Fairlight

MOPPs today and next Friday: Today, Friday, March 16, Sarah Kimber and Tai Chi will be here. That’s only one person, by the way. Lunch follows, and today it will be chicken casserole, rhubarb fool for afters. Next Friday, March 23, the guest entertainer will be Pete Prescott, singer and guitarist, who founded the renowned charity fundraiser Beatles Day. Coincidentally, Beatles Day 19 is coming up on Sunday, April 8 at the White Rock Theatre from 12 noon to 10.30 pm. All proceeds, with all the performers giving their time and talents, go to Macmillan Cancer Support.

While Pete is performing, Nicola will be doing some toenail cutting. When it’s your turn with Nicola, don’t tap your feet in time with the music! Ouch!

Balderdash? A pleasing melange: A goodly conglomeration of residents gathered at the Fairlight Lodge Hotel in support of the local branch of the Royal British Legion last Saturday evening. The melange of fun and food, with raffle and bar, was a highly successful mix. The food was a choice between curry and topped jacket potatoes, while the fun of Balderdash gave the participants 14 words to decipher and define. For the game, the ‘Market Gardeners’ team were the winners, and each member received an Easter Egg as a prize. Excellent support of the raffle led to the evening showing a profit of £178.40. Organisers Margaret and John Pulfer thank all who attended and particularly those at the Lodge hotel, who helped make the evening the great success that it was.

Snow’s gone: Wisely postponed before legs could get broken a couple of weeks ago, the Bowls Club coffee morning is back on the calendar, and will be in the village hall on Saturday week, March 24. Repeat details will appear next Friday so you can’t forget.

Mother’s Day needn’t be expensive: Graeme Gambrell, whose observation of all things Fairlight, which he shares around, is firmly planted on my list of special ultra-reliable stringers. He has reported his understanding that daffodils are traditionally closely linked with Mother’s Day. He wonders, though, if this means that it’s OK for un-named persons to come along and steal the flowers from the carefully tended village collection underneath the village sign. You don’t think this is satisfactory? No, nor does Graeme, and nor do I. Hope Mr Ratbag’s mum enjoyed her flowers…

Thongs ain’t what they used to be: With fairly comprehensive resources available, Parish Council material gave me some 600 words of copy last week. Unfortunately, due to major stress and lack of time I became unfocussed and made and missed a few mistakes. I said the PC wanted to get their IT thongs up to scratch. Council Chairman Andrew Mier observes that their thongs are fine, thank you. I know full well we have a full complement of nine councillors, but I added in the Clerk and called it ten. I praised Cllr Leadbetter, but omitted to mention that the Chairman had already made public his thanks and praise. After a rare award, I have become Keith Pollard, MDB. Must Do Better.

Fairlight Road: Still no meaningful work being done to this ghastly stretch of road. Whereas it was always two nasty holes that reappeared regularly, it became three, and has now risen to five bad areas. It’s spreading quicker than I remember my teenage acne.

We in Fairlight are not unique. Driving down the A21, just before a sign saying 2½miles to Flimwell, there is a strip of appalling surface on your near-side running parallel to the line of dance. It leaved the left-hand side of your body shaking. Don’t worry. A little after Flimwell, there is a similar, if a little shorter, stretch on the off-side, which will balance out the shakes from the first horror.