The world from my window

The lambs are nice and fat now. Nearly ready for eating. They stand on their hind legs, nibbling in the hedgerows while their mothers are forlorn and shorn. The old girls look embarrassed, like women who have suddenly realised they are not as attractive as they once were in short skirts and crop tops while the years advance and the children get bigger and more demanding. It's the lambs we want on our plates, not mutton. Up on the hill, the slopes are nicely manicured, ploughed with rows made by a giant's comb. The ground is saturated and hosepipe bans are lifted. The sky is full of water from an overloaded paint brush and it's smudging at the edges. Posters on telegraph poles advertising our parish plan are unreadable because we've had so much rain. And in the Grigg front hall are boxes and boxes of wine for an evening later this week when the future of our village shop is finally unveiled. And then a woman stops me and says:' Are you the one who writes...

The fragrant Mrs Putter sighs deeply as she inputs data on to a spreadsheet from the parish plan questionnaires. (And this is before she gets to transcribing people's suggestions on alternative uses for village common - 'flood it and turn it into an ice skating rink, grass it over for polo or use it for dogging'). There is an intake of fresh breath as she pores over the forms and reads: Question: What is your age range?  Answer: 0-4 years. Question: How long have you lived here?  Answer: 65 years. For a moment, Mrs Putter has visions of Benjamin Button hunched up in front of a log fire, dressed in a baby sleep suit and muttering scribble talk gibberish in between sucks on his dummy and a smoke on his pipe. The Enchanted Village population is getting younger by the hour. There's youth dew in that parish pump. That's about it. Love Maddie x