Monday, January 8th
The wonders of this world never cease to amuse me. Today the County Council, without warning, and in its infinite wisdom, closed off the one road that goes through our village from one side to the other side (from the north to the south, and vice versa) and sent in its troops to fill in the multitude of potholes that have turned said road into a hazardous fairground bouncy car ride and tested the suspensions of countless motor vehicles. Indeed, one hole was so large that one day Miss Tindle’s Fiat 500 disappeared down it and had to be hauled out by Jed Farley with his tractor. When the holes are filled in they plan to resurface the entire stretch, which of course is marvellous, and Miss Tindle will be able to take to the road without fear (more or less). But closing off the road means that if you want to drive through the village or go from one side of it to the other, perhaps to visit a sick something or buy a cabbage, or go to work, you have to go for a 5 and a half mile drive through the surrounding countryside. In truth, that can be quite pleasant, unless half of that countryside happens to be under water which, because of the recent rains and storm whatever-it-was called, a lot of it is. But it is only for a couple of days, after all.
But that is not the half of it.
Today was also the day that Bob Merchant had decided to send in his crew to start work on renovating the village hall, which was severely damaged by fire a few weeks ago. (I shall not go into detail here about the devious way in which Merchant obtained this contract, because I would fall asleep – it is my bedtime – and probably so would you. Suffice it to say that Bob, once a popular chap in the village, has not shown his face here for weeks, and I gather that the only reason John Garnham, our Parish Clerk, was unable to contest the contract on the grounds of it having been obtained a bit deviously was that the Council’s solicitor and legal adviser was on holiday somewhere in the Caribbean for the Christmas and New Year. It is alright for some, it seems.)
Anyhoo, with the village hall being slap bang half way down the main road and therefore unreachable by traffic because of the road closure, one does not need a lot of imagination to imagine the kerfuffle that ensued this morning when a lorry and a couple of white vans staffed by a number of burly and not-so-burly working types turned up intending to get to the hall and start work or, as is more likely, to put the kettle on. I did not witness the confrontations at first hand – “Council Road Workers” v. “Builders and Painters and Decorators etc.” – but I gather it became a bit heated and the police had to be called, and I suspect that the arguments were not exactly at the intellectual level of, say, the Oxford Union debates.
Long story short, work on the hall has been postponed until later in the week, apparently.
Tuesday, January 9th
John Garnham telephoned this morning and asked me to go for a pint in The Wheatsheaf at lunchtime because, he said, he wanted “to have a word”. I thought this rather unusual, for we are not what you might call drinking partners, though we get on well enough. Be that as it may, over our pints of best bitter John disclosed to me that he is, and I quote, “fed up to the back teeth” of being the Parish Clerk, and intends to step down at the next election, which is due in the Spring, and he suggested I stand for the office, because in his view I am ideal for the job and, should I decide to go for it, it would be a good idea to start laying some groundwork for my election campaign now. (I think he might have been watching a bit too much political news on the television, to be honest.)
I could not resist pointing out that his being fed up to the back teeth with it was not the strongest recommendation for the attractions and the glamour of the role, but he said not to take any notice of that because he was only joking and actually his wife, Hazel, was urging him to take a break and they have plans to go and spend a few months with their daughter and her family in Canada.
Anyhoo, I thanked him for saying nice things about me, and said I would think about it, although I had already made up my mind that I would not touch the job with a barge pole. I do not at all mind being one of the more important members of the Council – I am the CLAPO, the Community Liaison and Publicity Officer – and I also rather enjoy my role as the ARSE (Advanced Round-the-clock Security Executive) for GASSE (“Go Away! Stay Somewhere Else!”), the organisation formed to stop our village hall being taken over by the government and used to provide living accommodation for unhappy and homeless foreigners – but the thought of trying to keep the likes of Michael Whittingham and his mouth in line, and managing various egos and complainers, while at the same time protecting Miss Tindle from the real world, is another kettle of fish altogether.
I told my wife about all of this when she came back from teaching her yoga class (Oh yeah! Yoga!). She thought it was a splendid idea – she actually used the word “splendid”, which always annoys me – and said I would make a fine Parish Clerk. I cannot help thinking she was saying this as one more step in her campaign to get back into my good books after her dalliance with that Jan fellow in Stowmarket, though quite how she hopes to do that after I have just had to tolerate her parents for several weeks over the holiday period is beyond me.
Sometimes I cannot make sense of anything: the delightful Lulu at The Wheatsheaf has been replaced by a young chap called Justin, who as far as anyone can make out has no sense of humour and, even more worryingly, no sense of any kind. I am going to bed.
James Henderson
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