It is Bunting Day in Lush Places, a Saturday in early June when the village menfolk crowd around the bottom of a ladder with copious cups of coffee while one brave soul climbs to the top and puts the flags out.

The annual village fete will soon be upon us and so will the football. Oh yes, the football.

In the Grigg household, rather like during the election, we will sit on opposite sides of the fence. Mr Grigg is passionate about the game. Me? I neither understand the offside rule nor do I care.

But I do like the house and the street being decorated, which it is every year whether the football is on or not.

Six men turn out this morning to put the bunting up while my neighbour flits in and out of her front door with a tray of coffee and biscuits.

A short man stands on the phone box while a taller man balances precariously on the litter bin next to the village green in an attempt to tie a string of bunting on to a signpost.

Mr Grigg is up a ladder in fake Crocs and Eugene (careful with that axe) swings out of an upstairs window to greet him.

The health and safety devil would have a field day if he were to cast his net right now.

The men have abandoned the idea of attaching bunting to the frame of the play equipment. Last year the children decided it was a great game to jump off the swings in mid-air and make a grab for individual flags of the world as they fell, with extra points for Germany.

Sadly, though, Mr G has not given up on his plan to attach flags to the  Freeloader, which means I probably won’t be driving it until the World Cup is over.

‘Think yourself lucky it’s not your knicker elastic he’s using,’ I was told last night in the pub by a worse-for-wear steel erector who sounds uncannily like a Dorset version of John Wayne.

Roaring with laughter at his own wit when Mr Grigg expressed puzzlement, he drawled: ‘Well, if you opened the window, zoom, her’d be out.’

At that point, the conversation turned to Ferdinand and King. I thought they were talking about Spanish history.

Come on England!