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...

On a cold May day that seems more like March, Mr Grigg saunters up to the playing field in rolled-up shorts and fake Crocs. You would think his team had won the cup rather than the general election. Fortunately for The Enchanted Village, he is wearing a T-shirt and an old fleece. With Mr Loggins giving him coaching tips from the sidelines, he walks away from the coconut shy with two coconuts from three balls, narrowly missing the six-year-old ball girl behind the net. As a consolation, she is given a share of his winnings, and then Mr Grigg promptly backs the winner in the snail race, which crosses the line first despite an obvious handicap. On the way home, with me and Pelly Sheepwash in thick coats and gloves, Mr Grigg declares he might just have to light the fire this evening. Mr Loggins then wails: "At least you've got a fire." Mr Loggins, you may remember, has just demolished the Love Shack to make way for a new house made of logs which might be finished som...

We arrive home to a display of flowers at the front of the house far better than I could have tended these few hot weeks. Our dear neighbour Mrs Bancroft has been diligently watering and dead heading my nicotianas, nasturtiums, the tall spikes of yellow loosestrife, the passion flowers and snapdragons and tomatoes facing up to the bizzy-lizzies and red pelargoniums in the concrete pots next to the village pump on the other side of the Square. Pelly and Mr Sheepwash have wandered up to the patch of ground we borrow from a nearby farmer and watered the courgettes in Mr Grigg's polytunnel. And Mr Loggins was drafted in when all our little helpers found themselves (not together) in London for a hot weekend. Nobby Odd-Job spent almost the entire fortnight stuck inside our house. His duties were to water the plants in the back yard. But Mr Grigg gave him the duff key and Nobby locked himself in. After nearly an hour trying to devise his escape he hit upon the idea of ringing Mrs Bancroft...