LAST STRAW FROM BORIS

One’s a hero and flies through the air, the other flies though the air and becomes a laughing stock.

Man of straw Boris Johnson is just one of the hundreds of amazing scarecrows that normally line the streets of Yorkshire’s famous Scarecrow Festival every year.

The hordes can’t visit Kettlewell this summer, but a little bit of the old lead mining village can visit the hordes as the festival has gone online at kettlewellscarecrows.uk. Happily, the village has remained Covidfree, but festival chair Melanie Denyer says there are mixed feelings about the decision to cancel the event, which has been running since 1994.

“Our small rural community has many residents who are shielding, so it was the right call to make,” she says. “But local traders have definitely felt the loss of the 10,000 visitors who come during the week, especially the hospitality businesses.

“It’s very odd to have the village so empty during festival time. However, we’re trying to continue to raise money to help support our village primary school and other causes that rely on the festival’s fund-raising efforts.”

The festival’s website has a virtual scarecrow trail and tour, music, craft ideas, recipes and all sorts of things to buy to support the little community.

Melanie says: “There’s lots to do on the website, with more being added on a daily basis until next Sunday, and then it will remain up over summer.”

Hopefully, Covid will have got stuffed by this time next year… and the scarecrows will be back.

Rene Humphreys’ “backyarden” in Liverpool is the perfect spot in a heatwave. During the day, it’s a bit of a sun trap, where 87-year-old Rene can sit and admire her mural and pretty ornaments – and get her daily news. But it’s at night when her yard comes into its own and twinkly fairy lights make it look completely magical. I’ve never got around to stringing up solar lights in my garden – instead, I have motion sensor lights, which means if I sit out there, I spend the entire evening waving my arms around!