I have no problem in remembering remembering the 5th of November as it is my granddaughter’s birthday. This means I have to run the gamut of Christmas cards in order to purchase a birthday card. Choice is obviously limited at this time of year but why, oh why, is everything with granddaughter on it pink? She doesn’t like pink, she likes yellow. Even abandoning the relationship section in favour of the number section doesn’t help, here the choice is pink or blue, still no yellow. Having purchased a less than ideal, slightly pink, slightly blue, emphatically not yellow, card with a 4 on, I head for the checkout. I avoid the self-service section, that way madness lies. Remember, living as I do, several miles from the nearest supermarket, I am rarely let loose in the shops (my personal shopper aka a fisherman of my acquaintance hand delivers my requirements) so it is all a learning curve. It seems I have purchased sufficient items to be given a green plastic token, with which I can vote for a local charity for the supermarket to support. I stared at the plastic frame containing the columns of green tokens indicating where others had cast their votes. I made an informed choice. Do you think I could work out where to post the flipping token? I tried going in from the top. No, not a hint of a slot in which to post the token there. Eventually, after several minutes, I spotted a whole series of slots along the front. Who knew that shopping could be so challenging?

This year, some bright spark (could be a potential pun in there somewhere) decided that the village would have a guy competition, with each organisation creating an appropriate effigy, which was then to be displayed in the run up to bonfire night. After a bit of discussion, the history group chose local postman poet Edward Capern. I was proud that the letters he was holding were addressed to genuine village residents of the 1860s but I am getting ahead of myself. First, imagine the scene. Four ladies of a certain age attempting to stuff a pair of trousers with empty lemonade bottles (whose idea was it to create his limbs from bottles?) with slightly inappropriate results. We were a little early to put our creation in situ, so he sat in my kitchen for a week. No matter how many times I mentally warned myself that he was there, I never failed to jump in surprise when I saw him sitting in the rocking chair. Next was the hilarious attempt to install him in my neighbours’ garden. We accomplished a smooth lift from kitchen chair to garden chair (I’ve watched Casualty I know how these things work). Ok, so getting him out of the house was more of a challenge; his legs only fell off twice in the process. In the interests of the environment he is not being burned (too much plastic) so, now the day is passed, he will be dismantled into his constituent parts. Will all his limbs fit in my recycling box?