The world from my window

The village square is on its knees. Tumbleweed drifts slowly by the old village stores, where the blinds have been pulled for a couple of years now. Across the road, the shop last used a few months ago by the church on Saturday mornings, as a gathering place for coffees and a natter, has its windows whitened out. The jackdaws gather. Ominously. And not a drop of water comes out of the old pump under the signpost. In a new development, the downstairs windows of the pub were boarded up on Monday. Six workmen waited outside for an hour until they could get in and seal off our hostelry from the outside world. In the last sixteen years, I've never seen that happen in between landlords (and we've had nine of them in that time). Let's hope it signals a refurbishment and not closure. We need our pub. In the meantime, the community spirit that is so endemic in this village is alive and well and living in the village hall. There's all sorts of stuff going on here...

I woke up this morning, drooling on my pillow like Patsy from  Ab Fab . My hair was sticking up on one side and a trail of clothes led to the bed. I can't find my coat and I hope it's still in the pub. Some weeks ago, Ding Dong Daddy asked me to help him out with the disco in the pub on New Year's Eve. It wasn't exactly like this, but not dissimilar. All afternoon, Ding Dong Daddy and I worked in separate houses, putting our playlists together. Messages pinged back and forth, a conversation on Twitter included Caitlin Moran , the writer Marian Keyes favourited one of my tweets and the violinist with the Smashing Pumpkins  and I had a bit of joshing on Facebook. Things could only get better... Well, Ding Dong Daddy and I played back-to-back. I sneaked in Siouxsie and the Banshees, followed Tom Jones with Tom Jones, peaked too early with The Monkees, got back in the game with Lady and Sing It Back and then emptied the dance floor with James Brown's T...

In Lush Places, the village square is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The are festive trees above the houses of doors and a big conifer on the green now has a pretty coat of sparkling lights. Over at the pub, now resplendent with a cheery and professional landlord and landlady and roaring fire (it's three times the place it was a few months ago. It's been dire. We even got to the point where Mr Grigg and I thought about running it ourselves...) the stag's head has a red bauble for a nose and there's tinsel everywhere. There's three words, 'HO' 'HO' and 'HO', on the shelf below the menu boards. And, inevitably, they keep being turned round by the customers when the landlord's not looking to read 'OH' 'OH' 'OH'. And today, colourful, twinkling lights went up on the pub's tree above the door and a string of purple criss-crossed its way along the front wall. Tonight, the ladies from the fish ...

It’s not all sweetness and light here. Oh no, not at all. Here’s me, describing this utopia, this wonderful place where neighbour gets on with neighbour and where everything is wrapped in a rosy glow of peace and harmony, love and understanding. The Enchanted Village: where sheep outnumber the local population Except sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way. Something jars the energy in the ley lines that cross beneath the centre of The Enchanted Village and there’s a fall out, or someone's ill or someone's down in the dumps. But tomorrow night, we will forget all our troubles, forget all our cares and go down town, to My Kind of Town, to see Ding Dong Daddy's band, The Imagined Village, performing live at The Electric Palace. Every man and his dog from The Enchanted Village will be there. Delegates from Compost Corner where the pub regulars stare into their glasses and rule the world, members of the short-arsed bowling club will be out in force, the ladies from t...

There is much frivolity in the village. Two weeks in and the Enchanted Village Arms is alive and kicking. It's like the pub had never closed. Our new landlord and landlady have thrown themselves into community life with gusto. Things are looking good. 'You can call me Shrek,' he said, when I told him about the blog. 'I couldn't possibly do that,' I said. 'Why not? Everyone else does.' But there's already someone in the village known as Shrek. So I'll just call him The Pub Landlord. You get the picture. So we have a bar full of people, eating, drinking and being merry. There's the dour Mr Putter talking about life after death, Mr Champagne-Charlie with ruffled feathers because the Tory Party keeps referring to him as Mr Asti-Spumante when they send him invitations to cheese and wine evenings. In the corner is a lesser-spotted, shorts-wearing Mr St John, who has been reunited with a long-lost love but tonight is sharing su...