Judgement day has arrived!

Our village has entered the ‘village in bloom’ competition and as part of that we have entered the ‘doorstep challenge’. A reminder came through on the village Facebook page that judging was imminent. Responding to the ante having been seriously upped by our fellow village people, we ‘sorted’ pots and a colour scheme with which we were happy over a month ago. However, the combination of hanging basket (too dry) and some of the larger pots (too wet) meant that a ‘rethink’ was required. Luckily the ‘writer her in the garden”s creative juices were flowing; judicious pruning and replanting followed a redesign involving some freshly painted bricks and tea cup/milk jug and the ‘storm in a tea cup’ show was ready. We await the results of the judging, happy in the knowledge that for 48 hours, our doorstep looked fabulous!

Additional preparations for the judging meant that several residents gathered last weekend to ‘tidy up the village’. A remarkably heartwarming couple of hours sweeping, weeding, strimming and generally titivating the main street was combined with chatting both to new friends and people I hadn’t met previously and drinking coffee provided by the pub. The strength of collective action, community coming together cannot be underestimated, even on this small scale. The village in bloom marking criteria credit this sort of community action as much as the floral elements one would expect. Whilst it would be lovely for the village to win some sort of recognition in the competition, for me, as a relatively new resident, I feel like we have won already…

Eating: Brown bread ice cream and strawberries, with extra toasted sprinkles. Breadcrumbs toasted with some dark brown sugar to caramelise prior to adding to the custard and churning.

Drinking: I matched the above ice cream with this Sicilian white, which has fruit and floral notes with a herbal edge, and a lovely streak of acidity that makes it mouth-wateringly moreish.

Listening to: Child #3 put us on to an american series called ‘This is us’. To say emotional rollercoaster would be to understate. I am listening to the soundtrack from series 1. It has a really interesting variety of artists, many very well known (Dire Straits, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder) and others less so… Current favourites are: Sam Cooke – Bring it on home to me, Brian Tyree Henry – We can always come back to this, Janileigh Cohen – Blues run the game.