Celebrations at Thrush Green Book

There's such a disconnect in my mind between the atmosphere of these books and their actual setting. They feel like depictions of the 1950s or 60s. But this one is actually set in 1992. Crazy. But it does make sentences like the following one more relatable: "She departed to the kitchen, leaving Charles to watch a television programme about inter-planetary warfare which might have appealed to prep-school boys, Dimity supposed, but which she deplored."
It messes with my mental picture of Thrush Green to be told that some of its inhabitants are into Star Trek: The Next Generation (or something similar). :)

A few other gems of writing:
Mr. Jones, who rather fancied himself as a medical man, a sort of hedge-doctor, told the assembled company that you could blast gallstones into dust with a few shots of laser rays, but you had to be careful that they didn't damage the red corpuscles.
Blinded with such sophisticated knowledge the company dropped the subject of gall bladders and their treatment, but all agreed that Mrs. Bailey 'would have to watch it' when she came out of hospital.
'If she ever does,' said Albert lugubriously. He liked to have the last word.
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A toddler was sitting on the grass beside a young girl. Winnie recognized them as part of the large Cooke family, noted in the district for fecundity and a distaste for orthodox matrimony.
(Elegantly worded sarcasm tends to amuse me.)