Stripping the willow with Johnnie Boden

It is overcast here today in the village. Little pockets of sunshine occasionally break through the clouds. The trees gently rustle in memory of the great winds that blew through them over the weekend. A cow wails like a whale along the ridge above the allotments.

Despite a distinctly unpromising start, there has been plenty going on. Given the choice between a barn dance open to all and sundry at the Boden ranch and an invitation-only chilly, chilli barbecue at the Logginses, Mr Grigg and I plumped for the latter. Up at the Loggins abode the conversation inevitably turned to logs. Mr Grigg has come up with the ingenious idea of following the power cables to scoop up the spoils left by the electricity board tree fellers.

A veil of boredom suddenly fell over the women's faces. A sleepy Sheepwashlet face nearly landed in the semifreddo.

Mrs Darling Loggins glared at her husband. 'Can we talk about something else other than bloody logs? When we go to bed at night you even read the chainsaw catalogue.'

'Well hark at you,' Mr Loggins retorted. 'It's better than reading one of your fancy books and sitting up in bed like Queen Victoria.' (Mrs Loggins is well educated).

Nobby Odd-Job intervened and rather helpfully confided that his bedtime reading was the Screwfix catalogue. The supper than degenerated with Mr Loggins' exceptional Professor Stanley Unwin impersonations and a rendition of 'Old Mrs Hunt with a rough cut punt.'

Meanwhile, Mrs Bancroft was undoubtedly stripping the willow with Johnnie Boden. I had offered to lend her my pistachio green cord Boden coat to single her out from the crowd but she politely declined. This was the dance where last year Mrs Bobby Packman went outside to avoid the queues in the ladies. As she dropped her drawers in a quiet corner of the farmyard, a pair of tractor headlights suddenly came on, thrusting her bare behind in the spotlight. She gave the dance a miss this year. The highlight of her weekend was an umbrella sword fight in the square with Randy Munchkin at one o'clock in the morning after a girls' night out in the pub.

I can report that Celebrity Farmer is in his cups after being turned down by Noel Edmonds, the oil thief has been back to the village hall tank again, Posh Totty's dear little daughter, Charlotte Whinge-Bucket, (pronounced Bouquet) is in hospital with a mysterious swollen foot and the Ra-Ras from down the road had a variable meal at Hix's fish restaurant in Lyme Regis.

I can't say I have much sympathy for the Ras but we're all rooting for little Charlotte.

That's about it
Love Maddie x