The village Hall's Grand opening 110 years ago
Trendy Carol ( in a sporty blue and white number) called over the angry pumpkin on the kitchen wall to ask if she could put one of her old wardrobes on my bonfire.
I told her she could and minutes later there came a small feather light tap on the lane window which got the dogs barking all over again
The dogs have been on heightened alert mode since the Randa girls with a huge entourage of various ghosts and ghoulies appeared down the path last night with a beetle juice looking Jason in tow.
I love the way the affable despot always throws himself into his kid's activities, he has more gusto than any am-dram thespian and has provided those girls with thousands of family memories of an idyllic ever-so-sweet childhood.
Mrs Trellis was at the wall wearing her winter bobble hat.
She wanted to discuss a fellow villager who she was worried about.
Luckily I was able to reassure her that all was ok
She told me about the vicar retiring at the end of the month and said she didn't know who was eventually taking over the village parish.
The bishop will attend this week's Sunday service she informed me
I made a mental note of leaving a retirement card in the vestry .
I asked her if she was going to any of the new groups in the village. Apparently the WI and the art group are doing very well indeed and I told her so. The new youth club has over 40 members after just two weeks of opening too which is a great achievement
Sandra Cameron ( the village Hall's caretaker) is organising a massive Christmas Fayre in December which will apparently take over Chapel street ...I've been told a local cart horse will be made up as a reindeer for the day........
Oh and
Cameron the teenage boffin is working in the village pub...and now has a beard!
I hope that there will be no bashing of the bishop when he comes. Any chance of a photo of Mrs Trellis in her winter bobble hat?
ReplyDeleteI've sent you one before
DeleteYes thanks...but I meant JUST the bobble hat!
DeleteThank God for village news.
ReplyDeleteI love all the village news , thanks for the catch up .
ReplyDeleteIt's almost 11 years to the day since your last post
DeletePhotos of the Boffin with a beard are needed. Fun news, I wonder what is happening in my back yard?
ReplyDeleteThat's indeed an impressive youth club for a small village, and a good sign for the future. The Christmas fair sounds like an exciting time, too. What a lively little place you've landed.
ReplyDeleteI presume children from the school came too, the village school covers a wide area... but Bridget who spearheaded the club , I have heard worked very hard organising varied activities
DeleteSee, just like the Archers in real life.
ReplyDeleteI love the way people call by rather than just ring or text!
Tess x
We do have mobile phones too
DeleteI like your village ...........Nothing interesting ever happens in my village or if it does I never hear about it.(I'm two miles from the village centre in one of 6 hamlets that make up a very spread-out village). Dull, Dull Dull!
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could start something? Our book swap coffee mornings seem very popular
DeleteThe Parish Magazine might help Sue. I live in a similar parish with scattered hamlets; it is vital to have the parish magazine to find out what events are going on.
DeleteI really enjoy your village updates and finding out what's going on. Living a vicarious village life, as my hamlet consists of a twelve houses where we don't even see each other.
ReplyDeleteYou need to knock on a few doors
DeleteI'd probably get Norman Bates.
DeleteThat made me laugh out loud.
DeleteAh, neighbors! I've read "You choose your friends but God chooses your neighbors"! Somehow I thought the Boffin was too young for a beard ... hummm.
ReplyDeleteHope Mary is comfortable as she waits (unknowingly) for her new surgery date and hope Winnie is doing well.
Ta for the news. :)
Next wednesday
DeleteThanks for the update and I am assuming 'Cameron' is a guy?
ReplyDeleteJimbo you've not been reading Going Gently carefully enough
DeleteJust teasing.....god knows I try!! lol
DeleteI'm sure I'm not the first to tell you how much your village news posts remind one of Barbara Pym.
ReplyDeleteOff to google her
DeleteShe was born in Oswestry just over the Welsh border
DeleteBarbara Pym is the author of possibly the worst book I ever read - it's called Excellent Women and is to be avoided at all costs!
DeleteOh, I love Barbara Pym! And Excellent Women was the first of the 2 books of hers I read recently! So soothing with their lack of drama and small lives.
DeleteI'll stick with Scarlett, Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary. They're all excellent women in their own way.
DeleteLove your village life posts - the characters all sound true to life with just a pinch of eccentricity.
ReplyDeleteMost people are a bit odd if you look close enough
DeleteSo now he's 'Cameron, the Bearded Boffin'! X
ReplyDeleteIndeed he is
DeleteCameron sounds so grown up now ... I think you'll have to drop the 'teenage' part of his name :-)
ReplyDeleteLovely village news, I do miss being in a village. I don't know what we are, we can't even call ourselves a hamlet as we are scattered for miles over various hillsides.
He was in primary school when we first met
DeleteBeing protestant, it always kinda of surprises me when churches get assigned a priest/pastor. We've always done interviews and do a church vote. What if you can't stand the guy. My girlfriend's church got assigned a Indian priest and hjs accent was so strong that nobody could understand a word he said. Week after week they go and listen and get nothing from it. Odd.
ReplyDeleteThe present rev has been here 38 years I've been told
DeleteNow that we moved one mile up from the heart of town, I too miss being a part of our town. Yes, please, dog news.
ReplyDeleteMary is booked in for her op next Wednesday !
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSorry to delete,I found ideas online for smaller groups than a village.While reading I saw most fayres are fundraisers, we have those already.I'll propose a bonfire with food and caroling for the few folks that live nearby.-Mary
DeleteThe Christmas fayre raises money for the upkeep of the village hall. But there are more altruistic events such as the Christmas meal being organised
DeleteBeing a North Walian (out of country) I always look forward to the 'village news'. Mrs G saw a human skeleton lying in a garden. I told her it'll be made of plastic and the man will doubtless take it back to the hospital where he works when he's finished with it.
ReplyDeleteThere could have been more but I didn't have time to network the other side of the village
DeleteI love your village news, John. It almost feels like I know the people you write about.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I follow Cameron the bearded boffin on Instagram ~ his photography is really good!
He'll be happy you said that....he has a very good eye
DeleteWhat a delightful picture, literally and figuratively.
ReplyDeleteAlthough not a churchgoer I believe our vicar leaves this weekend too.
ReplyDeleteI love your village news too John. It sounds such a vibrant place.
Fits and starts pat
DeleteEnjoyed the village news. So much to hear about.
ReplyDeleteHope Winnie is better and good luck to Mary.
cheers, parsnip and badger
Winnie had her longest walk down the railway line today and was very slow returning to the car.,.she perked up when a young toddler fell off his bike and raced over to see if he was ok
DeleteWonderful village catch up
ReplyDeleteI have a sense I've missed alot
DeleteThanks for the catch up! We do like to know what's going on! Also, it's nice being in the same time zone so I get the goss earlier in the day :)
ReplyDeleteYes.......I'm back in the swing dearheart
DeleteI am always happy to hear of newly found beards. Such good taste.
ReplyDeletePognophile x
I love a hairy man
DeleteInteresting. The main recent news from my local village involves the widely publicized discovery of sexual cheating between two neighbouring couples (people really should put passwords on their phones, especially when graphic images are stored therein) a drugs bust uncovering a small cannabis "farm", a guy arrested for threatening to shoot every "fucker" in the pub, a local businessman falling from his van drunk outside the village shop, two very gory murders in the past few years (yes I am serious) and a brazen burglary by some Eastern European visitor fellows achieved by removing an entire back window to make their entry, a neighbour who angrily throws the leaves and catkins falling from a tree back into her neighbour's garden, a "flag war" between a saltire flying nationalist and a union jack and EU flag flying unionist... Oh, and a missing cat. Perhaps I should move (or start writing my radio play). Apparently I line in a "delightful historic village with unique charm and a friendly atmosphere" too, according to the tourist information office. I sleep with one eye open, while checking my wife's mobile phone.
ReplyDeleteWe had a drugs den which caught fire and the man next door was completely bonged out of his head
DeleteLol
Am now pondering what may have ensued had Winnie been in the path of the cannabis fumes... Stoned out of her mind and looking for slippers...
DeleteThe slippers of sex have long since collapsed and been shredded under her attentions
DeleteThis is one of the best conversations I have read in a long time.
DeletePart of me would love to write about my village as openly as John does about his (an openness that sometimes makes me gasp), but I fear I would be run out of the place, or worse, very quickly. I forgot to mention the nymphomaniac who used to sit in her lit up lounge with curtains drawn wide and whom my young children years ago began to call "bra and panties woman" (she is more reserved nowadays) and also the incident of the barmaid discovered by her husband bent over the basement pool table while being far from alone... Actually I did write about that one in a little piece of published "fiction" some years ago, except calling it fiction was eh, a fiction. Cat out of the bag time now. I have said too much. Keep up the good work John.
DeleteYou don't happen to have a blog do you....
DeleteYes I do. Click on my name. and follow link; but if you are looking for salacious details you will be disappointed (unless perhaps you explore deep into the books... and maybe not finding what you may want even then...)
DeleteThe Teenage Boffin is old enough now to have a beard and work in the pub?!?! He needs a new handle then. "Cameron the Now All Grown Up Boffin" perhaps?
ReplyDeleteWell he's still a teen , just
DeleteI love you village life updates and jeepers glad you don't live in Andrews village sorry Andrew a book in the making.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds nore exciting than trelawnyd
DeleteI rather suspect much the same as I recounted is all also going on in Trelawnyd or the nearby region, from time to time (behind closed doors). You need to know who to talk to discover most things, and the pubs yield much more information that the book club, coffee morning etc...
DeleteWhat a delightful read after the chaos of the last few days!
ReplyDeleteAmen
DeleteI've been following Cameron on instagram. His autumn pictures that he posted recently are beautiful.
ReplyDeleteHelen
Life goes on and sounds lovely in your village. I hope the dogs and you are in a good and fine state.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad y'all had a good Halloween.
That seems to be a very busy little village.
ReplyDeleteIt all goes on doesn't it... just have to keep your ears peeled! I'm very happy Winnie seems no worse for wear than can be expected after her turn and that Mary has a new date for her op.
ReplyDeleteJo in Auckland
What a scruffy lot we've become. Everyone (even the children) in the photo are so well dressed.
ReplyDeleteReading the comments is like a long unfinished story, sparked off by John's village of Trelawynd. And to those, from the village and who read John's blog. What a marvellous village you live in, take care. X
ReplyDeleteCan you send a link to Cameron’s instagram?
ReplyDeleteNot sure of it but will check
DeleteSee
Deletehttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.instagram.com/camackersss/&ved=0ahUKEwi8j5KE44XYAhUKCcAKHZ-DDV0QjjgIKTAB&usg=AOvVaw2fs80H7pjvu71h_pbF1vNH
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ReplyDeleteTrelawnyd was on Weatherman Walking last night (Friday)! Great view from the top of the GOP! Must put it on my "to visit" list.
ReplyDeleteGail x
I don't know why but every time you mention Trendy Carol I have this mental image of Dick Emery dressed as a woman saying that immortal line 'ooh you are awful but I like you'
ReplyDelete