THE HONKEYMOON CAFE

The forthcoming village produce show is all that anyone talks about,  but why is it so important for Bernard to keep winning the Longest Carrot?  Was a chance remark about his ‘manhood’. Surely not. Gardening is not something in which I have much expertise. Indoors they perish by drought or flood, outdoors I am on safer ground, literally. Anything which bothers to grow and enhances my small cottage garden has permission to continue. Provided they don’t overcrowd me or their neighbours. I generally leave them alone as my assistance could be fatal.  Next door lives a retired horticulturist having worked some years in a university, it is with some envy that I look upon her pots and borders, but I am mindful that gardening is a pursuit in which you make a rod for your own back. It takes only a few seconds to plant something, but a lifetime to keep it thriving, or in my case just alive. It’s a dedication I don’t have, unlike Bernard Jeffries who takes gardening to another ...

Most people are honest, aren’t they?  When a so-called Major rents in the village and starts telling his far-fetched stories  and collecting a fan base it’s got to be suspicious, hasn’t it?  Some people are not what they seem. During my years dealing with antiques it wasn’t unusual to be offered a piece as genuine that turned out to be a fake. Some are fake in every sense, others less so. For instance before I moved into the village and a small cottage I had a splendid pine dresser, in appearance a genuine period piece, but only the pine complete with shakes and woodworm, had any age to it. With a little experience it’s not difficult to tell when one piece is re-constructed from many others. Antique pine furniture became impossible to find and imports made from sticks rather than broad timber, took their place, look at a cupboard panel and you’ll see what I mean. Major Parker-Smythe was in many ways just like my old dresser. If you can remember the actor Terry Thomas and ...

Lucy’ from the Hall appears one night with a problem, and a cardboard box.  By the sound of it not one I can fix, but I might know soon who can.  Can it be solves before it’s missed?  Or will it be the start of a whole load of trouble? Late one stormy January night there was a knock on my cottage front door. Calls at such a time and when most people are sheltering by their warm fires can be alarming, but I opened the door with a nonchalant air as if it was nothing unusual. Lucy was standing in the porch in a state of extreme distress and holding a cardboard box. ‘I’ve come to see you cos I think your the only person what can help me. Please say you will, please.' Before I go any further I have to explain that Lucy is not her real name but the name given to her some thirty years ago when she started work as a maid at Blythe Hall. Her real name is Edna Cockle and it’s not unusual for the gentry to change the names of those they employ if their name doesn’t suit them. ...

A beekeeper's field is a cause of nostalgia and romance . The old wooden gate creaked on its rusty hinges. It only opened a little being halted by the ivy that had woven itself amongst its rotting timbers. No worn path led through it and beyond into the keeper’s field, as it used to. That mid-summer morning my feet must have been the first for some time to trespass amongst the rotting hives, no longer white, no longer humming with the prospect of rich amber honey and trickling combs.  The hives now resembled headstones tilting at random angles in a spacious but unkempt cemetery. Walking amongst them as I had done many years before, I could still see the keeper busying himself with his little workers. Tending his twenty or so hives had been the old man’s passion. A passion he would share with us, looking over his gold rim glasses down at our young enquiring faces. We knew nothing of him other than he kept bees. In our simple lives the keeper’s personal life and that of his famil...

Miller Westlake’s Westmill had been enjoyed as a ruin for many decades.  People in the village that had built up around it could not imagine  anything good would come of its restoration. Not far to the west of our village lies the hamlet of Westmill. As its name implies at its centre is a mill, actually a watermill, though for many years it had been little more than a ruin. The mill, by all accounts, was one of the most prosperous in the area. The fast flowing stream on which it was built was steady and reliable. The mill in its prime during the seventeen hundreds didn’t employ many but the owner, a Quaker called Josiah Westlake thought it his Christian duty to ensure the wellbeing of those who’s toil kept food on his table and money in his pocket. His workers were well paid and their families looked after, consequently his wealth was not begrudged and the community lived in harmony during Westlake’s life. The success of the mill attracted other trades, in particular a baker, ...