The world from my window

There's been rain for the first time in weeks in this long, hot summer. This morning, it belted down on the conservatory roof, filled the sides of our Dorset roads with streams and lashed the hanging baskets. And then the sun came out. Which was just as well because it was Loders Fete. Set in the gardens of the lovely Loders Court, this typically English event feels like slipping back through a time warp into the fifties, sixties and seventies. With a nostalgic soundtrack featuring  Spanish Flea , Danny Kaye singing Thumbelina and the music for Muscle Man , the grounds are alive with shrieking children, ice creams, stalls selling bric-a-brac, antique valuations, Otter beer, teas, plants and a horde of home-made cakes. There are racing ferrets, a woman dancing with fire, a fancy dress competition, a bouncy castle and three balls on the coconut shy for 50p. The cars keep on arriving in the car park hours after the fete opens. 'It's a popular one, th...

There's a bishop's mitre in the hallway, a Greek urn on the bed. There's a pair of Gladiator sandals on the cushion and an old sheet about to be transformed into a gown for an Athenian goddess. The Lidl bags are full of cider, little beers and dozens of fruit shots. And there's a handful of kids' colouring books from the pound shop, ready for unwrapping to be used as prizes on the wheel spinner. In Champagne-Charlie's garden next door, a frame hangs like a crucifix waiting to be dressed. In the Grigg household, there are a few props and an idea ready to explode if only I had the inclination to feel creative. Across the way at the Bancrofts, they haven't even started to think about what they're going to make. And as the village fete, parade of banners and scarecrow festival gets nearer by the hour, there are curses from garages as chicken wire is stuffed into trousers, straw into old checked shirts. A limb here, a limb there, a headless torso, a head with...