Not in front of the parents

Do you remember when you were young and watched something risque on the television with your parents right beside you? You'd be so embarrassed you'd stare, non-plussed, straight ahead, terrified of the look on their faces and fearing they might send you to bed once they had got over the shock. Well, we have just had the film Atonement in our village hall and when the sequence with the typewriter came on and Robbie typed the 'C' word you could even hear the tea cups in the kitchen gasp. And when the word kept resurfacing, again and and again, throughout the film my only hope was the entire village was dyslexic and thought the film was about King Cnut.
It reminded me of a film show a while back when one of the village hall committee thought a film called La Spagnola looked quite good. The grey heads coped with the scenes showing fumbling in the back of a car. But when the ugly, aged aunt appeared on the giant screen, preparing a ratatouille and then took a fancy to a courgette I nearly wet myself. She looked at it, wrapped it in cling film and then, with the camera behind her, began to pleasure herself. Of course, you couldn't see anything but with all the grunts and groans it was obvious what was happening. We were sitting at the front, starting straight ahead, not daring to look around at the grey heads on the village hall seats behind us. At that point, a spider scuttled across the floor, stopped to look up at the screen, looked at the audience and then ran off very quickly the other way. Two people walked out, the rest of the film was watched in silence and then when the credits rolled, no-one said a thing. The next day, of course, it was the talk of the village. 'T'was pornographic, t'was,' was the verdict. The next month, the hall was packed. Not long after, there was glut of courgettes on our allotment, which I carefully picked and put through selected people's letterboxes, reminding me of the Ken Dodd joke about putting a cucumber through your neighbour's letterbox and shouting: 'Ooh, missus, the Martians have landed.'

Breaking news
The pub is going through heating oil as if they are frying their chips in it. After contacting the brewery the landlord is told there must be something wrong with the boiler. Check your tank, they're told, as there's been a spate of oil thefts in recent weeks. A gang of Eastern Europeans (the latest phrase that strikes terror in uneducated rural hearts) is apparently going round and siphoning from every oil tank they can find. The story is that one of the gang either follows the tank around to see where they deliver or they're on the inside, working for the oil company. Once they know where the full tanks are the pump the oil out in the dead of the night and sell it on the black market.

The Dorset roads are bloody awful, potholes everywhere. Across the border in Somerset, it's a different story. It's like driving on a race circuit.

There are days when the village is swirling in mist, like we're at the top of the beanstalk in giant's land.

That's about it
Love Maddie x