Excitement mounts in the village square

The blinds are now down permanently at the village shop as a committee of the great and good do their very best to come up with a rescue plan. The pub is shut after the publicans' farewell party last night and one of the five roads leading off the square is closed for resurfacing.

The only thing of any interest lately has been the young man from the road menders, whose sole job is to sit on a kerb in the square all day to help people who can't read the 'diversion' sign. There is another man at the other end of the road, but he has a van to sit in so is clearly higher up the road mender scale.

So it's an empty square this morning as I look out from my window.  But not for long.

The removals lorry backs up the one-way system outside the pub.  The bus arrives and attempts to do a nine-point turn. The lady (I am sorry to say) driver can't find reverse on her gear stick and narrowly avoids hitting the 'diversion' sign in the middle of the road.

And then the mobile library arrives.

As Champagne-Charlie sits in his Land Rover outside his house and mutters an obscenity from the safety of a closed window, Mr Grigg walks out of our front door and springs into action.

'You would have been proud of me,' he says later.

'Did you fly into the bus and put it into reverse?' I enquire, picturing him as Keanu Reeves in the film, Speed.

'No,' he says. 'I moved the diversion sign.'

My hero.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x