The world from my window

How’s your World Cup going? I’m not even a football fan. For years I thought Baddiel and Skinner were singing about  Three Lines . But I got well and truly sucked into it last night. The England games are being shown on a big screen in the village hall, thanks to my soccer-mad husband, who took no persuading in setting it up after learning that the pub was going to be a footie-free zone during the tournament. Last night, the chip van in the village square was doing a roaring trade. “But it’s funny,” said the young woman in between battering cod and haddock. “I’ve never seen so many ladies queuing up. Obviously the men have something better to do.” Up at the hall, the smell of testosterone on a warm, sunny night hit me as I walked in at half-time with our supper. “Just in time,” said my husband behind the makeshift bar, before he was inundated with requests for ice-cold pints of Thatchers and Branscombe beer straight from the barrel. “You couldn’t...

It is Bunting Day in the Enchanted Village, a Saturday in early June when our menfolk crowd around the bottom of a ladder with copious cups of coffee while one brave soul climbs to the top and puts the flags out. The annual village fete will soon be upon us and so will the football. Oh yes, the football. In the Grigg household, rather like during the election, we will sit on opposite sides of the fence. Mr Grigg is passionate about the game. Me? I neither understand the offside rule nor do I care. But I do like the house and the street being decorated, which it is every year whether the football is on or not. Six men turn out this morning to put the bunting up while my neighbour flits in and out of her front door with a tray of coffee and biscuits. A short man stands on the phone box while a taller man balances precariously on the litter bin next to the village green in an attempt to tie a string of bunting on to a signpost. Mr Grigg is up a ladder in fake Crocs and Mr Sheepwash swings...