The Enchanted Village Arms open for business

There is much frivolity in the village. Two weeks in and the Enchanted Village Arms is alive and kicking. It's like the pub had never closed.

Our new landlord and landlady have thrown themselves into community life with gusto. Things are looking good.

'You can call me Shrek,' he said, when I told him about the blog.

'I couldn't possibly do that,' I said.

'Why not? Everyone else does.'

But there's already someone in the village known as Shrek. So I'll just call him The Pub Landlord.

You get the picture.

So we have a bar full of people, eating, drinking and being merry. There's the dour Mr Putter talking about life after death, Mr Champagne-Charlie with ruffled feathers because the Tory Party keeps referring to him as Mr Asti-Spumante when they send him invitations to cheese and wine evenings. In the corner is a lesser-spotted, shorts-wearing Mr St John, who has been reunited with a long-lost love but tonight is sharing supper with MDF Man who is now sadly minus Posh Totty.

Mr Prayer gives us the latest lowdown on The Sixties Band (ages not decade), the group formed by our former shopkeeper and now featuring the powerful vocal chords of the diminutive Tuppence. I am booking them for a slot at our open air celebrations for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June. They'd better be good.

On the next table is the man who edited Hornblower and Black Beauty and across from him is Mrs Regal Bird. Bubbles is wittering about me giving her a tutorial on Facebook and Twitter for her B&B business, Mrs Bancroft has been and gone and there's Nobby Ecclestone Odd-Job coming up with ingenious ideas for designs for Mr Grigg's entry in the jubilee pram race which is being jointly organised by The Pub Landlord.

'We'll have to be careful when the prams come down the hill past your place,' the other organiser says to me.

'Why's that?' I say, picturing the start of Wacky Races with Mr Grigg and Champagne-Charlie as Dick Dastardly and Mutley, Nobby and Mr Putter as The Gruesome Twosome with Mr Loggins and Mr Sheepwash bringing up the rear in The Arkansas Chugabug.

'There's a bit in the village history book about a lady who was sweeping the front room and had the door open. A motorbike and sidecar came down the road, a bolt sheered off and the sidecar ended up hurtling through your hallway.'

I can picture it now. Me as Penelope Pitstop and Peter Perfect landing right there in my arms.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x