Vegetable stews may be more commonly associated with the winter, but as there’s so few rules as to what can be added to the pot, there’s no reason not to throw your summer crop into a delicious ragout with all the zest and freshness of the season. You will be amazed by the unique strengths and qualities each squash, gourd and root contributes to the hearty broth.

  Sunday morning had barely broken when Horace slowly but confidently rose out of bed to start his day. He had settled into an early night in his cosy, solitary bed the previous evening, aided to sleep by a generous serving of the extra large batch of vegetable stew he’d rustled up from his allotment crop. Whether this was due to either the satisfying and nutritious nature of the meal or the exhaustion brought on by the arduous preparation of peeling parsnips and carrots, quartering finicky shallots and dicing a tough butternut squash, was unclear. Whatever the reason, Horace had a rare spring in his step as he pottered around the kitchen, portioning up the leftover stew into supperware and preparing toast for breakfast.

  Pleased with his own stellar efficiency, the hunched pensioner formulated his plans for the day as he ate. He was acidly eyeing that week's edition of the Hungerbury Observer lying on the kitchen table as though its pages had personally insulted him, for in his mind they had. The letters page, his steadfast platform from which he champions his manifesto to maintain the town’s liveability standards, had dared to publish a rebuttal to Horace’s letter highlighting the declining appearance of the high street. He would have to compose and send his response to the paper with haste, before heading into town for his customary Sunday tea with the similarly aged members of the community. He instantly began drafting with his trusty writing pad, quietly cursing the fact he would later have to ask for Spencer’s help typing and emailing his letter due to their digital-only policy:

  “I see in the last Observer (dated 18/07/2018), a Diana Stanley decided to mangle my original argument, promoting the benefits conserving the town centre would have for future trade and tourism, to slander me as a regressive Luddite. I know not whether Ms Stanley is just proudly ignorant, and unaware of her deficient literacy skills, or if she has ulterior motives behind this attack on my character. If it is the latter, I know nothing I say will deter any such conspiracy from her mind.

  But in case the more innocent explanation is true, I will stress that calling for the enforcement of planning standards against the hideous new awnings and signage bolted to our Victorian storefronts is not a “Dogmatic rejection of anything new” but a depressing necessity. Their existence is a sign (and I make it abundantly clear no pun is intended) of how uncaring the powers that be in Hungerbury have for the town’s heritage, say nothing of their contempt for the rule of law, and…”

  His formulations were interrupted most harshly by a cacophony of drills blaring from the neighbouring house, the aural equivalent of a red rag to Horace’s bull-like nature. They were a signal that Mr and Mrs Kasten were in urgent need of another lesson in environmental protection regulations. Horace abandoned the kitchen and strode out the front door of his semi-detached castle as best as his legs allowed.

  Kyle and Selena Kasten had the misfortune to be watching the ground breaking of their new conservatory from the front lawn and within easy stalking distance of the elderly powerhouse.

  Selena was the first to notice Mr McGinty. “Mr McGrady, it’s Sunday morning. Can you just let things go for once?!” The young blonde’s tone was both annoyed and pleading.

  “Correct, Mrs Kasten, it IS Sunday. Which means there should be no disruptive building works in a residential area.”

  Kyle tutted and sighed. “It wasn’t our original plan, mate, but the builders struggled so much to fit us in…”

  As he cautiously tried to plead his case, Kyle was interrupted by their large and laconic builder removing his ear defenders and resting over his jackhammer. “Yeah, it’s no biggie, we found a load of rock and rubble under the topsoil, so we started a day early to clear it. And while we’re here we might as well get the foundation stones in.”

  The interruption was taken in stride by the usually confident Mr Kasten. “There you go, the expert says it’s not a problem, and Keith here’s even brought on extra help to get everything sorted faster, so we can all just… get on with our day” he concluded languidly.

  Horace let the indignation at the uncaring couple swell inside him. Though he only stood as tall as Kyle’s shoulder, Horace didn’t hesitate to shoot him a glare of steel. Breezing over the apparent lack of any assistant builders despite the consistent use of plurals, he raised a new complaint. “Even if anything you said made the slightest difference, I am more upset that you are proceeding with your intrusive extension without planning permission or forewarning your good neighbours." He gestured grandly to himself.

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  "You can't be serious," Kyle said flatly. "I mean we've been putting this off for months till we could find a 5-star builder like Keith, and you want us to stall even further?"

  Horace barely acknowledged this argument in his drawled reply. "Oh I'm very sorry, but there is no excuse that justifies breaking local regulations, regulations that were put in place to make Hungerbury a peaceful place to live.”

  There was a weariness in Horace’s tone as he reflected on how many times he had to say these words to the people of the town, and the Kastens in particular. Selena evidently had a similar thought, as her retort was to repeat his words aloud before snapping. “Have you ever stopped your moaning and moaning to think why no-one except you gives a FUCK about these rules, even though they’re oh-so-perfect for everyone?”

  Her tirade turned Horace’s face to stone. “I never moaned before people stopped respecting their community, and how about you spare a thought to the children living on the street before swearing out of the blue.”

  “It’s not out of the blue at all.” Kyle spoke in defence of his wife. “We’ve been putting up with your pettiness for a long while, in fact.”

  “Since the moment we moved in!” Selena interjected as she strode furiously towards Horace. "And all for stuff no SANE person would waste their lives worrying about! We don't give a damn about your bureaucratic old bullshit and no amount of fines you try to pin on us will make us care!”

  Disregarding his frailer stature, Horace refused to be intimidated by the advancing yuppie. He was however compelled to step backwards to maintain a proper level of personal space with a stranger. This decorum led to his fall, as without paying attention to the pavement beneath his slippered feet Horace tripped and toppled unceremoniously onto a pile of breeze blocks that had been illegally unloaded onto the road.

  Kyle and Selena gasped, overcome somewhat with concern, but mostly fears of litigation. Confusion then ceased their run as they saw that Horace’s bony back had broken the top two layers of concrete blocks, instead of the expected other way around. Horace’s own shock at his survival kept him from moving for what felt like an age. Once he’d tempered his surprise, however, he arose with less struggle than he’d have rising from his understuffed armchair. For his next miracle he then picked up and examined the broken bricks as though they were made of polystyrene.

  “Well there you go, that’s what you get when you use a builder who’s all too happy to bend the rules!” Horace laughed smugly as he tossed the thick breeze blocks playfully in the air. “You get low quality rubbish like this. Your extension won’t last long enough for the Enforcement notice to be served!”

  The couple were still lost in their silence, so it was the head builder Keith who spoke up. “I won’t be standing for this, all my materials are high grade and safety tested. They will still be standing decades after your sour arse is in the grou… stop juggling the bloody bricks! I’m not letting your stupid magic trick make me and my hard-working team look like crooks!” he cried, puffing his chest out.

  Horace ignored him, and capitalized on his newfound strength to lob every single stray cinder block over the garden wall, where they should have been deposited, and stomped over to Keith’s white van, which until 20 seconds ago was taller than Horace, but was now being dwarfed by him.

  At this point Kyle and Selena were scarcely able to stand, let alone speak, as they witnessed the horror of their nightmare neighbour rapidly growing in both size and strength. Horace, for his part, was taking too much enjoyment from seeing his arrogant young opponents shaken from their pedestal to notice little things like his angle of perspective shifting higher, or his comfortable shirt and corduroys feeling increasingly tight around his body. He focused on the van, parked with neither a resident permit or special dispensation, of course. “Shall we see what other cheap junk your charlatan is planning to use?”

  “No, stop!” Keith was in a state of panic now. “My boys are in there prepping the cement and, er, measuring the rebar! You leave them alone!”

  Horace ignored him, as he puzzled over why he couldn’t fit his fingers under the handle to the van’s rear door. “Urgh, these new minimalist designs.” he rumbled as he finally wrenched the door open, snapping its lock in the process. With a smile, he stepped aside to reveal Keith’s team, and the important pre-build preparation work they were engaged in, to the Kasten’s. Said preparations involved milky tea, the Daily Mail and a Nintendo Switch.

  “Apologies, obviously your staff is far too busy for little old me to disturb them.” Horace snorted and stretched his thickening arms. “Tell you what, forget these cowboys, I’ll get the rocks out of your soil when, and only when, you submit the proper applications to the council and receive permission; I’ll be checking the published planning notices at the library for proof. Also, your buddleia is overhanging into my garden again. Get it cut back by the end of today or I will report it. Again.”

  With a final smirk and a satisfying crack of his bulging knuckles, Horace McGinty strolled back to his house to resume his quiet, calculated plans for the day. In the wake of his feats of incredible strength, he left Selena to burst into an angry row between her and the dodgy builders that had quoted her over ￡2,000 per day to sit in a van, whilst Kyle strained his carefully gym-toned muscles lifting the concrete Horace had used in his juggling act.