We're lucky, where I live, that the developers of our estate, unlike more recent johnny-come-latelies, didn't feel the need to cram accommodation into every available square inch of land. As a result, we have low-ish buildings grouped around a central square open to the river, which gives us a vaguely collegiate feel, and a space that lends itself to informal socialising, like our annual communal barbecue (there are plenty of individual groups on any fine day, so there's also an elephant's graveyard of abandoned equipment available to be liberated if you look in forgotten corners of the garages).

This year the sun shone, the bunting fluttered, there was not only food, and drink, but music, fun - and games. We started with Bash the Rat and Play Your Cards Right (I was pipped at the post in How Fast Can You Eat Three Cream Crackers - who says the British have a dysfunctional relationship with food?); there was limbo dancing in the twilight, and musical chairs in the dusk - and, as far as I know, no tears before bedtime. Some clearing up to do this morning, though.....