Having spent most of October on holiday it was back to work this week and, of course, back to the blogs.

It’s been a busy time in the village while I’ve been away, the most serious of which was the news that Arriva have announced that they will stop providing busses to Darlington from January 2012. A meeting is taking place in the Methodist church hall at 7.00pm tonight to discus the move and see if anything can be done about it.

On Saturday night I went to watch Lee Sumpton, who was having his first ‘cage fight’ up at the Nissan sports centre in Sunderland. Unfortunately, the popular Cockfield lad was beaten on points but from what I saw I thought he deserved a draw at the very least. It’s not a sport for the faint hearted and Lee had a lot of controlled aggression, going forward at every opportunity. His opponent though, just went for his legs to get him on the ground as he couldn’t handle Lee’s ferocious punches.

For his first fight, I thought the lad did brilliantly and I’m sure the experience of it will stand him in good stead.

As I mentioned, it was back to work for me this week and Tupper called in for a haircut. “I’m pleased you’re back Nige,” says Tupper. “Me hair’s way too long and it’s gone all coarse and dry. Is there owt I can put on it?”

“You want a shampoo for dry hair.” says I. “What?” says Tupper. “You don’t even have to wet it!?”

It’s nice to be back!

To complete a busy weekend, I was in the Middle House last night for their annual Halloween fancy dress. It was a cracking night and it was nice to see so many kids (Well at least until 8.00pm!) with their parents all in fancy dress. Andrew and Sas made a good job of decorating the pub and had a massive sign above the bar saying ‘HAPPY HALLOWEEN’. In walks Tupper.

“Whey!” shrieks our hero, glancing up at the sign. “Whose birthday is it?” You really couldn’t make it up!

Congratulations to everybody who took part, but I must give Lisa Wood a special mention for her fancy dress costume as a mummy. Lisa won first prize and it was well deserved; it must have taken all day to get wrapped up like that and, I’m guessing most of last night to get out of it again!

Unfortunately, I can only use four photographs on the blog site. For more photos of last night please go to my Face Book page.