A Year of Much Bickering by Jane Ayres

REMEMBERING AND REMEMBRANCE BONFIRES AND POPPIES IN MUCH BICKERING November is such a busy month.  Edith has taken the British Legion tin round for over thirty years and wears the enamel badges to prove it,  but a lthough her hip is quite healed now, her GP  advised her that she should not go standing about in all weathers even if it is in a good cause.  There was nothing for it but that I should take up the mantle laid down by the poor dear and so I have become the Poppy Lady for the village. Her doctor is right. It is pretty windswept in the market square and really not the place for a woman of her age…I’m not sure it’s the place for a woman of my age either.  Derek came buy and tipped his hat to me. He said if I let him have three big ones, he would push a twenty-pound note into my slot. Then he winked.  He gets smuttier by the day. I took Brexit along for  door to door collections with mixed success. The extra walk...

CRICHTON SURVIVES HALLOWEEN AND AN ENCOUNTER WITH A COWBOY In my day, we were happy to hollow out a swede, light a candle in it then kick the thing around the garden. Not so now America has taken a hold of our youth.  Cynthia left me happily watching Time Team, when some blighters from the village start ringing our door bell.  Trick or Treat?  Well I’d have been happy to go for the trick, but I knew Cynthia had left some chocs in the kitchen so went to fetch them. Damn. Brexit had got there before me and was up on the table troughing into the packet, wrappers and all. The mood on the door step was getting nasty by the time I’d cleared up the wreckage, so I gave them a packet of currants and some cheese footballs left over from Christmas, that I found in the pantry. Frankly they were lucky to get those imo. Spent rest of the night with the lights off pretending to be out. Cynthia Comments Poor cook. I think she is beginning to lose her grip....