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....

 MUCH BICKERING REJECTS BREXIT                                                                                                                         photo by E Williams There is a distinct feeling of unrest in Much Bickering after a sign appeared on the green that says DOWN WITH BREXIT. Poor little dog. He can’t understand why people are so unkind. We have to go the long way round to the post office now to avoid it. And now that awful woman, Mrs Stevens is asking to return Boris for bad behaviour. Of course, I refused point blank and told her she’d had several others to pick from and she should have thought of the damage he might do at the time. It’s too late to complain now ...

WELCOME HOME CYNTHIA AND CRICHTON                                                                                                                              photo courtesy of Sausage Dog Hotel It’s so good to be back.  We returned home from our little trip away to find the family in fine fettle. The twins have  taught Brexit to roll over and give a paw and he greeted me with great joy.  They had entered him for the Western-Super-Mare Sausage Stroll on Sunday and against my better judgement I agreed to let him take part. The organisers were hoping for over 500 hundred dachshunds to turn up for a mass walk on the beach and possibly get into the G...

   THE GIRLS GO FOR A SPA DAY Crichton is a sweetie. He booked me a spa day at Ponsbury Hall. I think he’s trying to make it up to me for something that I don't know about yet. I rang Bunty and Sally and they were delighted to come along and keep me company. Monica was taking Vespasian to their shared ukulele lesson (I never thought she would bother to learn after all that New Year’s Eve bragging) so it’ll be just the three of us. They said we could pick our treatments when we got there, but I had my heart set on a massage for me and maybe a facial too. Ponsbury Hall is one those places that if you’ve been once, you just can’t wait to get back to. Monica used to say something similar about that place near Henley. She just went on and on and on about it until everyone started calling it Chapped Knees and she went all quiet on us. Anyway, the girls met me at reception for green tea and a bath robe while we flicked through the brochure to pick our treatments. ...

THE END OF AN ERA    I spent Sunday morning in the Gym. They now have  battle ropes ! More fun to watch than use, methinks. There was a couple of very fit young ladies giving a good account of themselves and I felt it only right to spend a few minutes admiring their efforts. Managed 20 minutes on the rowing machine, followed by a good 40 lengths of the pool (mixed strokes). All very invigorating.  Later I spotted Cynthia and Monica talking their heads off in the café… at least, Monica was talking and C was nodding sagely…which usually means she’s being polite but not really listening, so I decided to give ’em a wide birth. Cook made me a toasty for lunch instead. Cheese, ham and pickle, my absolute favourite, but hardly got a look in before Trenton had snarfed it off my plate, behind my back. I was pleased to see he still had it in him. He’s always been a devil for thievery, even as a pup.  Early to bed for us both. Cynthia had...

BUNTY TAKES SANCTUARY AT THE MANOR HOUSE  There has been high excitement in the village for the last few weeks. Channel 4’s ‘Trash or Treasure’ was coming to Twillinghurst. Cook came rushing in to show me the advertisement in the Gottknowe Gazette. She was almost beside herself when she read it out to me.    ‘Oh Madam, I love Adam Gizzard. When he says, ‘Twash or Twesher,’ in that accent of his, I go all peculiar.  Might I take a half day and go along?’ I can’t stand the man myself, but one should occasionally give one’s staff a treat, so I assured her that not only could she have the whole day off, but if she wanted something to take with her, she could borrow the shepherdess figurine from the second-floor landing.  I think it’s Minton but we’ve never really liked it.     ‘Oh, no madam. I wouldn’t feel right doing that, ‘she said, ‘I have a little ‘drinket’ of my own to take along. I’m sure it isn’t worth anyt...