Pubs have had a really tough time this year, with lockdowns and constantly changing guidelines to cope with. But our amazing award winning village pubs have risen to the challenge, offering takeaway meals and drinks, deliveries and even opening shops on their premises. As they reopened after Lockdown2, still with Tier 2 restrictions, our editor Rosemary Stephenson did a tour of the villages to see how our pubs have been adapting and what they are offering over the festive season.

If your garden is looking messy at this time of year, don’t worry. The garden at Lewis Cottage is also a bit of a mess and Richard Orton confesses he likes it that way. In his latest update Richard describes his own regime for tidying and pruning in winter and urges us to make up our own rules.

Last summer we invited people of all ages to express their experience of lockdown through words, pictures or music. The adult winner of our ‘My Life in Lockdown’ competition was Suzie Yates, for her beautiful paintings inspired by walks around Crediton. But, as she explains here, she had only recently taken up painting to help cope with the anxiety of lockdown. Inspired by Grayson Perry’s TV series Art Club, she found the confidence to pursue her passion and she is now selling her work as prints and greeting cards in local shops.

Do you care about our community and want to help it recover from the impact of Covid? If so, why not join the Crediton Heart Project team? We are the local charity which created and runs this website. But we also have ambitious plans for a new multi-use building, which have been put on hold by the pandemic. To build on our achievements and adapt our plans for a Covid world, we are looking for people with time, energy and ideas to join us, as Heart Project trustee Nancy Murgatroyd explains.