Can a local festival be more local than this

The Stroud Fringe Festival weekend starts today, and for the next two weeks there are the four other festivals : the Walking, Nature, Eco Open Homes and the Food and Drink, all part of the Stroud Valleys Festival.

Our local, the Crown and Sceptre, has already kicked off with its own Cider and Beer festival this weekend. Helena has heard that a good local band are performing, so I strolled over there to see when they are playing. I walked out of the house, and up the ancient path towards Daisybank, past the allotments which lie between us and the pub. Looking over towards the pub, behind the building on the right, I could already hear the music, with the strains of Jumping Jack Flash, as if played by an early incarnation of the Clash. It was really loud even a hundred yards away. I decided to wait to go and check it out.

Rodda, who owns the pub, which was voted best pub in Stroud a couple of months ago, is a brilliant landlord and host. He erects a large marquee on the pub's lower lawn, where the live music is now playing, with barrels of ale on stools under canvas lean-tos. But during the day tomorrow it will be where the garden produce and the home cooking competitions are held. As you can see the allotment is just the other side of the marquee, so the produce won't have far to come.

As one of the three councillors of this ward, I do feel obliged to join in! A good time will be had and I may try to blip there tomorrow. But there is also the Fringe festival in the centre of town and day and night.

The view is looking from the path beside Stroud cemetery, through the gap in the Cotswold escarpment toward the Forest of Dean on the far side of the tidal part of the River Severn, which I can just notice towards the top left of the scene.