Author name: Martin Foskett

​​January arrived with the energy of a clipboard. Not aggressive. Not dramatic. Just quietly insistent. The sort of month that doesn’t shout but notes things down, then looks at you meaningfully. By the second week, it was clear that nothing was officially happening, and therefore, everything was.

Image by: Knelstrom Media THE COLIN CHRISTMAS SPECIAL – SANTA’S UNSCHEDULED LANDING IN ELSENHAM By Martin Foskett, Reporter PUBLISHED: UPDATED:

​November in Elsenham had drifted in like a damp, apologetic ghost, limp leaves plastered to pavements, drizzle clinging to coats, the sky the colour of dishwater optimism. Everything felt slightly off-kilter, as though the entire village had developed a mild limp.

We’re standing on the edge of the year’s strangest week, when the children break up, the clocks rebel, and the pumpkins glow like warning beacons. From Friday onwards, Elsenham enters temporal turbulence. Stock up on biscuits, charge the torches, and prepare for impact.

The leaves fall, the cones harden, and under the soil, resistance stirs. As Elsenham sinks deeper into autumn, the siege tightens and the tunnels stretch on. Above, the council meets. Below, the digging continues.

​The morning began with the kind of wind that rattles your windows like unpaid bailiffs and convinces you the shed will be in Norfolk by teatime. Bins were already on the march, wheeling down the High Street with grim determination, and the first cone casualties were sighted rolling across the Rec like orange tumbleweed in a spaghetti western. By nine o’clock, Mrs Atkinson’s gazebo had achieved flight and was last seen clearing the Crown chimney stack like a startled pheasant.

​The village woke this morning to rain, the grey, soaking kind that isn’t dramatic enough for thunder but still manages to worm its way into your socks and drip down your collar. Pavements glistened like melted butter, puddles filled potholes with smug inevitability, and every lamppost looked like it had been crying all night. The air was heavy with wet coats, diesel fumes, and the faint smell of chip wrappers.

​Summer in the village is a strange, shimmering sort of beast. The school gates have slammed shut until September, the local children have been turned loose into the wild like a thousand tiny reconnaissance drones, and every mutter, crash, and suspicious smell now has a witness. There’s nowhere to hide, not for lorries, not for rogue hay bales, and certainly not for Essex County Council.

​I was halfway through a lukewarm Greggs sausage roll, parked up outside the Co-op like a man on the edge of something apocalyptic, when the notification lit up my phone like divine intervention. Henham, Essex. Facebook Group – New Post. Usually, it’s conspiracy theories about curtain twitchers and dog poo, but this one had a pulse.