This week's overheard moments

“They've put a suggestion box up in the hall and it's had eleven suggestions in a fortnight. Nine of them suggest moving the suggestion box.” Outside the village hall

“The allotment committee have banned garden gnomes as ornamental clutter. There are now forty gnomes on the verge outside, facing the gate, waiting.” The allotment gate

“Bus was eleven minutes early and sat there with the engine off till the proper time. Four of us stood in the rain beside it because none of us wanted to be the one who knocked.” The bus stop by the green

“He's put a weather station on his shed roof and reads the numbers out over the fence every morning. It's been wrong about the rain all week and we've all started dressing for it anyway.” The lane behind the allotments

“The skip's arrived and there's a laminated list on the side saying what you can't put in it. Somebody's put the laminator in the skip.” The car park behind the hall

“She's put a little free library at the end of her drive and it's filled up with books nobody wanted. Forty copies of the same thriller, and somebody's started taking them out to get them a better life.” By the postbox on Churchway