The world from my window

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...

It is strimming season and with it comes the inevitable expletives from the Grigg garage. On lawns and in workshops all over the village, the strimmers suddenly take on lives of their own, like the broomsticks in Harry Potter. They even have names. Mr Sheepwash has three adjectives for his and one noun - bastard - as the starting-up the strimmer process turns into a little dance. The smell of petrol and the sound of swear words fill the air, the engine floods and Pelly Sheepwash sagely shakes her head. 'They don't like stale petrol,' she whispers to me, adding that she told Mr Sheepwash this last summer. This has since been confirmed by the local agricultural engineer who says he is beseiged by bastard strimmers in the spring when the men of the house reach the end of their tethers and can deal with the frustration no more. 'Well, my car starts when I leave it for a few days,' Mr Sheepwash says. Rather snappily for one so usually laid back. 'Yes,' says Pelly...