Falmer

FLOWER FESTIVAL: Falmer has its much loved Flower Festival this weekend, June 2 and 3. We will have the traditional flower arrangements in St Laurence Church, this year the theme is Royal Celebration, plus we have stalls and refreshments over at the village hall, with a plant stall and clothes stall in the hall garden. A lot of work goes into organising this event and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jill Burt, who masterminds the whole weekend. My clothes stall is shaping up to be one of the best I have had, with wonderful donations of nearly new clothes (some actually new, still with labels attached) from lots of good brands (Cos- Hobbs-Jaegar-Mint Velvet-Tommy Hilfiger etc). I am also raising lots of plants and cuttings for the plant stall, so I hope you will all come along and have a look, buy some things, have some tea and cake and enjoy yourselves.

UNFENCED: Was our most recent concert and the last in the Brighton Fringe series. I really enjoyed this, three wonderful singers, plus piano, string bass and drums creating some wonderful music. Songs from Richard Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein, Hoagy Carmichael and Irving Berlin amongst others made the evening an absolute delight. You can look at the website www.unfenced.org.uk or find them on Facebook and Twitter for more information. The next concert is on June 9 and features The Bothy Singers with music ranging from Nina Simone to Lady Gaga.

INSECTS: We were making the most of the fine weather and drinking tea in the garden last week, when a huge black and yellow insect buzzed by, I was convinced it was a hornet, but was proved wrong when we found a dead Broad Bodied Chaser in the greenhouse. It was a dragonfly with a much wider body than the usual blue ones that we see. The wings are so beautiful that I have kept the body and hope to do some drawings of it when I get time.