This collection of humorous short essays reveals the author's deep affection for the timeless values of community life in an English village. It also shares a nostalgia for aspects that are quietly slipping away.

Easy to dip into, this light-hearted volume provides entertaining reading for anyone interested in modern English rural community life, wherever they live.

The book is in two parts. The first is a set of essays written in the early 1990swhen the author first moved to the Gloucestershire village of Hawkesbury Upton, showing how she slowly adapts to the quirks of rural life. The second comprises all the columns she has written for the village's community magazine, the Hawkesbury Parish News, between 2010 and 2015.

As becomes clear on reading, the author now playa very active role in village life, where she is founder of the annual Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival, and the love of rural community living inspires and informs her fiction writing too.