Stop press – Ambridge fete cancelled!
The Great Flood continues to wreak havoc in the village. This week, it
claimed its latest victim: the annual Ambridge fete. Drainage works to be
carried out over the summer will put the village green out of action for the
season and the organisers fear another venue cannot be found. Enthusiastic new
committee member Alice Carter said: ‘It’s such a shame! I was planning to
borrow a Eurofighter Typhoon, the world’s most advanced swing-role combat
aircraft, from work for the day! The kids would have loved it!’
New series: Kate Madikane, My
Ambridge Week
Party planner,
hardworking student, cool mum and committed social activist: how does Kate Madikane
do it? (Don't you mean 'Why'? Ed). Home Farm’s answer to Jemima Khan shares a week of her sparkling
summer season with us:
Sunday
Local community
events, like Open Farm Sunday, are really important to me (especially if
there’s a chance to chat up Charlie Thomas, Ambridge’s cutest mega-dairy
manager!) But I never miss a chance to stand up for social justice, so when my
soppy cousin Helen gave her little talk about solar panels I had to speak out.
‘You can’t believe Berrow Farm’s a nature reserve!’ I challenged her, waving my
plastic cup of free Pimm’s (Pimm’s is vegan, right?). ‘It’s a massively subsidised
industrial complex. You’re just spouting pathetic capitalist propaganda!’ I could tell the crowd was with me by
the way they waved their fists, but my spoilsport bro Adam told me I was out of
order. He wouldn’t treat Bianca Jagger like that!
Monday
Some family time with
my lovely daughter Phoebe today (although we’re such good mates, everyone says
we must be sisters!). Respect for your parents means everything to me so I was
only too happy to help when Dad asked me to clean the purple dye out of the
swimming pool. (Don’t ask how it got there – what a craz-ee party that was!)
Tuesday
Some great coverage in
the Borchester Echo today – they
printed a wicked picture of me in my Fairtrade hemp lingerie and Toby
Fairbrother in his Calvin Kleins, having a wild time in our pool at the Young
Farmers’ bash! Mum couldn’t see the funny side but I told her it’s all good
publicity for her boring old SAVE campaign. ‘Chill, mum!’ I said. ‘Judi Dench
just posed nude with a fish, and you love her!’
Wednesday
I went to a lecture at
world-renowned Felpersham University this morning, where I’m studying on a
highly prestigious, intense diploma course in International Development. My
lecturer Dr Matthewson said it was a delightful surprise to see me in class,
and I know he values my insights from my years in Africa. But I’m beginning to
wonder if academia is really in tune with my dharma, and whether I need to find
a new spiritual path. Kate Moss says… (is
there much more of this? Ed)
Thursday
Unfortunately, someone
with my high profile and charisma tends to attract men like moths around a
flame, and young Toby Fairbrother is no exception. The poor boy is completely
smitten. I had to phone him 10 times get him to meet me, so I could let him
down gently. I even graciously invited him to my party, but his brother Rex
said: ‘Leave it, Tobes. She’s way out of your league.’ Or something like that.
Sensible chap!
Friday
A highlight of the
Ambridge social season tonight – my housewarming and smudging party! Everyone
who’s anyone was there (well, apart from all my friends, who couldn’t make it) and
it was a deeply spiritual moment when I began the incantation: ‘Spirits of
sage, cedar and sweet grass; infinite power of the divine, protect and bless
this house through time.’
As an expert party
planner, I’m all about the element of surprise. So I was thrilled to see
people’s faces when the fire alarm went off! And calling out the paramedics and
fire service is a great way to get rid of your surplus vegan sausage rolls!
Smoke inhalation is only Nature’s way of clearing out your chakras, anyway. (An extra tip, girls: pretend you don’t
know vintage burgundy from Vimto – then daddy can’t mind if you ‘borrow’ some
of his bottles!)
Letter to the Editor
Adam Macy of Home
Farm, Ambridge, writes:
I thought your readers
should know that although I took my massive machine to Berrow Farm’s Open Farm
Sunday event, my friendship with the manager Charlie Thomas has no bearing on
my passionate views about the damage that high-tech farming methods are doing
to the environment.
It’s about time
someone spoke out about the way that big-scale farming is slowly wrecking the
ecosystem, which will soon quite literally explode! We will end up farming
useless, infertile dust, which won’t produce crops no matter how many expensive
chemicals you put on it. Farmers who claim to love the countryside, like my
stepfather Brian Aldridge, are slowly working the soil to death to pay for the
next load of fertiliser and no matter how many lunches Charlie Thomas buys me,
I will not change my mind on this. You may call my herbal ley a hare-brained
hippy experiment, Brian, but I will not stand by and see Ambridge turned into a
dustbowl of locusts, radioactive badgers and giant bald chickens with five
legs…. (That’s enough, Ed. Justin Elliott’s not keen
on this kind of thing and his advertising contract’s up soon.)
Ask the doctor
Our GP replies to a
reader who first asked her advice last week:
Q Since you diagnosed
me with ‘Peggywoolley Irritans’ last
week, my friends have taken me out for the day to discuss my ‘fuchsia’. They
insisted we go to visit a garden full of ‘fuchsias’ and even made me buy one,
saying they would support me whichever ‘fuchsia’ I chose. How can I tell them
it’s my future I’m worried about, not some stupid plant? ‘Christine’, Ambridge.
A Oh dear. At your age
people do get hard of hearing; perhaps there has been a misunderstanding. But I
suspect you’ve been a victim of ‘Metaphoris
Unsubtlum’, which can be hard to treat. Tell your friends to forget about
your ‘fuchsia’ and look to their own.
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promised to keep them for him, we’d rather have the cash. It’s what he would
have wanted. Apply: Eddie Grundy and Neil Carter, c/o The Cider Club, Ambridge.
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