Fruit Fly, House Tours and Some Very Imaginative Scarecrows

I’ve been up to visit my parents this weekend. They live in Worcestershire, and near to them is a lovely little village called Feckenham, and in the lovely little village of Feckenham there is an annual Scarecrow Trail.

I love this sort of thing. It’s exactly the Midsomer Murders brand of village activity that makes me tick, along with church bric-a-brac sales and whole community al fresco carol services outside the local pub.

The Scarecrow Trail is an even more elite type of rural event because it involves a) a printed paper map and b) the opportunity to peer into the gardens and windows of all the houses you want to stick your nose into.

There are few things I’d rather spend my Sunday morning doing than wandering about with a little village map and casting a professional eye* over all of the Scarecrow entries.

*subjective

What a lark. Throw in a cake tent and some craft stalls selling gingerbread man tree decorations and I’m in my absolute element.

Here are a selection of the Feckenham Scarecrows: can you guess which I liked best?

It had four, actually: the man disappearing down the mole hole was SO funny and lifelike and then there was this complete wedding scene, with a marquee and guests sitting on chairs, which must have taken ages to make and set up. I couldn’t believe the effort that had gone into it, though I suspect that the owners of the house also just quite like having everyone come in through their gate and marvel at how utterly beautiful their cottage is, that sits in the background of the wedding scene like something from a House & Garden shoot.

I thought that the BFG was brilliantly done and Superman looked very graphic and striking against the red brick. If I had to pick an overall winner, and I bet you can’t believe your luck today that you’re getting this high level of content in your newsletter, then I think it would be the man with his head down a hole. I do value any idea that is clever and effective yet requires less faffing around in the actual execution of it. I mean, whoever came up with this one didn’t even have to create a face!

Feckenham has a particularly lovely housing stock; a mix of perfectly preserved Tudor houses, grand Georgian mansions and teeny, weeny wonky cottages with very cute names. For some reason, every time I go there I imagine all of the houses to be inhabited by Sylvanian Families! The Babblebrooks (grey rabbit family) in the pink Tudor house, the Owl family in the tumbledown cottage down near the cricket grounds…

Lovely. It makes you want to rat-a-tat-tat on each door and ask politely whether it would be at all possible for a house tour. Would be a great place for a writer to live, I imagine. If I ever leave Somerset then you’ll know where to find me!

Talking of writers, I just finished Fruit Fly. Who has also finished this? And what did you think? I found the main characters very annoying at the start, but warmed to them - and the storyline in general, which is about a writer in an emotionally abusive, controlling relationship and a young, struggling addict - by the time I was a quarter of the way in.

The entire middle section I thought was excellent. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but there’s constant tension both with wondering what the hell is going to happen to Leo, who wants to get himself clean but is just spiralling further and further into grimness, and the writer, Mallory Maddox (argh, does anyone else get completely turned off a story because of a character’s name?) who is in the vice-like grip of her awful, controlling husband.

There was a bit of clumsy stereotyping, I thought, that felt a little immature at times, but then there was this epic scene with the writer’s mother, all about parenthood and sacrifice and how she wouldn’t be held to blame for all of her daughter’s problems and it was, I thought, stunningly insightful and mature. So more than redeemed itself.

Corker of a twist at the end, too. Twist, or perhaps cliff-hanger? Though I don’t think I could read anything with these characters again. Tell me what you thought of Fruit Fly, please - treat the comments section as a mini book club. Though we have no wine, which was always the entire point of book club when I went in London. I think book club was about 15% maximum anything to do with the actual book and I nearly always missed the last tube home and ended up tipsy in a cab…

I’m now tearing through All In by Claire Powell, which would have made an excellent beach read, more fool me. It’s about a couple who have been together too long and don’t seem to even really like each other anymore, and a bloody AWFUL brother who lives in Dubai and treats everyone to an all-inclusive holiday as grotesque cash flash. (Though I have a feeling I’m going to end up feeling sorry for him, he simply can’t continue to be this annoying.)

I’ll update you when I’ve finished it, but I read a solid two hours last night without even looking up, so I must be enjoying it. There’s nothing groundbreaking happening, but it’s romping along in an enjoyable way. Great cover, too.

Have a great week, everyone - see you again on Thursday!