It is the morning of the Fun Day sponsored by The Friends Of The Park Over The Road. As a?presiding officer of that organisation, I wake up feeling weighed down by my annual obligation to embody Fun. Cheer up, I tell myself: Ben Fogle is coming.
My wife, who last year was elected?chairman of the Friends over my head, has moved me from the book stall to the coconut shy, a?demotion that is part of her long-term plan to remove me from the board altogether.
In the morning, I help load up the sound equipment for the portable stage, which is being delivered by the council. As the unpromising weather makes good on its threat, bad news begins to trickle in. Several of the afternoon's entertainments, including the children's choir, have cancelled. The portable stage has broken down a?few streets away.
My wife sends me to a corner of the park with a bin-liner full of tent poles bound together with tape. On the tape, someone, possibly me, has written "COMPLETE BIG GAZEBO". This will be our stage if the stage doesn't arrive.
The stage doesn't arrive. After 20 minutes, I have got only as far as putting quotation marks around the word "COMPLETE". There is no pole 2B, which is meant to form the central roof ridge. There is an extra pole 2A, but it's not long enough. The instructions have blown away.
One of the organisers approaches me, leaning into the wind with an air of urgency. "Will you play the banjo?" she asks.
The roof frame I am holding comes apart in my hands. "What?" I say.
"No one's turned up," she says. "We need someone to do something."
"I can't," I say.
"Please," she says.
When I try to picture myself playing the banjo in the park under a?partial gazebo while Ben Fogle looks on, my vision goes white. The?image has all the elements of a?recurring nightmare. It is quite clearly my wife's idea. I find her by the bric-a-brac.
"Did you tell them I would play the banjo?" I hiss.
"I might have," she replies, "but?you can't shout at me in front of everyone."
The wind strengthens, and the rain begins to come in horizontally. The partial gazebo, which I have bound together with tape, keeps trying to hurl itself into the sky. Dave, who is in charge of the sound equipment, says it's too wet to plug?anything in. Unless the weather gets better, there will be no entertainment at all.
I must be the only member of the Fun Day committee who is silently willing it to rain harder, but my wish is soon granted. The heavens open. The coconuts blow off their stands before anyone can hit them. The sound equipment stays in the van and the partial gazebo hovers four inches above the ground, straining against its guy ropes. Ben Fogle has to stand on a chair to declare the Fun Day open, shouting over the heads of a dozen soaked visitors.
"So, you don't have to play the banjo after all," my wife says. "Is that why you're suddenly so happy?"
"Yes," I say, but it's not the only reason. To my surprise, I find I?prefer the coconut shy to the book stall. Selling damp, surplus reading material to adults is difficult, but defrauding toddlers is easy. They come back again and again, forking over wet coins in exchange for four golf balls and disappointment.
"Do you even like coconuts?" I?ask one. "Because you could have bought a whole sackful by now."
But he doesn't get it.
As the horizon darkens, my mood?improves.
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