North Dean Fete  

The weather held fair and North Dean looked like one of those idyllic fetes that you see in an opening scene of Midsomer Murders! However, we were spared a body in the bric-a-brac tent and the arrival of DCI Barnaby. In fact it was a true community event: made by the village for the village. After I’d done the official opening, I was asked to present Mick the postman, who is about to retire,  with a bottle of home made sloe gin – part of a gift to him from the villagers for 10 years of service and friendship. Inside the fabled bric-a-brac tent,  did manage to find an anthology of verse to be read aloud that I hadn’t yet got in my poetry collection and I picked up Pictionary at the tombola. (Better than the shampoo or tin of an obscure brand of  baked beans  that is normally my lot on such occasions). I fear though that my efforts at skittles will not have proved the...