Projects, opinions and local stories, mostly over tea.
A winter of Thursday nights at The Barley Mow, where the quiz starts late, the geography round is a contact sport and the landlord's green biro has its own sense of justice. Less a story about winning, more a report on the small rituals that hold a back room together.
For twelve months I stood in the same queue, notebook in pocket, and watched a small room do the work of a village square. What I found was less about stamps and more about the unspoken rules that still hold us together in 2026.
For twelve months I have written down every letter, parcel and stray takeaway menu that landed at the wrong address on my street. The notebook began as a grumble and turned into a map of who knows whom, who is always in, and whose dog is called Dennis.
There is a particular sort of silence that falls when a stranger admits their kettle has given up the ghost. At the village repair café, that silence is soon followed by a screwdriver, a biscuit and a quiet lesson in why we keep things longer than we think.
I spent the summer of 2026 keeping a notebook of roadside honesty boxes — the courgettes, the jam, the coppers and the bricks holding everything down. What began as a small ledger of prices turned into a quiet lesson in trust, small change and the unwritten rules of where we live.
The 2026 village charity calendar has arrived, complete with a blurred harvest supper, a thumb in March and an entire car park in July. I bought two copies, ranked every month and tracked down the woman with the laminator.
Spending a Saturday behind the prize table teaches you more about a village than any parish newsletter. Ted Targett on tins of soup, fiercely contested decorative soap, and the delicate business of winning twice.
A damp Tuesday, a tea urn, and a clipboard I did not ask for. What the 2026 village panto auditions reveal about local ambition, inherited costumes and the quiet tyranny of the rota.
The parish newsletter is Britain’s most underrated crime scene: six photocopied pages of rota changes, lost property and deeply courteous accusation. This is a field guide to the characters, corrections and tiny scandals that make community print so compelling.
Every street has one: eighty-four members, a name with an ampersand in it, and a notification habit that could wake a hibernating hedgehog. Here's a calm, affectionate taxonomy of the village WhatsApp group — and what it tells us about looking after each other.
Armed with a single fiver, a thermos and a notebook, I spent the first Sunday of November working three car boot sales within eight miles of home. What things cost, what nobody wants any more, and what a muddy field in 2026 says about how we live now.
Every year we gather in a cold car park to watch a star go up slightly crooked and a school choir mangle a Slade song. Here is my entirely unofficial handbook for doing it properly, from arrival times to the mulled drink queue to why the wonkiness matters.
I spent forty minutes on a Saturday morning picking up other people's rubbish and writing all of it down like a man compiling evidence for a trial nobody asked for. What I found was less about litter and more about the peculiar, biscuit-fuelled machinery of belonging.
Every charity shop has a shelf of books priced somewhere between a Wispa and a thank you. I have spent years treating it as a slot machine, and I think the randomness is the best thing about it. Here is what your £1.50 actually buys you, archetype by archetype.
I joined the allotment waiting list in a fit of optimism and was promptly told the wait would be up to four years. What followed was a strange, weed-filled education in community, patience and the careful business of growing cucumbers you never asked for. Here is what I learned before I was even allowed to dig.
Two hundred and fourteen noticeboards, three towns, and a year of walking about with a camera and a flask. Ted Targett on lost cats, sheds with some damp, and why the pinboard may be the last honest local newspaper we have left.
Two pounds, a clanking radiator, a drawer marked Miscellaneous and a mummified cat labelled Probably. Ted Targett makes the affectionate case for the volunteer-run local museum, and offers seven rules for visiting it properly.
I spent a fortnight rating my town’s bus shelters on wind protection, bench comfort, timetable legibility and local lore. What began as a silly project turned into a quiet love letter to the places where nothing is asked of you but waiting.
A damp fortnight of tea urns, wobbly staging and volunteer booking secretaries has convinced me that the village hall is Britain’s most underrated night out. Here’s what three halls taught me — and how to put on your own do without losing the plot.
The tea round is not a drink delivery service. It is a personality test with a kettle. Ted ranks the brew orders he has met in his kitchen and the local café, using a scoring system that takes itself far too seriously.