One Direction

Our small town was once the home to Winston Churchill: an honour much referenced in the naming of local dogs, schools, shops and so on. The great man himself sits immortalised in black granite, on the town green: his knees worn smooth by clambouring children over the decades. Other famous residents nearby have included Adam Faith, Judi Dench, Gloria Hunniford, Jackie Gold (the boss of Anne Summers) and the woman with a bun from How Clean is Your House? Even in the case of the latter this is a town that remains sniffy at best about celebrity.

Until we had a visit from ONE DIRECTION. Oh yes, the boys were in town recording their first single (Simon Cowell's record company SyCo - see what he did there? owns a studio here). Girls quickly establised a fan camp on the green, sending out for pro plus and water when the going got tough and jumping up on shaky legs that have been folded for too long when one of their heros was spotted through a window. It was like waiting for Duran Duran to land at Gatwick in 1982.

I fear for the price of a full English in the cafe. A sustained pop idol incursion could push it pass the £10 mark.

Music lesson

Little OCD is having his first piano lesson. We arrive twenty minutes early for the normal one's music lesson so that he can have a go. I have had three hour's sleep and am righteously hungover. The doorbell goes right through me. This doesn't bode well for the saxophone class to come.

The impossibly cheerful Justin and Jane have been teaching our children to play various instruments for eight years. The middle one seems to have an undeserved fortitude for this; and continues to fly through a series of music exams with merit despite the fact that he hasn't been able to access any of his instruments since converting the room they live in into a scooter workshop last year.

We are gaily ushered into the house and the child is parked on a stool at the piano. I need a cheese twist and am frantically tracing spirals up and down the arm of the sofa. "Let's start with Middle C," trills Jane. She demonstrates gently how he is to play the note with the thumb of his right hand. After a belligerent pause he jabs it with the index finger of his left.

"Shall we put this helpful hand on our lap?" she beams brightly, removing it gently from the keys. "He's sad that he can't join in right now but we'll ask him very soon." He scowls at the unnecessary personification of a body part, but it is the announcement of an imminent rhythm game of Tadpole Frog that sends him off down the deep end. "Listen," he says, "It's Jaws. Daa da daa da dadadadada." Or," she bats back, "It's Frog, toad, Frog, toad. Tadpole tadpole tadpole tadpole tadpole." A rapport is struck. There goes £32 a week. Respect.

Street party

It is Royal Wedding day and we are having a street party. This will begin at 2 o clock. At 1.00 a few of us gather in the road to decide where to put the tables. Of the five households who have volunteered a table for the event, three are unable to squeeze them down the narrow alleyways that link their back gardens to the street. There is a car parked in the way. Sources close to the organisers of another street party on the other side of town reveal that this rival community has steadfastly adhered to an itinerary devised by committee, which opened with a directive that all tables would be in place and fully decorated by 09.15. They are to enjoy an egg and spoon race at 14.50.

A 1.10 everybody including next door, a woman ordinarily so hardboiled she would chop her kids up and feed them to her dogs if there was no coupon on the Bakers, buggers off indoors to watch the balcony kiss.  The car has been moved and tables of various heights are jammed together to form a raggedy line that swells at one end and is an infuriating 20cm longer than our banqueting roll. A balloon bursts. Next door emerges to fret about the obscured gap left between the curve of the end table, an oval, and its rectangular neighbour. Someone could lose their drink if they put it down there she points out. Balls of mismatched bunting are batted up and down the road by the wind like tumbleweed. All the balloons burst. A jelly that I have been building up in different coloured layers in a sandcastle bucket for days slips from its mould and is perfect for a second before it quivers and then collapses entirely into jewel-coloured flob on the floor.

Neighbours start arriving as the last bunting is tied into place. They bring flags, dogs, babies, barbecues, beer, Pimms and piles and piles of food. We have towers of fairy cakes decorated with red white and blue sprinkles and topped with tiny flags.We have a pavlova decorated with blueberries and strawberries in the pattern of the Union Jack, a bouncy castle, table tennis, Dennis the Menace plasters, the floor jelly and Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Smoke from a bank of barbecues curls around the bunting. It is time for children at the other end of town to select teams for a tug of war. Ours are engaged in violent Nerf warfare around the ramparts of the bouncy castle, they are filthy, and one is being sick. A boisterous crowd grows, swelled by passersby unable to resist the offer of a burnt sausage covered in grass and a warm can of wifebeater. Dogs snatch food from the elderly and parents snatch sneaky cigarettes away from their children.

Eight hours later a hardcore contingent remains on the drive, swaying drunkenly to Amii Stewart (Friends not Knock on Wood) between bags of rubbish, one of which happily yields an unopened packet of burgers for a survivors snack at around midnight. We round off handing out slightly damp sparklers and setting off a rocket that whizzes into the side of the house where it explodes leaving a dirty great scorch mark and the children in tears. Best of British.