Village Show

In 2020, of course, there were no community events, and yesterday was the first resumption of that sort of Swanvale Halt normality with the Village Show, a cornucopia of flowers, fruit and cake, and other things besides. The weather thwarted my intention of having some of the stalls outside and thus to show that we were still taking covid semi-seriously, but we cleared the whole interior of the church instead and that provided plenty of space for people to move around without too much proximity. The team managed extraordinarily well, adding to the event some of the things we would normally have at the Spring Fair; I am not sure that will ever return, and I think even the church members who are assuming it will are mainly concerned with getting rid of the boxes of secondhand books which currently stuff the choir vestry. Adam, who usually plans the whole thing along with his wife Jill, managed to suffer a minor stroke a week or so ago while driving at speed along the A3, an event from which he emerged with nothing more serious than bruises and temporary confusion, but it meant more of the work devolved on Jill. The burger stand had to restrict itself to hot dogs only as it was discovered our usual supplier of gas bottles had decided to close on Saturdays. I nearly had one before remembering that I wasn't eating meat: it's not a foodstuff I relish overly but hot dogs or burgers are part of the occasion more than anything else. Ms Formerly Aldgate was basically vegetarian but I once caught her at the Spring Fair with a hot dog decorated with radioactive sauce. 'I think that the actual meat content is probably minimal', she said.

Announcing the prizewinners at the end, I was delighted that 'Best in Show' was won by an amazing Gothic Windsor chair which someone basically knocked up in their shed, as it took me right back to my days working at Wycombe Museum which had many such items in its collection. However, it was when I scanned the list of winners and saw that the Fruit Category had been won by 'Pamela for her melons' that I thought I might have been set up. Suddenly I'd been catapulted into an episode of Benny Hill. But, when life gives you melons ...