and have been banner waving since you could walk and talk
9. Organic food? Biodynamic is where it’s at!
10. Plawhatch and Tablehurst Farms are where you learnt about the facts of life by watching sheep breed and birth
11. You have adopted lambs and kept them in your back garden until they were ready to return to the aforementioned farms
12. Michael Fields, if you haven’t lived there, you spent most of your childhood playing with friends on skateboards, trikes, bikes and rollerblades.
13. Halloween in Michael Fields was the only place to be, before all the curfews. The Americans knew how to rock that holiday!
14. You know more international people than English
15. you feel living in Forest Row is a bit like living in a train station or airport, people arrive and depart all the time. So you are very used to saying goodbye to close friends and have open invitations all over the world.
16. It took a long time and you had to rebel against the organic/biodynamic/fairtrade product thing but NOW you totally get it and are disgusted by how long it’s taking for the rest of the world to catch on.
17. The Ashdown Forest is undoubtedly a magical place even if you’ve grown out of looking for Hefalumps and Pooh Bear
18. May Day Morris Dancing up at Gils Lap has to be seen to believed…at 5.30 am in the morning
19. Cycling along the Forest Way is a lifestyle, not just a form of exercise
20. You have pet names for the village: F’row, Forest Rowia, etc, even if you don’t live there, but have connections.
21. Nostalgia wells up in your eyes if someone mentions Forest Row and you’ve not been back in years
22. You go away to uni or on travels, but when you return you can make a few phonecalls and organise a social at Java, the Forester’s or the Swan.
23. You don’t like the OTT housing development that’s happened in the last few years but paradoxically glad that the village is always changing and expanding.
24. You wanted to kill whoever it was who let BetFred open
25. You are on a first name with all the waiters, waitresses, shop clerks and owners of every local business
26. Babies and kids outside of Forest Row always seem underdressed, after the children who are wrapped up so well by their Northern European influenced mothers
27. You know you are taking your life into your hands if you try to park in the Seasons car park or in front of the Co-op between 10.00 and Midday on every day of the week except Sunday. Then again at school rush, between 3.15 and 5.30.
28. It is not safe to gossip/bitch about anyone especially school teachers at Java or The Swan
29. You have been seeing an osteopath since you were a couple of months old and continue to swear by it.
30. You have no choice but to remain friends with your ex(s) unless you want major awkwardness when bumping to them or their families
31. The Golf Course, Rec and Michael Hall Grounds are the playgrounds of your childhood and adolescence
32. If you pass through the village on the way/way back from somewhere and don’t see someone you know, you freak out (majorly!)
33. You celebrated when the council pedestranised the place, putting in zebra crossings and road humps to slow down those maniacs passing through. Then a couple of years later you learn to drive and you curse how much you have to stop, especially at the one near the Seasons and Co-op!
34. In the early stages of a ‘significant’ relationship, you are wary of being seen in the village with that person, as the F’row grapevine works at the speed of light
35. You can spot an Anthropop a mile off, eurythmy robes, hemp handbag, long, undyed hair, whereas the scientologists are impossible to spot unless you know they are
36. Pushchairs? Pushchairs? Slings are what you use for babies, and the food goes in the pram
37. Going anywhere else for any length of time, especially big cities, makes you feel very anonymous and very small
38. You actually read Forest Row News and What’s On, because one of these days you’re gonna start bellydancing or yoga, just as soon as you get over the embarassment of being taught by your best friend’s mother
39. Weddings, Funerals and Christenings are major events and you love the feeling of community at them.
40. You feel at home in Forest Row more than anywhere else, Michael Hall, The Swan, Emerson, a friend’s house. Forest Row is where the heart is.
