Ho, ho, ho, Santa arrives on a quadbike

This morning, as the rooks flew sideways, buffeted against the wind, I reflected on one of those very surreal weekends that seem to happen only in this village.

It began in the pub on Friday night where the chrome pole was wedged twixt floor and ceiling, in readiness for a girls' night out involving a group of ladies including Mrs Bobby Packman, Randy Munchkin and Mrs Monty Chocs-Away. But there were no takers and the pole stood gleaming in splendid isolation, although Larry the Landlord was thinking about it, as he unbuttoned his shirt behind the bar and kissed his own shoulder. When the door opened and Posh Totty walked in, I saw Mr Grigg and Nobby Odd-Job's eyes light up. But the moment was fleeting, as she was quickly followed by her daughter Charlotte Whinge-Bucket (pronounced Bouquet), MDF Man and Sparky Mark.

During the course of the evening, Larry was talking to customers at a table near the fire. A young lady, tired of waiting for a drink, walked behind the bar and pulled her own pint. Larry was behind her in an instant, and became Patrick Swayze to her Demi Moore on the potter's wheel in Ghost.

Picture it. The caption could have been: 'A glass of wine? I've got a nice semillion.' Or maybe 'Mine's a hard-on-ay.'

The next day, Mr Grigg went beating and came back dirty, wet and sweaty twenty minutes before the school Christmas Fair was about to start. After a dressing down from Mrs Grigg, a handbell was heard clanging around the one-way system. The red hooded figure of Santa suddenly materialised in the churchyard, sitting on a quadbike driven by Celebrity Farmer's dad, the new hero of the hour.(I have to say, Celeb's own shed-moving heroics have become tarnished after reports emerged that he did not lift the shed single-handedly as everyone thought but was ably assisted by a stronger and much younger nephew).


After the fair was over, Santa was spotted delivering a brace of pheasants next door.

'You're meant to go down the chimney,' yelled a group of passing children.

He was greeted by Champagne-Charlie, strutting around in plus-fours, who at supper that evening did an exceptional imitation of Rowley Birkin QC from The Fast Show without even realising it.

The next day, after breakfast in the village hall, Mr Grigg and I went to Clarks Village in Street to do some Christmas Shopping. Strangely, we kept seeing ladies from our village darting in and out of Eastex and Le Creuset. It was like something from an episode of The Prisoner or the film Don't Look Now. It transpired they were killing time before going to see Pam Ayres at the Strode Theatre.

Back at home, Mr Grigg took it upon himself to pluck six partridges on the dining room table, just as Pelly Sheepwash, a vegetarian, arrived for supper with her husband. We finished off cracking wet walnuts with our bare hands because the nut crackers were broken.

It's a strange old life.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

An interview with a Santa

Santa is preparing to make an appearance at the village school Christmas fair this Saturday. If he can sort out his transport, that is. The reindeer are obviously resting before the big day, Celebrity Farmer's quad bike is being serviced and the horses are all gearing themselves up for Boxing Day hunt meets.

He dismissed a suggestion that he could ride to the fair on the back of one of the village's most attractive women. (No names here, but cast your eyes over my cast list and you can probably work it out).

'There'll be a queue for that, with bloody Celebrity Farmer at the front,' grumbled Santa, as he tried squeezing into his suit, which strangely shrinks every year just before Christmas.

So while the transport negotiations went on in the background, I managed to get an exclusive interview with this very busy chap. I have close links to the man himself. I shall say no more.

What do you like about the area?
I go all over the world but, even for me, there is something magical about this part of Dorset. When you see it from up high on the sleigh it's like fairyland, and believe me, I know what that's like. There are lots of chimneys here, with great big fireplaces for me to squeeze down into. The children are usually good and quite generous, too, leaving me nice mince pies, Christmas cake, sometimes a bit of port or sherry - I do like port - carrots for the reindeer and sometimes a yummy mummy to squeeze.

What don't you like about the area?
Hmm, that's difficult. Well, I don't mind those places that haven't got chimneys, because I can use my special key to get in. But I don't like it when mums and dads bank up the fire just before going to bed because it's blooming hot when I come down the chimney. Last year in Bridport I nearly singed my bottom. So I wasn't best pleased about that. I'm also not very happy about the amount of shop-bought mince pies that are put out for me - kids, get your parents to make them, they taste so much better. Oh, yes, the other thing that really gets my goat is the number of children who stay up far too late. Get in bed you buggers.

What would you change?
Requests for computer-related stuff for Christmas. I went to one fair recently and only two children said they wanted a football, although one did want a teddy, which was very sweet. Most of them wanted the latest computer Wee or whatever it's called. Young children are spending far to much time on their own in their rooms on a computer or watching television. I'd also ban the use of the word 'X-mas'. Is everyone illiterate or was Christ anonymous?

You said you were asked for a football. Do you like sport? If so, what team do you support?
I'm really sports-mad and was very much into ice hockey when I was younger. I like anything really - rugby, horseracing, boxing, even leapfrog, especially with Mrs Claus. I support Lapland Wanderers FC, and I've been a fan since I was a boy. I had to stand on a box when I was small so I could see all the action. Mrs Claus likes some of the Latin and Mediterranean sides - something to do with their rugged, swarthy looks and she says the players look particularly good in shorts. It's funny because she's not remotely interested in football when I try to explain the offside rule.

If you had three guests at a dinner party, who would they be?
My first choice would be that author Raymond Briggs, who did a lovely book about Father Christmas with some great illustrations but depicted me as some grumpy old man who resented having to go out on Christmas Eve. I was a bit put out with one of the drawings showing me on the lavatory with my trousers round my ankles. Mrs Claus laughed at that and put it up in my workshop. She says every time I look at it I'll remember not to be quite so pompous.

My second guest would be Dudley Moore, who played an elf in some awfully corny Christmas movie. It was a dreadful film but I've always liked Dudley Moore - his piano playing was absolutely fabulous, it really was. And he was ever so funny with Peter Cook, although they were a bit rude. I never understood the line about Jayne Mansfield and lobsters.

The last guest would have to be Jesus, because it's his birthday! I'm not particularly religious but without him, I wouldn't exist.

What would you do if you won the lottery?
Give up the day job! No, seriously, I might enlist some help to make the job easier. If I won enough I could just sprinkle it around when I'm on my sleigh but I'm not sure if it would do any good. There are some people in this world with far too much money and others who have hardly anything. In a previous life, I think I was Robin Hood. Although Mrs Claus says more like Friar Tuck.

What do you like doing in your spare time?
That's a joke! I don't get any spare time. Once I've delivered presents to all the boys and girls of the world, I might put my feet up over Christmas, if Mrs Claus lets me. But then it's back to work again shouting orders at all those stupid little elves in the workshop.

How would you like to be remembered?
I hope grown-ups will remember me with affection, so much so that they make sure their children put out a nice glass of sloe gin for me this Christmas Eve - and, yes, some nice mince pies. Made by their mums preferably, or failing that, by Jessica's Farmhouse Cakes. And maybe a nice yummy mummy to squeeze. Yum, yum.

At that point, Santa cut our interview short when the 'stupid' elf assembly line decided to stage a go-slow.

Let's hope he makes it to our Christmas fair on Saturday. I'll keep you posted.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

The shed comes to town

I take it all back. It was actually quite a big shed after all.

When Mr Grigg rang me to tell me the shed was on its way I was in the middle of peeling apples for a nice Dorset apple cake. Fearing I'd miss it, I flung the apples down and went upstairs and waited. And waited. And waited. All to the tune of The Levellers What a Beautiful Day.

In the rain outside, the keen photographer who lives opposite spotted me in my window with camera poised and ran back in to fetch his own, fearing he might miss the prizewinning shot to enter in next year's village flower show. A boy racer roared through the Square. Crow Man got out of his Landrover, kicked his tyres, spat on the ground and then went into the shop for some cider and fags and the News of the World. A once spritely young man hobbled by for his Sunday Express, Posh Totty's Discovery towing a horsebox rattled through, the lesser-spotted Mr St John strolled by in shorts to get his Mail on Sunday and free CD, Super Mario and Princess Peach drove past in their Sunday best, a few goats sauntered up the street, the church clock struck 11 and tumbleweed gathered speed outside Mrs Bancroft's.

I admit I must have dreamed most of this. You see, while I was looking out the window I was also worrying about my cut apples downstairs that were getting browner by the minute.

And then I heard the rumble of Celebrity Farmer's tractor tyres coming round the bend and saw the flashing hazard warning lights on Mr Grigg's Landrover Freeloader. He stuck his thumb up. The cavalcade had come to town.






And then as soon as it arrived in the square, the wood shed was gone. Down the street to the field where eight testosterone-filled Sheepwashlets and friends - luckily home for a family party - threw off their hangovers to ease the shed into its new resting place, directed by Mr Grigg and his spirit level.

Who says life moves at a slower pace in the countryside?

That's about it
Love Maddie x

Move on up

A family of seagulls - mother, father and baby - fly in spirals overhead. They are inland, taking shelter from the stormy coast. They cry in unison, a sad call now that winter is here.

Up the road, plans are afoot to dismantle the Loggins's house, the love shack, ready for the timber rebuild in the new year. But first, the shed in the garden has to be taken down and moved to the little patch of ground Mr Grigg has on loan from Farmer Mayfield, where it will be used as a log store. So up at the Loggins abode, in a scene reminiscent of Delaney's Donkey, there was Loggins pushing it, shoving it, shooshing it, Sheepwash, Grigg and all the bally crew. The muscles of the mighty, never known to flinch, they couldn't move the shed a quarter of an inch...

Exhausted, the boys vowed to leave it for another day. Meanwhile, the wind had other ideas, blew the corrugated iron roof off into the middle of the lane and that hero of heroes, Celebrity Farmer, pitched up while no-one was looking and single-handedly placed the entire shed atop a flatbed trailer.

So on Sunday, the shed is off to its new home, with a reception party to greet it and put it in its place.

What worries me if there is this much trouble moving a small shed, taking apart the love shack is going to be an epic performance.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

And then the lights, went out

After a week of abstemious eating and drinking, I was looking forward to preparing Mr Grigg's supper. As I absent-mindedly chopped the carrots, thoughts wandering to faraway places, the lights went out.

'Bugger,' I said aloud, as Mr Grigg was down in the garage foraging for logs.

I groped around for the wind-up torch Mr Grigg had brought back from the conference and then checked the trip switches. All were fine. I opened the front door and the village square was as black as a bag. Bliss. No horrible street lights. Across the road, Mrs Bancroft's house was dark and I could see candles being lit in the pub some 25 yards away.

The phone rang. It was Nobby Odd-Job, ringing from the power-cut free zone at the top of the village.

'I'm a bit worried about Mrs Bancroft,' he said. 'She rang me and left a message to say she was sitting in the dark and wondered if I was too. I went down but there was no-one there so I went to the pub. I've just tried to ring her back and there's no reply.'

So I checked on Mrs Bancroft, and then cooed through Night Nurse's letterbox next door. They might have been holed up together.

When I came back, I said to Mr Grigg, who was by now sitting next to a roaring fire: 'I can't make them hear across the road. I hope they're all right.'

'All right? They're watching a film in the village hall.'

It transpired that the electricity at the top end of the village was working perfectly, as is usually the case when we have a power-cut. Which was what Mrs Bancroft wanted to know from Nobby before she ventured out to the hall. He'd taken it as a cry for help, she'd meant it as a rain-check.

I lit the candles on the table, cooked the supper in the Aga and, just as things were getting all romantic, the lights came on. Bugger.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Close encounters of the strange kind

The smell of sausage casserole is wafting up the stairs as I type. Mr Grigg is preparing food for the 5,000 for the quiz tomorrow night and the aroma is making me feel hungry. Oh, how at home he looks in a pinny.

The damp decaying leaves were squidgy underfoot as I took time out from computer work this afternoon for a walk on The Hill with Pelly and the dogs. The ford was overflowing and we found half a corn cob in the middle of nowhere. Celebrity Farmer, his brother and father were all in a row in the second-from-top field, hedging and fencing. It looked like some kind of rural line-dancing ritual. From the shelter of the trees in their warm coats of green velvet moss, we emerged to look out on to the vale and across the hummocks to the grey sea beyond. By the time we came down from The Hill, there was a sliver of a moon in the sky and the clouds in the west were turning pink.

It's been a strange old week. On Tuesday I saw the driver of a car in My Kind of Town with a long white balloon on the end of his nose. Later, I sat in the Thai restaurant on a table next to the most loud and boring young man who did nothing but complain about his food and then pontificate on methane being the fault of farmers domesticating animals for the last 2,000 years.

This morning, Mr Grigg and I came downstairs to find the cats had been locked in and one of them had poohed in the sink.

My head has not been straight since taking part in Subtlemob in Bristol last Friday. If you are at all interested, take a look at this YouTube link. Bit of a soundtrack to a life, I think. If you can spot the bemused bag lady, that's me. Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

That's about it
Love Maddie

Mr Grigg unpacks a new bag of tricks

The wind shifted to London this week as the green cabbage soup-stuffed Mr Grigg went up to The Smoke for a conference.

He came back laden with two jamboree bags full of goodies - lots of pens for the village quiz on Saturday, two memory sticks, a stress ball, a mug, a pack of tissues, a hand gel dispenser, a wind-up torch, eight remote controlled light switches, a personal alarm, a triangular highlighter pen with nibs at each corner and a gaggle of gonks.

He plunged his hand into one of the bags and pulled out a small thing that looked a bit like a tape measure.

'Now, this is the best thing of all,' he said, like an excited child. I think he was trying to sweeten me up after telling me that drinking until 2.30am in the hotel lounge with two female strangers was called 'networking'.

He held one end of the thing and then pulled a long thread out. He looked puzzled.

'Now what was it the chap said this was for?' he said to himself.

'A garroting device?' I suggested.

He's taking me out for a meal now. It's the least he can do.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x