The world from my window

Some things are worth fighting for

2012-02-02T13:38:00.001Z

I am using the blog today as a little bit of propaganda. It's not something I'd usually do, but it's my blog, so I guess I can do what I want.

There is a plan to redevelop an old industrial estate in My Kind of Town into a massive housing development. It's sparked a lot of controversy, not least because of the jobs that will be lost to make way for shiny new homes. It will also mean a newly-emerged artistic and vintage quarter will be wiped out quicker than you can say restoration, restoration, restoration.

This is the gist of the objection I've just submitted. It's an emotional response but I make no apologies for that. My US and Canadian readers might not be interested but, on the other hand, they are people with good hearts so they just might. So here goes:

I've known Bridport for thirty years and St Michael's trading estate has always been a thriving place for creative enterprise. The look of it hasn’t changed much in that time either.

Back then there were auction rooms, car repairers, award winning drag racing cars made as a hobby by Number One Son's father and a salon set up by my hairdresser. It was shabby but it was useful. And some lovely, lovely buildings that are part of the town's industrial heritage.

And still the estate is shabby. But it’s chic. It has a thriving art quarter. The area attracts a huge deal of interest and visitors. It’s become a sort of fingerless glove attached to one of Bridport’s hands.

Developing the so-called ‘south west quadrant’ has been talked about for years and the plans have been a long time coming. And now they’re here.

Bridport is quirky, arty, bohemian and the art quarter fits, alongside small businesses that have been on the estate for years.

YouTube: Bridport Video

What doesn’t fit is a massive housing development, the tidying up and gentrification of Bridport which will lead to an influx of people who will gaze at the Looking Back page of the local newspaper in years to come and say ‘oh, so that’s what it used to be like’.

As a former editor of that paper, I have seen how Bridport has changed over the years. Not necessarily all for the better, but what is evident now is there is a new vibrancy, a new creative energy, that has emerged in recent years. You can see it in the independent shops, you can see it in the arts centre, the Electric Palace and the newly-revamped town hall. It’s the Spirit of Bridport shining through and so typified by the St Michael’s artistic quarter. It’s Bridport’s Monmartre!

Detail from the Spirit of Bridport: Bridport Town Council

Fra Newbery was one of the town’s best known artists who painted the beautiful Spirit of Bridport. He strove ‘to make art more readily available to a wider public, attempting to relate it to their daily lives and to celebrate the traditions of the specific localities in which the works were sited’. (And, ironically, on the day I write this, the Fra Newbery website is just about to be taken down for a lack of funding).

Heritage is worth saving. It really is.

But is it a planning consideration? As well as loss of employment, impact on local amenity and infrastructure, traffic and access, inappropriate development, I think the planners should look at the effect this new housing estate will have on Bridport as a whole. You can’t just look it as bricks and mortar. It goes wider, deeper than the aesthetics of the new properties.

And, as bricks and mortar go, do we really need all these new houses? There is a chronic shortage of affordable housing in Bridport. This is what we should be focusing on, in areas where it can work around the town. We need more shared ownership homes for young people to get a foot on the ladder, more homes for social rent. And not just tagged on to the grotty end of a swanky development.

As councillors elected by us, the people, to make decisions on our behalf, they should do the right thing. It’s not just a bunch of arty farty people who live on trustafarian handouts from rich relatives and the sale of the occasional painting. All sorts of people in the town and beyond are very unhappy about this application which will strip Bridport of much of her spirit.

Please help us to save what we have left. Especially when it’s doing so well.

If you want to have your say before tomorrow's deadline, click here to make your comment. If you want to know more, take a look at the campaign group's Facebook page.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The square shows signs of life

2012-01-31T19:55:00.000Z

The excitement is too much. There are lights on in the pub and a fish and chip van's just pulled up outside the village green.

A queue of people has built up in anticipation. The enterprising chippie chap put round a flyer during the afternoon: cod and chips for £4.50. Crikey, they're even doing curry sauce and mushy peas. Shame I already have a baked potato in the oven.

And at the pub, our new licensees settle into their new home before throwing open their doors in a few weeks' time.

Down the road, someone on the estate-of-bungalows tests out their new searchlight torch, throwing a white beam across the sky and hitting the constellation of Orion like a lightsaber slicing through a storm trooper.

A quarter moon promises bigger things to come as February comes into view. The village is on Twitter, it has its own Facebook page and there is soon to be a community website.

And the village hall arms opens up on Friday for the penultimate time before our pub sets sail on a new journey, with the Enchanted Villagers as crew and mine hosts at the helm.

The village is coming out of hibernation. Baby it's cold outside. But who cares, the Enchanted Village is coming back to life.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Bridport by Night

2012-01-28T11:54:00.002Z

Thirty years ago, when I was twenty, I went with my mum and my young daughter to take a look at Bridport, where I was about to start a new job as a reporter on the local paper. It was only twenty miles from the place I was born, but I didn't know it at all.

We walked up to the top of the windswept East Cliff and looked around us, my blonde little girl covering her eyes because she didn't want her photo taken. It was wonderful, and I fell in love with the place immediately.

It's a love affair that has continued ever since. I was privileged through my job to get to know the place and its people very well. I even wrote a book about it, which became a bestseller, if only in the local area.

Even now, living in the hinterland, I get anxiety attacks if I don't have a Bridport fix every now and then. It's My Kind of Town.

So I was thrilled to see this film posted on YouTube by a young Twitter friend, who obviously feels the same. Stand up and take a bow, Stephen Banks, you've captured the magical spirit of Bridport beautifully.

It's taken the local Twitter and Facebook world by storm. So I thought I'd share it with you.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Good news on the horizon

2012-01-27T13:38:00.000Z

There's a rat-a-tat-tat coming from the trees across the valley, the sound of a woodpecker doing whatever it is that woodpeckers do. The fluffy clouds are tinged with pink and the outlines of two of Dorset's highest points, Pilsdon and Lewesdon - known by sailors and locals as The Cow and The Calf - are sharp and clear against the morning sky.

It is cold and bright and we might have snow.

But, spring is tucking its dress in its knickers and is ready to emerge from around the corner. It is beaming like a favourite child splashing through a few puddles before reaching our outstretched arms.

The Enchanted Village is turning its own corner towards a brighter future.

Next month, we will have new publicans in our village pub, several months after it imploded. Its closure left a hole in the magic pentacle that is our five-road village square, which had already suffered the loss of our shop.

We desperately want someone to come and buy the shop. We want the heart of our village back. We also want our former shopkeeper to be able to live his life, happily, away from sad memories. We can't afford what he wants for it, and we really hope someone will come along and take it over. We will support them: this village is nothing if not supportive and willing.

But in the meantime, the answer, it seems, lies in a portable shop building in the grounds of the village hall. It's worked elsewhere, so why not here?

But our ultimate aim must be to crank up those ley lines, the intersections of which are said by the pseudoscientists to be a mystical energy source. In moments of whimsy, I like to think this community draws its great strength from the ley lines that cross the village square.

We need our beating heart back.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The enchanted wood

2012-01-22T14:31:00.002Z

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was a child in a meadow with a woodland circle of beech trees around me. And there was clover growing in the field. Three leaf, four leaf and six leaf. A magical spot.

I went back to those woods today, with my Midsummer's Eve grandchild and friend Pelly Sheepwash.

And this is what we found.

And behind each door, there were little offerings. Pine cones, bits of shell, toy figures, notepad and pen and tinsel.

What a lovely idea.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Writer's cramp

2012-01-19T18:47:00.000Z

In the summer of 2007 I reinvented myself.

I was tired of being pigeon-holed under the name I usually went by. I wanted to break free from the personal straitjacket of a locally high profile job I'd had for five years. So I took the first name of my maternal grandmother and married it to the maiden surname of my maternal grandmother.

And so Maddie Grigg was born. I liked her a lot. She was a bit kooky, a wild romantic who lapped up the world around her and with a fine eye for detail, the amusing and the amazing. She was my online self, the real me behind that other, duller person. A rural Bridget Jones and not as fat.

The irony is that the Grigg side of me comes from a long line of recluses, three of whom to this day live in separate corners of the same Somerset field. It's as if my assertive granny (Maddie) has kicked my shy granny into action.

One of Maddie's poems was shortlisted in the prestigious Bridport Prize competition, her blog was chosen as a Blog of Note (just look at the editor's comments on Real West Dorset) and she had a piece in the Guardian, which prompted a pedantic correction (honestly, their sub-editor told me to use the word epicentre in this context. The BBC do it all the time).

And then Mrs Champagne-Charlie's scriptwriter daughter pleaded with Maddie to send her some material from the blog. She was going to knock it up into a film just crying out to be made for Ray Winstone and Joely Richardson in the leading roles.

And then a story about Maddie's grandfather won the People and Land writing competition in the Marshwood Vale Magazine. And a piece of Maddie's prose was selected for a forthcoming book, Dorset Voices.

Maddie was on fire.

And do you know what happened when she sent the first thirty pages of a book based on this blog to three agents? A polite but immediate rejection from Conville & Walsh and no reply from the others.

And what happened when she emailed Winstone's production company with a great idea for a Sunday prime time television series? Nothing.

And then Mr Grigg said: 'Do you think there comes a time when you should perhaps give up writing? After all, you are fifty. You haven't written a best seller yet.'

'I have,' I said. 'I just haven't sold it yet.'

And then Mr Grigg started his own blog.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Mr Grigg fights back

2012-01-13T17:30:00.001Z

I'm lost for words. Mr Grigg has only started his own blog.

Trouble's a-brewin.

The pub is back in business

2012-01-12T08:54:00.000Z

That communal poem did the trick. Within hours of tracking it down (it had been taken home by Mr Prayer's wife to be typed up), news has filtered through from the brewery that new tenants will be moving in during February.

So, hurrah, we're getting our pub back. Next mission? Re-opening the village shop.

Those energetic ley lines crossing The Enchanted Village square don't stay quiet for long.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The case of the vanishing poem

2012-01-07T11:41:00.001Z

As I write, the hunt has just left the village square after its annual meet hosted by Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie. Mr Grigg holds a whisky mac while shovelling up horse manure with the other hand and puts it on my roses.

The fragrant Mrs Putter and Mrs Bancroft dodge the back ends of horses to take around sausage rolls and dainty sandwiches to the assembled throng. Mostly, the riders are polite, but there are an ill mannered few who seem rather sniffy.

The Sheepwashes are notable by their absence and I justify my attendance by recording the event with my camera from the window. I'm not a hunt fan, despite being a farmer's daughter brought up in south Somerset. Conversely, though, I did not approve of the hunting ban, which was imposed on the countryside by an urban government.

Today is a chance for the village to socialise in the open air, watching the horses, riders and hounds and partake in light refreshment. Since our pub closed in September, we grab any chance to have a natter.

Like last night, when the performance poet Matt Harvey gave a very engaging show in the village hall. Part of the evening consisted of the audience coming up with lines of poetry on the subject of the village pub. Mr Prayer stuck the lines together with the help of two able assistants.

There were some classic lines: One landlord, with more than just an eye for the ladies and then the next one, who was as cold as Hades and The village pub isn't closed, it's under the table with my husband. And one I especially liked (because I wrote it): A glass of warm Chardonnay from a fridge too far.

The resulting poem was a lovesong to our local and we want it back - that's the pub and the poem. Because the latter has also disappeared.

Apparently, a lady in a blue jumper took the poem for the parish magazine. But the parish magazine editor was there and knew nothing about it. Lordy, lordy, such intrigue.

But we would like it back, please, that love song to our local, so we can present it to the brewery and ask them to get a move on.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Back to school blues

2012-01-05T11:59:00.002Z

Bubbling, babbling children at the bus stop, a red sky overhead as they wait for the school bus. Back-to-school children, the young ones tearing up and down and doing aeroplane impressions with coats for wings.

Cut to the doctor's waiting room, full of people with coughs and sniffles.

'Hello,' says one. 'How are you?'

'I'm fine,' says another, automatically, before quickly adding, 'well, apart from this stinking cold.'

And the receptionists all across the land tighten their lips in sarcastic unison behind their counters. Oh, they've heard it all before, thank you very much. We will sympathise only if you're really ill. And only then if you get down on your hands and knees. We know best, doctor.

Oh the joys of January.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Blowing in the wind

2012-01-03T14:25:00.000Z

The wind roars through the beech trees, buffeting and tossing everything in its path. Those trees, those old, old trees sway like ancient dancers at a primeval feast.

In the early morning darkness, only the lights of the housing association houses and a smattering of others - including ours - are on, as I make my way around the field with two dogs and a torch before getting ready for work. Elsewhere, the newly-retired and long-retired slumber in their beds.

A solitary figure in a dressing gown tiptoes out of a door, looking left and right before the clattering of bottles put out for the recycling is heard across the street. It is Mrs Bancroft, and she's going back to bed.

My two reluctant spaniels perk up when they pick up the scent of a short-sighted badger which snuffles and snorts across the field and bangs into a fence post as it makes its getaway.

On the road, there might be trees fallen down and plenty of surface water as white van man and commuters like me make for the bright lights of Dorchester.

Tonight I will play host to Book Club where seven of us will sit around the dinner table with stuffed peppers and trifle left over from new year's eve to discuss To The End of the Land, a very long tome put forward by the delightful Mr Mabel Lucie Attwell. My ladies will wax lyrical and leave me behind as I still haven't finished it.

Meanwhile, the men will pursue their own pursuits, with supper at a nearby pub where, if they've booked, they might have a community haircut at the same time. That's the kind of pub I like.

It seems an age ago since we celebrated new year's eve, dressed to kill. Mr Grigg went as Wyatt Earp, his Movember moustache put to good use. There was the fragrant Mrs Putter as the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, complete with Chrissie Hynde wig and nose ring and Mr Putter following closely behind dressed as 007.

There were the Sheepwashes as The Avengers, Mrs Champagne-Charlie in a safari outfit and Mr Champagne-Charlie as himself, complete with tweed plus fours and live ammunition.

I had wanted to go as Medusa, with snakes in my hair and an icy stare, but Mr Grigg forced me to go as a suicide bomber instead, strapping cardboard tubes from the turkey foil, wire and my alarm clock around my waist.

At midnight, we went into The Enchanted Village square to meet revellers from a wig-wearing party at the village hall, gathering to kiss each other and do Auld Lang Syne. The numbers in the square were depleted because the pub is closed. Which is probably just as well because at midnight my alarm went off.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Shuffling into the new year

2011-12-31T12:19:00.000Z

And there's me, drawing up a playlist of new year's resolutions to keep me going through 2012 when I suddenly have an epiphany.

Why not just put the soundtrack to my life on shuffle, and see what happens?

The prospect is rather scary. It depends on what's in you in the first place. Because when my iPod is on shuffle, I can get cool new jazz from 4 Hero followed by Ernie, the Fastest Milkman in The West, tracks by The Hives I really should erase, the sublime beauty of The Cinematic Orchestra, Faure and Vaughan Williams, a rousing fanfare from Aaron Copland, drums by Buddy Rich and then Barry White telling me I'm his first, his last, his everything.

And then Elvis saying I should return to the sender.

So, fly by the seat of my pants or be organised? A bit of both, I think. It's always worked in the past. So Happy New Year to all my readers. I did think about jacking in the blog for 2012 but now that would be stupid.

And any suggestions for the musical soundtrack to my new year and yours would be most welcome.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The calm before the storm

2011-12-28T14:28:00.002Z

The seagulls are buffeted in batches as they attempt to cross the West Bay sky.

People in new hats and scarves walk around the harbour. An elderly couple wear matching reindeer jumpers. A half-breed terrier barks bravely at two huskies, wolves in eskimo clothing. A child tears around on a toy tractor with only a small wall between him and a muddy end.

The tide is out and so are all the after-Christmas revellers, soaking up the salt air like good quality kitchen roll mops up those yuletide spills.

The Grigg household is quiet now, after a Christmas Day for waifs and strays at the Champagne-Charlies and Boxing Day with thirty eight relatives ensconced in various corners of the house, children squealing and being obliging or otherwise, people going outside for crafty fags and teenagers cursing because they couldn't send a text. In The Enchanted Village, no-one can hear your mobile phone scream. There is no signal.

Tonight we will process around the village for a safari supper. And then there's the book club party. And in houses up and down the village and across the land, outfits are being created for New Year's Eve. The countdown to 2012 is just beginning.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

So this is Christmas - and what have you done?

2011-12-21T20:25:00.002Z

I walk up to the village hall to our 'outreach' post office. We've had two sessions a week since losing our post office a couple of years ago.

'Tai chi?' says our district councillor at the door.

'Sorry, no, I've only come to post a letter.' She seems a little too eager to rope me into something I really don't want to do.

So I get in the queue to send off a very late Christmas card to an old Bridport friend now living in Australia. A dour Mr Putter is standing behind me and in a hurry but I stand my ground because I've got things to do, people to see.

And then I become aware of the relaxing, oriental music. I turn around and look across into the main body of the hall. A crowd of grey-haired onlookers are gazing wistfully at the gentle scene unfolding before them.

Six ladies are doing a tai chi demonstration, arms slowly revolving and legs-a-pointing like some very weird line-dance routine.

The music stops and the hall is buzzing, with people exchanging Christmas cards and gossip.

We may have lost our shop and pub, but this community is still thriving. We've got the Village Hall Arms coming up on Christmas Eve. And with a can-do attitude, who knows what the new year will bring?

So I wish you good tidings to you and your kin. And a selection of photos from my year.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Santa Claus is coming to town

2011-12-19T12:56:00.000Z

So Mr Grigg went into Bournemouth, to take Christmas cards and presents to his colleagues.

As you know by now, he is not one to do anything by halves. He still had his Santa outfit from when he was called upon to perform a special duty at the school fair a week or so ago. So he pulled into a layby to get changed. Pity the poor driver who got an eye full of Mr Grigg’s bottom as he struggled to get into the trousers.

Once the transformation was complete, he pulled out into the traffic. There were open mouths from other drivers as they drew up parallel with Mr Grigg’s Freeloader at the traffic lights. There were double takes as pedestrians walked out on to the zebra crossing.

There were honks of car horns and, best of all, looks of amazement from a school playground as word spread that Father Christmas was in a Landrover in the line of traffic outside. So the children waved and Mr Grigg waved back.

He stopped off at the florists to pick up an ordered bouquet.

‘Your name?’ the lady behind the counter said.

‘Santa?’ Mr Grigg replied.

Outside, clutching the flowers and with a sack over his shoulder, he walked up to the Landrover and just got right in, much to the amazement of passers-by on the pavement.

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x

Step into Christmas

2011-12-11T11:46:00.001Z

Caruso says a few words to declare The Enchanted Village christmas tree lights well and truly on. A switch is thrown and there is applause as the lights illuminate the village green. Applause because no-one really thought they would come on at all.

Down the road, a tree lights up above Mr and Mrs Champage-Charlie's front door, over the church shop, at Mrs Bancroft's and, last but not least, the Grigg abode. It is a relief because a few hours earlier, Mr Grigg had a plaintive phone call from Mrs Bancroft who wailed: 'My lights have come on and it's only half past three.' So the timers were all adjusted and we just hoped for the best.

We had no idea if anyone would turn up for this step into Christmas but well-wrapped-up figures come from here there and everywhere to join in the ceremony. It isn't quite Oxford Street but it's ours, and it's going well.

There is mulled wine and cider, mince pies and carols around the tree led by Tuppence. I trill like a canary, doing the descant for 'sing choirs of angels' but bottling out of the rest of the verse.

And then it is all off to the village hall arms, joyful and triumphant.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Santa and my little pony

2011-12-06T20:22:00.001Z

The children waited patiently, the excitement mounting.

And as Mr Grigg waited in the house in his glad rags, rouge freshly applied to his cheeks by Mrs Champagne-Charlie to add to the effect, a light clip-clop could be heard coming up the road. It was just before two o'clock. His transport to the school Christmas fair had arrived.

While he adjusted the big buckle around his red tunic, the phone rang. It was Bellows, whose voice is so loud that in all honesty, he could just have easily walked outside his front door and shouted down to us.

'UM, ER, IT'S THE HORSE,' said Bellows.'I'M AFRAID YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO LEAD IT TO THE CHRISTMAS FAIR.'

'Skittish, is it?' Mr Grigg said, the phone six inches away from his ear as he marvelled at his profile in the hall mirror and squatted up and down to test the gusset of the Santa trousers. 'You know, I'm very good with high-spirited fillies. Don't forget I married Maddie.'

'UM, NO, IT'S JUST, UM, IT'S JUST PERHAPS IT'S A TAD SMALL TO TAKE A GENTLEMAN OF YOUR GIRTH.'

And then it arrived. Ride your pony, get on your pony and ride.

Well, perhaps not.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Mr Grigg mans the community bar

2011-12-03T00:17:00.001Z

I've got thousands of words to write for three essays in my classics and ancient history course, so it figures that I am blogging far more often than is reasonable.

Here's one I did earlier for my chums at the Real West Dorset website. If you want to know how Mr Grigg's latest community caper got on, take a look. If it helps, imagine him behind the bar with Movember moustache, Bret Maverick waistcoat and black stetson.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Chris Evans has a lot to answer for

2011-12-01T19:48:00.001Z

So Movember is done and dusted and Mr Grigg still hasn't shaved off his trucker's moustache. He's getting quite attached to it.

And when he went out to play skittles with his Enchanted Village chums last night, in double denim and trainers, he looked just a little bit like a 70s porn star, minus the gold chain around his neck (ladies, never trust a man who wears a necklace). So much so, that this week his eyes lit up when a colleague, carrying a plastic carrier bag full of old videos, whispered: 'I've got something here you might like...'

Mr Grigg went out the back and had a rummage.

'And guess what they were,' he told me later. 'The entire collection of Miss Marples.'

I chuckled, not because of the image it conjured up but because he is forever putting an unnecessary 's' at the end of people's names: Cliff Richards, Roger Moores, you get my drift, although he gets very cross when people call him Mr Griggs.

Anyway, he's now putting that comedy moustache to good use and joining it up with a little goatee he's growing as he and Chris Evans and I dare say a whole host of other people launch into Decembeard to raise money for bowel cancer charities.

And after that, Manuary.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Raise your glasses to winter

2011-11-30T09:11:00.001Z

But for the sound of two crying seagulls, the air is still. There is a coldness to it, a coldness that signifies something is coming. Winter.

The gulls career around, circling above The Enchanted Village, far from their coastal home. A car trundles through and then there is quiet again. The shop blinds are down and the pub curtains are drawn. No-one is home.

White vapour trails, like the tails of mechanised comets, criss cross in the crisp, blue sky to make the sign of a kiss. There is hope on the horizon.

The Village Hall Arms is about to open for business.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Home is where the heart is

2011-11-27T17:31:00.001Z

They say you should never go back. But for the past few weeks, I've had a yearning to go home, to revisit my roots. I don't know why. It's an odd feeling and I can't explain it. I've had Enchanted Village compassion fatigue for about the same time and I felt like running through a field and yelling at the top of my voice.

This weekend, I've done a bit of both but not at the same time. With the fragrant Mrs Putter, I belted out a few negro spirituals at a singing workshop run by my dear friend, Tuppence. I got my voice back.

And then today, Mr Grigg and I put the spaniels in the back of the Freeloader and headed across the county border into Somerset. It was only just over thirteen miles away but it felt like the Land Rover was a time machine as we went back to 1979.

And there I was, in the top field, the one called Bella's Nose, and then up into the wood with its Scots pine trees and then down again through Corn Close, where I learned to drive, and then to the farm where I was born.

I reconnected with the past.

And before going back to the car, we called in to see some of my relatives in the churchyard, as well as old school friends and people who I had just known and lived in this village. I hadn't said hello for a long time - aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, niece. It was good to catch up.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Benjamin Button is alive and well and living in The Enchanted Village

2011-11-23T12:20:00.001Z

The fragrant Mrs Putter sighs deeply as she inputs data on to a spreadsheet from the parish plan questionnaires.

(And this is before she gets to transcribing people's suggestions on alternative uses for village common - 'flood it and turn it into an ice skating rink, grass it over for polo or use it for dogging').

There is an intake of fresh breath as she pores over the forms and reads:

Question: What is your age range?
Answer: 0-4 years.

Question: How long have you lived here?
Answer: 65 years.

For a moment, Mrs Putter has visions of Benjamin Button hunched up in front of a log fire, dressed in a baby sleep suit and muttering scribble talk gibberish in between sucks on his dummy and a smoke on his pipe.

The Enchanted Village population is getting younger by the hour. There's youth dew in that parish pump.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

It's all about me (again)

2011-11-21T13:03:00.001Z

I have lots to blog about, but also lots to do, with three 4,000-word essays to write in the next four weeks plus some other university-related tasks that have to be done at the same time.

Oh, the joys of being a full-time MA classics and ancient history student when I also have a part-time job. However, that’s my choice, so no feeling sorry for myself here. There’s work to be done.

I am grateful, therefore, to Barbara, at the March House Books Blog, for, firstly, giving me an award and, secondly, for making me slow down and think about myself. I’m not usually one for these ‘meme’ things, but sometimes they can make you look at yourself in a slightly different way.

The requirements of receiving the Lovely Blog Award are:

1. To thank the giver and link back to his or her site.

2. Provide five random facts that folks may not know about you.

3. Pass this award on to five other lovely blog sites and let them know you're awarding them.

4. Copy the award logo and paste it onto your own site.

So here are my five random facts. Not sure if anyone is remotely interested, but it gives you a bit of an insight into the sort of person I am.

I could happily eat nothing but roast parsnips.
I love the smell of wallflowers.
I can recite the opening lines of the 70s TV western Alias Smith and Jones without pausing for breath.
My dad once drew around my Clarks sandal on the lead on our village church roof to go alongside the footprints of people from hundreds of years ago who had done the same.
This video clip made me nearly wet myself:

And here are the other five bloggers to whom I am sending this award: friends, former colleagues and a self-confessed loafer:

Chips Ahoy
A Curious Girl's Guide to Life
House With No Name
Sally's Carcassone

The Red Bladder

They'll hate me for it , but tough, someone had to receive it. And I think the award logo will look particularly fetching on the first and last blogs.

I was also nominated for another little blog award a while back, but now can’t find the original comment or email. So if it was from you, please don’t take my lack of response personally. I have a head like a sieve.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The bells, the bells

2011-11-13T21:41:00.001Z

Just when I think there is not much for me to write about if ever I did get round to doing the autobiography, two things happen.

After a nice Sunday lunch of local hoggett, we sit down on the expansive Champagne-Charlie sofas and hear the Remembrance Sunday bells ringing outside.

'You have to come outside and listen to these,' I say. 'They're half muffled.'

Mr Champagne-Charlie comes out like a shot but his wife, Bubble, and Pelly Sheepwash take a little persuading, until Mr Grigg explains how for years he has been going up in the bell tower, fastening the little leather mufflers to the clappers on the bells each Remembrance Sunday.

In deference to his annual bravery, they come out with me to listen. The bells peal in rounds, clittery-clattery loud and then a perfect muffled echo. The bells are yelling to each other and whispering back. It is a conversation worth listening to.

And then the ringers get into a sequence called Whittington: 'Turn again Whittington, turn again Whittington...' and the muffled peal echoes its response from another century ago. It is a wonderful sound, and one that connects the listener to hundreds of years gone by.

And when we go back into the house, I walk backwards to the roaring fire in the woodburner, my skirts held high to warm my bottom. I become my favourite aunt who made a habit of making an entrance in cape and swirling dress and then backing up the fire to heat up her best asset. God bless you, Auntie Marj.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Where are you now, you North Somerset Yeomen?

2011-11-11T14:32:00.001Z

Where are you now, you North Somerset Yeomen,

Who came, swift to answer your country's appeal,

To pit your raw strength 'gainst the might of the foemen,

To give shot for shot, to oppose steel to steel?

You came, not for gain, for reward or for glory,

And little you heeded where duty's path led;

You wrote your full page in our England's proud story,

Thanked God for your victories, and mourned for your dead.

For some lie near Ypres, beneath the clay sleeping;

They suffered, they died, but no inch would they yield,

And dull leaden skies up above them are weeping,

For them, as they lie 'neath the battle scarred field.

And all up and down where the old trench-line wandered,

The plain wooden crosses their message proclaim;

Yet no man may say that their young lives were squandered-

They died for this England; they rest in their fame.

Where are you now, you North Somerset Yeomen,

Bred to the ploughtail, the desk or the mine?

You gave of your best, did your duty, and no men

Can beat your proud record, your glory outshine.

You fought and you died, you were wounded and shattered;

You stuck to it grimly, till Peace came at last,

And now, on the face of the earth you are scattered,

Till nothing remains but the ghosts of the past.

The ghosts of the past - in the mists of tradition,

The actors depart, but their exploits remain;

But still the old Regiment retains her position -

She'd do it, if need be, all over again!

William Percy Withers 1894-1970 (my grandfather)

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Always remember

2011-11-11T12:01:00.001Z

And at eleven o'clock on the eleventh of the eleventh of the eleventh, Mr Grigg and I stood in silence outside the church.

I could hear the cawing of rooks overhead, the sound of gunfire in the towns beyond the hills as everyone else's two-minute silence began and ended at different times.

And I thought of my grandfathers, brave old souls, giving it all in the war to end all wars, with my maternal grandfather stopping every now and then to write a poem about it. I thought of my paternal grandfather's best friend, killed in France and lying in the British ceremony at Courcelette, a fact we discovered only through the marvels of internet research a year or so ago.

And I thought of Mr Grigg's uncle, killed on HMS Glorious by the German battleship Scharnhorst in World War II, never to know his nephews, one of whom was named after him. Similar stories repeated to this day,widows and orphans made from the Falklands, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan.

And I thought back further to the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, when ancestors on both my parents' sides joined their Westcountry comrades to fight against the king's men.

Such sacrifice, such loss. Heads bowed in silence all over the world.

And there on a church tower, a union flag unfurls in the breeze, a gargoyle winks and glints in the sun.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

A region in mourning

2011-11-08T09:48:00.002Z

So much to write about, so much to say. But the inclination is not there. Not at the moment.

We are a region in mourning after Friday evening's terrible pile-up on the motorway near Taunton, which claimed seven lives in a fireball and left many more injured.

It is a junction people around here know very well. It's our pathway to Bristol and beyond. We know the rugby club, too, next door, where it is now being suggested that thick black smoke from a fireworks display descended without warning, blinding drivers and causing this dreadful crash.

But we don't know what really happened, it is all speculation. We only know that it is terrible and, with the speed that some people drive at, barely leaving enough stopping space between them and the vehicle in front, we are surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Our thoughts go out to all those affected by this horrible, horrible accident.

More from me later in the week, when I will describe Mr Grigg's journey through Beaminster in a cattle truck and our hopes about who might be among the people carrying next year's Olympic flame.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Novel writing, blog posting and moustaches

2011-11-03T20:34:00.000Z

November is a strange time of year. We've really said goodbye to the summer and we're on the quick, quick, military two-step march to Christmas. Already, in houses, and possibly mud huts, across the land there are discussions about where each one of us will be spending the festive season.

Children far too young are demanding presents that are far-too-old for them and materialistic parents are going along with it. Meanwhile, in far-flung corners of the world, children will be happy to receive a shoe box full of bits and bobs which have been filled for them by their more affluent cousins from the western nations. The true spirit of Christmas, in my humble opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, I love it to bits. I'm from a big family and I love giving and receiving presents (and giving most of all). But children get far more joy from simple things or time spent with them than the latest must-have toy or gadget they have been conned into wanting by adverts or over-indulgent parents.

However, I digress. There are several things happening in November.

There is National Novel Writing Month – or NaNoWriMo for acronym fans. I tried it once but I don't think I got away with it. Fifty thousand words of complete rubbish. Although I can sort of see the point in it. It certainly gets you in the writing habit for at least 30 days.

And now there is NaBloPoMo, a challenge for bloggers everywhere to write a blog post every day for a month. Now, I'm sorry, and there is an old colleague who is currently doing this (I admire her and her blog, which was shortlisted for the Cosmopolitan magazine blog of the year awards), but what is the point in this event? I find it self-indulgent inflicting my blog on people twice a week, let alone every day.

But there is another thing in November. And it's Movember. Yay! When men all over the world grow moustaches for money to give to cancer charities.

I have just signed up Mr Grigg for this challenge. Others have a three-day head start, but I am sure he can do it. He used to sport the most delicious moustache ever. You could jump in it, play hide and seek in it, kiss chase even or use it as a pair of stage curtains and make an entrance. But a few years ago, someone persuaded him he'd look younger if he shaved it off. And ever since, I have been trying to get him to grow it back.

I like the Tom Selleck look.

Hey, even Peter Bowles ( Mr Grigg was once told he looked like this very British of actors) has a certain something. I saw him on an underground train in London a month ago and he looked very handsome and dapper. He must be at least 107.

And it's hard to beat a Salvador Dali moustache.

So, thanks to Movember, when men everywhere grow a moustache and it's all for a good cause, I am getting the old Mr Grigg back. I can't wait.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Up in the air and down

2011-11-02T14:21:00.002Z

Bored with your job? Hop on over to Real West Dorset for my latest Lush Places blog. It's not all bad.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Happy Halloween from The Enchanted Village

2011-10-31T19:53:00.000Z

A hollowed-out pumpkin, with an evil grin and squinty eyes, glows in the window of the house next door.

Mr Champagne-Charlie sits behind the letter box, armed with a bucket of sweets and wearing a gorilla mask.

Three young trick or treaters, who I swear are Pelly Sheepwash, Mrs Bancroft and the fragrant Mrs Putter gone backwards a few times on Ray Bradbury's carousel, beam when I give them some fun-sized Mars Bars and a packet of Maltesers.

And then they go next door, and, by the pricking of my thumbs, I hear a blood-curdling scream.

'Oobee doo, I wanna be like you-oo-oo,' Champagne-Charlie sings from behind the mask. But it is a muffled mix of latex and tone deafness.

The three little maids from school hot foot it up the road, the treats flying in their wake.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Excitement mounts in the village square

2011-10-28T12:29:00.000Z

The blinds are now down permanently at the village shop as a committee of the great and good do their very best to come up with a rescue plan. The pub is shut after the publicans' farewell party last night and one of the five roads leading off the square is closed for resurfacing.

The only thing of any interest lately has been the young man from the road menders, whose sole job is to sit on a kerb in the square all day to help people who can't read the 'diversion' sign. There is another man at the other end of the road, but he has a van to sit in so is clearly higher up the road mender scale.

So it's an empty square this morning as I look out from my window. But not for long.

The removals lorry backs up the one-way system outside the pub. The bus arrives and attempts to do a nine-point turn. The lady (I am sorry to say) driver can't find reverse on her gear stick and narrowly avoids hitting the 'diversion' sign in the middle of the road.

And then the mobile library arrives.

As Champagne-Charlie sits in his Land Rover outside his house and mutters an obscenity from the safety of a closed window, Mr Grigg walks out of our front door and springs into action.

'You would have been proud of me,' he says later.

'Did you fly into the bus and put it into reverse?' I enquire, picturing him as Keanu Reeves in the film, Speed.

'No,' he says. 'I moved the diversion sign.'

My hero.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Show me the way to go home

2011-10-24T12:19:00.002Z

As we stagger home after an evening at the delightfully fragrant Mrs Putter's, the road is illuminated by Mr Champagne-Charlie's head torch.

He is whacked across the head by his wife, Bubble, for talking far too loudly at one o'clock in the morning and then the torch suddenly switches to night-sights-red. Wild animals cower in the hedge as he sways from side to side. An owl is just about to hoot and then thinks better of it.

'Fancy a snifter, chap?' Mr Champagne-Charlie says to Mr Grigg when we get back to our front door.

We decline, politely, and then find out the next day they were up until half past three drinking sloe gin.

'Were the Griggs with you?' Mrs Putter asks Champagne-Charlie.

'Not sure,' he says. 'Can't remember. I can't even remember getting home.'

It is a joy for me to be the only sober one in the party, for once in my life.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Some enchanted evening

2011-10-18T18:31:00.000Z

There's a glorious silvery sunset shimmering over the flat-topped hill in the distance. The rooks are gathering on the slopes of the field as I walk the spaniels this evening, and then the birds sweep upwards, popping and cackling in the late October wind, as if to say, you can try as hard as you can but you can't catch me.

The youngest spaniel runs off pointlessly into the distance and my gaze is punctuated by lots of plumes of smoke stretching for miles. Here and there, people are stoking garden bonfires and thinking about putting a match to the logs and newspaper in the grate.

The crunchy, crunchy leaves and the now squashed crab apples litter the path as I make my way back home.

Today, I have been learning about Greek shamens and sorcerers, a suitable subject for a mature student from an enchanted village.

On my way to university this morning, I saw a county council workman sitting on the pavement opposite my house, looking like a scrunched-up scarecrow, his hood up to hide away from the wind. It seems his sole purpose is to sit there all day to make sure the 'diversion' sign doesn't blow over.

Up the lane past Mr and Mrs Sheepwash, a policeman who looked barely out of his teens was doing a fingertip search along the riverside. A trail of sheep's wool was strewn along the path. The
Read more »

Caught: Oliver 'Bin' Letwin

2011-10-14T09:13:00.000Z

As The Enchanted Village MP is castigated in the national news this morning for dumping parliamentary and constituency papers in a London park bin, the Twitter airwaves are buzzing.

Oliver ‘Bin’ Letwin is the new name for the man who called at my house earlier this year asking for my vote.

At the time, you’ll remember, I was worried my friend thought it was me who'd defaced a poster of him by adding spectacles, horns and a twirly moustache. On my doorstep, he looked nothing like this picture of him.

After the story in the Daily Mirror, Mr Letwin is now ‘trending’ on Twitter, bless him.

This, from Queen_UK (Elizabeth Windsor): ‘Just received weekly briefing papers from Oliver Letwin. He leaves them in the bin outside. One picks them up whilst walking the corgis.’

And from RogerQuimbly: ‘I think that Oliver Letwin makes an excellent Womble.’

Professional comedian mrchrisaddison: 'I tell you what, there are some surprisingly well-informed tramps in the parks Oliver Letwin goes to.’

TheMediaTweets: ‘Is Oliver Letwin the first MP caught doing something newsworthy in a park that didn't involve another person?’

Poor Mr Letwin. It’s a story just made for Have I Got News For You.

But here in The Enchanted Village, we’re just itching to know the content of the dumped Constituency Letters.

Has someone drawn to his attention the person who cheated in the village flower show by polishing their marrows? Or maybe the Full Monty dance routine devised by Mr Grigg and his followers for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee? Or has he received details of that dirty dog that does its business right in front of our neighbour's front door?

But please, please, please, don’t let my letter about using our new street lights for target practice or the other one about the flasher who wears nothing but a pair of ram horns be in amongst the garbage.

If the papers got hold of that, they’d think I was a real nutcase.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Autumn leaves and windswept villagescapes

2011-10-12T08:17:00.000Z

I am sitting in my room looking out of the window. As usual, for now at least, The Enchanted Village Square is quiet. It could be at least a year or more before we have the shop back up and running.

The cattle have been moved nearer their winter quarters, leaving a trail of empty fields in their wake. There are magic mushrooms growing up on the ridge and, as the October wind whistles through the village, the red and green and brown, crunchy leaves are whirling up and down the road like dervishes.

I love the wind, it makes me feel powerful and insignificant all at the same time. It sends children in the playground running wild and it brings a certain frisson to the air.

A police car goes by, slowing down to go round the one-way system, its lights flashing and siren blaring, New York-style. The sound is out of place in this quiet place, and is followed by a chugging tractor and the automatic revs of a long, lean sports car.

I should look out of my window more often.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Feeling sorry for myself

2011-10-07T17:59:00.001Z

Well, the Canadians have gone back, just as the weather started to get really cold. They're from opposite sides of the country, one flew to the east coast to Nova Scotia and the other flew to the west and Vancouver Island.

That just leaves the cuckoo's nest and it's right here.

The village is strangely quiet now that the shop is closed and the pub is winding down before the publican bows out. I think the Canadian ladies were a little disappointed that The Enchanted Village failed to enchant. And I'm afraid I didn't inspire them much either. I think they thought I'd be funny in person when all I am in real life is funny peculiar.

Anyway, I am having to wear fingerless gloves to type at the moment. It is so cold. I have been wearing a quilted jacket and hat and scarf in the house for the past couple of days. Mr Grigg has finally got the message and allowed me to have the heating on.

He has just taken an hour-and-half to have his hair cut because he needed to call into the pub in the next town on his way home to get some cider.

He is now geting ready for a night out with Nobby Odd-Job, MDF Man and Mr Sheepwash to watch the football and fish and chips. He is shuffling around in his slippers which he will deposit in the middle of the room so they become a trap. Why he can't pick his feet up when he walks or put the darn things away is beyond me.

Then it's rugby in the morning and then a day out with his Number One Son on Sunday. Meanwhile, I am home alone with a house like a tip while the new kitchen is being put in so no cooker to cook on. Mrs Bancroft and Pelly Sheepwash have gone away for the weekend and I have hours of ancient Greek revision to look forward to.

A whole weekend of it.

Oh lucky me.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

You are Maddie Grigg and I claim my £5 prize

2011-10-03T18:05:00.001Z

As the mist swirls down from Bluebell Hill and in and out The Enchanted Village streets, I can at last feel autumn is heading our way.

After almost a week of unseasonably hot weather, October is now putting its pullover on the right way round after a couple of days of wearing it inside out. The designer label was on show for all to see. Indian Summer, it screamed. Scorchio.

Down at the seaside, there have been people on the beaches, in the water, on the water. Yesterday we caught thirty laughing mackerel from an open boat.

The voyage was too much for Number One Son. Although it could have been something to do with the party he went to the night before.

Meanwhile, the cliffs along our part of the Jurassic Coast are stunning.

We are so lucky to live here.

And then this evening, the woodsmoke rises from The Enchanted Village chimneys to shake hands with the fog that is making its way down the hill and crunching fallen crab apples in its wake.

'Well hello there,' the woodsmoke appears to be saying. 'Delighted to make your acquaintance.'

And then the weirdest thing happens.

My doorbell rings and there are two ladies I have never seen before, standing on my doorstep.

I bristle, thinking they are Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't need saving, really I don't.

'Are you Maddie?' they say.

'Why?' I retort, in a far harsher voice than I meant, but I don't have room for a copy of The Watchtower.

'Well, we're from Canada and we read your blog.'

Blimey.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Fungus the Bogeyman

2011-10-01T09:51:00.000Z

Mr Grigg comes back from his thrice-weekly walk up Bluebell Hill.

He is carrying a white handkerchief, knotted at the edges.

'Today,' he says, 'I am mostly Fungus the Bogeyman. Look what I've brought for you.'

He unfurls his (fortunately) clean hanky and the most wonderful thing rolls out.

Even I know it's the most prized wild mushroom you are ever likely to find.

So I present to you, ladies and gentleman, the famous Bluebell Hill Penny Bun, better known as the Cep. Or, to be precise, Boletus edulis. And by the way, I've just eaten it and it tasted delicious.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Why Mr Grigg is the cat's whiskers

2011-09-28T11:47:00.001Z

Only time for a short post today. But I think it's worth it.

Here's a photo of Mr Grigg and my cat in her favourite spot.

Now, no smutty captions please. But you won't believe her name.

It's Lou-Lou.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Closed for the winter

2011-09-25T10:56:00.000Z

The village square is deathly quiet.

The red pelargoniums around the village pump are fading now and the white nicotianas outside my house look like long, spidery tendrils and they've given up the ghost.

The shop has been closed now for almost three weeks but still cars pull up, drivers get out, try the shop door, then look at their watches, shrug, get back in their cars and drive off again.

I've just had an email from a local councillor, pointing me to a Lottery-funded scheme to set up local enterprises.

'I'm sending you this because I hear your Village has closed.'

He's missed out a word, but it sure feels like it.

And now it's raining.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

And so a new journey begins...

2011-09-21T12:39:00.002Z

The fantastic voyage is over, for the moment. But now a new journey begins.

Here in The Enchanted Village, there is a watercolour tinge to the air and the artist has smudged a bit of paint where the horizon meets the sky. There are rooks and pigeons everywhere, trees laden with sloes and squelchy ground underfoot.

The square is quiet now that the shop has closed for good. And my hanging baskets have gone mouldy from all that rain.

Bu the dream of Greece is not forgotten. In just over a week's time, I will be flinging a school bag over my shoulder and heading for a year of postgraduate study of Hellenistic culture, with a bit of magic, witchcraft and ghosts in the ancient world thrown in.

I'm off to do a masters degree in classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter. I'm terrified and excited. Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye.

I'll keep you posted. But in the meantime, have a look at some of the holiday snaps on my other blog, The World from My Porthole.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Oompa Loompas and Coelacanths

2011-09-11T05:46:00.000Z

Last night I dreamed of Oompa Loompas.

To find out more, swim across to my other blog, The World from My Porthole.

I shouldn't be at all surprised if Mr Grigg doesn't dredge up a Coelacanth.

All is quiet in the village square

2011-09-08T07:25:00.002Z

The square in The Enchanted Village is eerily quiet.

Meanwhile, on our holiday in the southern Ionian, we were quiet too. And then the Putters arrived.

Find out more by going to my other blog, The World from my Porthole.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The singing ringing tree of Ancient Greece

2011-09-02T16:04:00.000Z

Join me on a journey to the singing ringing tree of ancient Dodona and a surprising hotel in the middle of nowhere.

Hop across to The World from My Porthole, where I'll be for the next couple of weeks.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

When time stood still at The Electric Palace

2011-08-28T11:44:00.001Z

This weekend I changed my Blogger profile picture:

(I'll explain later).

Now if I'd been wearing it at last night's Mr Scruff gig, no-one would have batted an eyelid.

Girls in bear hats, boys in crocheted hats, pork pie hats and baseball caps, an old man in shades with a wispy Salvador Dail-style moustache and goatee, Mr Grigg in a Wobble Control tee-shirt and a white bearded steward who looked like he could quite easily have done the James Robertson Justice voiceover in the surreal track, Fish.

Trout are freshwater fish and have underwater weapons
Trout are very valuable and immensely powerful
Keep away from the trout

Mr Scruff himself, with headphones atop his smooth head like a Roman emperor wearing a crown of laurel leaves. His adoring public whooped and hollered to pulsating beats and Latin rhythms.

And still the Electric Palace clock said five past nine.

My blog characters, all bar Pelly and Anakin Sheepwash, decided to give the evening a miss. I can't think why.

And still the Electric Palace clock said five past nine.

Several cups of chilli and mint tea later, getting down with the young, the funky and just plain freaky, we were ready for home. We sneaked out at a quarter to one, The Enchanted Village taxi driver, Dermot, waiting for us just up the road, his twin 'for hire' signs winking at us from under a Bridport street light.

We climbed into the taxi to Lionel Richie singing Three Times A Lady on Wessex FM.

Back at the Electric Palace, the clock still said five past nine.

The stars blazed in the night sky as Taxi Dermot, who once lived next door to The Angry Brigade in Stoke Newington, drove us up into the hills.

I had a thought - maybe Mr Scruff could be our DJ when we celebrate the Queen's diamond jubilee in the streets next year. But then I remembered the time when I was almost lynched for introducing a musical round at the annual quiz. That was the time when the hall clock went backwards at breakneck speed.

I think the church clock actually struck thirteen.

So maybe not.Keep away from the trout.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

A birthday surprise

2011-08-27T15:21:00.002Z

It's only part-way through my birthday weekend and I've been completely spoiled and I'm thoroughly knackered.

First, the Melplash Show.

My favourite day of the year. So good of them to organise it for my birthday.

And so good of Celebrity Farmer to almost spill the beans about my birthday surprise.

'I've been told you've booked a room at The Riverside,' he said to me and Mr Grigg, who promptly stood rather heavily on the toe of his wellington boot.

'Um, but then you decided to go somewhere else,' Celebrity Farmer said, in rather too much of a hurry. The hole just got bigger and bigger until even I wished I could jump in it with him

After the show, instead of going home, we ended up at West Bay, my favourite seaside place.

'That's the one with the gurt hole in the middle,' my father usually says, referring to the harbour.

You can just make out the pink house here, the old home of my mentor, the late David Martin.

And then we trip-trapped trip-trapped over the little footbridge across the River Brit.

Where we found a table laid up for 20 and then a cast of blog characters jumping out from behind a screen and singing Happy Birthday To You.

There was a balloon from Mr St John, who for once was wearing long trousers.

Lots of presents, chatting, fantastic food and wonderful service. We were sadly missing key people such as Mr Putter and the fragant Mrs Putter and the elfin Tuppence. But there was Posh Totty, MDF Man, Mr and Mrs Sheepwash, Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie, the dear Mrs Bancroft, Buggles and Mort D'Arthur, Camilla and Mr F Word, Ted Moult and Jamie Lee, my brother and sister-in-law, the Loveliest Lady in the Village, the aforementioned Mr St John and Lady Friend, who suggested I get people moving around in between courses.

And it was when Pelly Sheepwash said: 'They say they don't read your blog, but they all know their names' that I had an idea.

In a game of great tactical skill, I shouted out their blog names and each one had to swap with the other. It all went very well until Buggles nearly poked Camilla's eye out with a fork.

'Don't you remember the two of us used to be business rivals?' she hissed. 'How could you put the two of us next to each other?'

And then a special birthday candle which was impossible to blow out.

And it's not even nearly over yet.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

A village world in turmoil and a happy birthday to me...

2011-08-24T23:54:00.001Z

Um, happy birthday to me.

As the big five-oh arrives, there is a huge call to arms from a load of people about the village shop and the pub.

'WE NEED TO KEEP THEM BOTH OPEN!'

Um, I'm not sure I can do that on my own but I know of some people who can.

That's about it.

But, by the way, never seen the pub more busy than after a crisis meeting We should do this more often...

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Close encounters with West Bay

2011-08-22T20:01:00.000Z

Every now and then on the internet, you come across a gem you just want to share.

So let me take you on a journey, on what I think is a fascinating journey, to West Bay, the seaside port for My Kind of Town and the place where Mr Grigg and I will soon be having a boat.

If you have a little time to spare, watch the archive film. It's great. And then listen to the modern-day locals on the audio, telling you what makes West Bay so special.

The website is called Close Encounters and I know about it because I was involved in putting some of the material together.

I think you'll like it.

That's about it.

Love Maddie

The birthday countdown begins

2011-08-20T19:26:00.001Z

My ears are still ringing. The gig of the year, my Weymouth friend says. I wouldn't argue with that.

'Not a bit poptastic, then?' asks Pelly 'I-grew-up-with-prog-rock' Sheepwash this morning.

'No, slaptastic,' I say, beaming.

I went back twenty-odd years last night to see Level 42 and, do you know? They're better now than they were then. Mind you, I was only a few months away from giving birth to Number One Son and spent all night standing on a cold, concrete floor in the Showering Pavilion at Shepton Mallet.

Now that I'm nearly fifty, the comfy seats of Weymouth Pavilion came in handy. But the pounding bass of Mark King and those lovely harmonising vocals of keyboard player Mike Lindup got me out of my seat. Music to my ageing ears.

No wonder I've got tinnitus. A mispent youth of disco music, punk rock, jazz funk and chillout. And a bit of folk interspersed.

And what's more, even Mr Grigg enjoyed the gig, despite thinking we were going to see U2. (I saw them in a pub in North London in about 1980 and gave Bono a light. But I enjoyed Level 42 much, much more).

Anyway, the big five-oh is less than a week away and the countdown is already beginning. Last night, getting high on Level 42, tonight a quiet night in with Mr Grigg, tomorrow a rib of beef from a farm down the road, Tuesday night catching up with an old school friend in the birthplace of powered fight, Wednesday night a crisis meeting in the village about the pub and the shop, and, on my actual birthday, my favourite of all days out - the Melplash Show - followed by a nice meal at the Riverside Restaurant.

Then an Hawaiian-themed party in the village hall to say thank you to all our fete helpers, then Mr Scruff (Mr Scruff is coming to My Kind of Town! Just for me, I think, after writing about the Grigg antics in Camden). And then, and then, a birthday picnic on the village green with the mellow jazz of the Clive Ashley Quartet followed by the village flower show on Bank Holiday Monday.

No rest for the wicked, eh?

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Double trouble in The Enchanted Village

2011-08-18T20:48:00.004Z

Oh, calamity and woe.

Not only has our shopkeeper had another change of heart and is shutting up the store on September 1, our pub is due to close when the landlords leave in October. The brewery is looking for a new publican, but how seriously, no-one can tell.

Cripes. After a village square full of activity, I fear there will be only a village square full of nothing. It's as if the ley lines beneath our feet have shorted out.

There are people working hard behind the scenes to sort this out. As I write, Mr Grigg and Mr Putter are in deep conversation...in the pub.

I am half temped to say 'I'll do it!' But having run a pub for Palmers Brewery for three years, I can safely say it's not the easiest of tasks. (If you go to the link and have to take a step back from the screen, I apologise. Someone should tell them black is not a good background for a website).

We increased the trade, but at some cost to our personal lives. Number One Son's second cousin and her husband are making a very good job of running that pub today, so fair play to them.

But what of The Enchanted Village? It seems we will have a floodlit community but nothing to focus the spotlight on.

Watch this space.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

New streetlights - coming to a lamp post near you, Mr Hardy

2011-08-15T21:32:00.007Z

Oh my.

Dorset is going to be bathed in swathes of light. The spotlight is literally turning on Hardy's Dorset, rural Dorset, that bucolic bubble of beauty, my enchanted village and villages everywhere.

Those nice people at Dorset County Council are going to improve our street lighting.

Rural Dorset, embrace your inner urban child. The street lights roadshow is coming to town...and villages and hamlets to a street, lane or cul-de-sac near you.

Here's a leaflet about it:

Is that Canary Wharf I see in the distance? Or is it Hong Kong? It isn't Lush Places, that's for sure. Our dear Lush Places, with its village pump, the green, the red phone box and historic buildings all around.

But it could be soon, believe me it. It could be lots of lovely places all over this hidden gem of a county. Those quiet, secret corners of Dorset suddenly exposed for all to see.

Because the county council has entered into a private finance initiative (PFI) pact - not with the devil (it ditched energy company EDF a little while ago in a veil of silence) - but with those nice people from SSE. They're much more softly spoken and far more approachable. They even look human but the story is the just same.

In the next few years, light pollution is going to be reduced. That's in the sky but not in our rural areas. The soft, orange glow is going to be replaced by bright, white light, to meet the British and European standard.

Hurrah. One size fits all.

My village square has already been floodlit by stealth, under the heading 'we're going to give you traffic calming but we're not going to tell you about the extra street lights you'll need'. Until, whoosh, the Lush Places square looks like a Premier League football match at midnight.

The county council, when challenged, said 'oops, sorry, we forgot to let you know about that bit' and pledged to learn from its mistake and make sure the public was consulted on lighting schemes in the future.

So, a couple of years later, their contractor put a few posters up on telegraph poles, inviting people to a public meeting.

A few people turned up (what does it matter, it's nothing to do with me. Oh, but it is, it really is).

'This is consulation,' the contractors said. 'We're going to give eight roads in your village new lights.'

'Thank you so much,' we said (ironically). 'We live in the countryside but we really want it to be like a big town.'

'That's good,' they said. 'Because we're doing it in a month's time.'

So watch out Nobby Odd-Job, Ding Dong Daddy, the hobbits of Middle Earth, Monty Chocs-Away, Ted Moult and Jamie Lee, Mrs Regal Bird and Manual. The new lights are coming to a lamp post near you.

And 28,000 other lamp posts across Dorset. Don't say I didn't warn you.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

I've lost the plot

2011-08-13T17:38:00.001Z

I am for ever being told I ought to make my blog into a novel.

'You have such a way with words,' Mr Grigg tells me.

'If I didn't live here I think you'd made it up,' Mrs Bancroft says.

'You write much better than some of the people on The Observer,' an earnest Pelly Sheepwash says.

And little Tuppence, dear elfin Tuppence, she of the leggings, Goth gloves and an asymmetric bob, smiles a big smile and says: 'Just go for it Maddie.'

Doggers on Bluebell Hill, dreams of Gingsters pasties stuck where the sun don't shine, a begonia allergy and a cast of colourful characters as long as Mr Grigg's tongue when Posh Totty trots past, it's all here.

The trouble is, I need a plot.

And I think I've lost it.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

London's burning

2011-08-09T20:16:00.003Z

And as I sit in this bubble of loveliness, this village I call Lush Places, I wonder what it's all about.

Down here, we are like Japanese soldiers who are holed up on an island and don't know the war has ended. If it weren't for the TV, radio, newspapers and social media, we would be none the wiser.

With all this weirdness swirling around like twisters in parts of this green and pleasant land, the trouble seems very distant, even though my dear namesake niece in Woolwich is a bottle's throw away from some of it.

When the worst thing to happen in The Enchanted Village is that someone scrawls a swear word inside the play tunnel or writes 'You are gay' on Mrs Bancroft's car in the snow or leaves a field gate open, the London that is burning today is a different world.

Although it is distant, the news we are seeing and hearing feel like the end of the world as we know it.

Riots and nastiness spreading like wildfire, a Northern Lights polar bear turning on young adventurers with fatal results, the denouement of Rupert Murdoch, the world's most powerful man, famine in Africa, the global economy in tatters.

I am unable to get into the heads of the looters, the thugs and the arsonists. They might just as well be aliens.

But I suppose if you're a human who has never grasped the concept of common humanity - or humility even - let alone the difference between right and wrong and your machismo is judged by the size of your gun, what's to stop you joining the sheep-like mob on its march through Croydon and Tottenham and Clapham and Hackney and Ealing and Woolwich and the Isle of Dogs to burn a car or two, scare the hell out of the locals, set things on fire and have a bit of fun?

But, as my old friend Curious Girl says, we will bounce back. We have to.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Paws for thought

2011-08-07T10:46:00.005Z

'And they're off!' the race commentator announces, as eight assorted terriers tear up the field after a stuffed thing on a piece of string.

Junior wins by default, as Mullet, Holly, Rascal and Rivet get two feet past the starting line and decide to have a fight.

We're at the terrier races, an event that's been going for 37 years and just up from the road where I was born. Now I've completed my OU studies, I have time on my hands so I suggest to Mr Grigg we head for the hills to find out what it's all about. Amazingly, this is the one event not to be featured in any Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall programme.

And in amongst the plate smashing, the hoopla and tombola, and a commentator who is wearing a red jacket, top hat and a new pair of teeth for the occasion, I see glimpses of my past. People who were at school with me stroll around with cobweb tattoos on their elbows, baseball caps at jaunty angles and gobble up fat hot dogs washed down with a nice pint of Otter.

And then I see a thin old man with a stick, shuffling along in slippers. The walk is hard for him, painful even, but he is smiling. It is my old art teacher, the teacher who inspired me the most and to whom I wrote a letter a few years ago just to tell him that.

He is delighted to see me and delighted with my result.

I then bump into one of my favourite nephews, the one who does intricate tattoos on himself but all upside down.

'I come here every year,' he says, having been born two miles up the road. 'It's local, innit?'

And to complete a hat trick of familiar faces, the one-legged Aga man saunters by and Mr Grigg goes over and gives him a friendly jab in the beer belly. He is already up in the winnings stakes, having raked in 30p on the last race.

As the sky turns black and the rain comes down, we head for a pint in the village pub run by the community for the community.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

There ain't half been some clever bastards

2011-08-02T18:22:00.004Z

Mr Grigg has been singing this all day.

I only went and got a first.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Please Mr Postman, is there a letter for me?

2011-08-01T18:23:00.008Z

I'm all-a-jitter this week. Four years of work has come to an end, and by Friday I'll know whether it's been worth it.

At the beginning of the new century, I promised myself I'd get a degree by the time I was fifty. My birthday is fast approaching and so, I hope, is the postman.

Back in the late 1970s, I went straight into journalism training. I didn't want to go to unversity, partly because that path was what had been expected of me for years (and I never do the expected). I also didn't think it was right to spend three self-indulgent years poncing around lonely as a cloud when I could dive straight into a Devon newsroom.

I'd wanted to be a newspaper reporter since I was ten years old so, I figured, why wait?

But the main reason for not going to university was I rather mucked up my chances. On the day I was due to take my biology O-Level I gave birth to Number One Daughter.

So, in 2007 and several careers later, I signed up for an honours degree with the Open University. I was working full time, but it was flexible work and I could fit my studies in around the freelance jobs. I just wanted to see if I could do it.

Mr Grigg was very supportive, although he did say he couldn't really understand why I was doing it but if it was what I wanted to do then do it I must.

Apart from one blip, in which I chucked in a very tedious history course, the girl seems to have done good. A clutch of good passes and two distinctions later, I am now waiting for the result of my final module in Myth in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds.

If I pass my end of course project, I'll be the proud owner of an honours degree in humanities with creative writing. It might sound a bit poncy but, hell, if it hadn't been for the creative writing bit of the course, this blog wouldn't exist. It gave me the confidence to think my writing might just be good enough for public consumption.

Now, holding on very tightly to my lucky amulet and making the odd sacrifice to The Enchanted Village gods, I am counting down the sleeps until I can log on to the Open University website and find my result shining out like the Pharos Lighthouse or striding precariously like the Colossus of Rhodes across the Lush Places square.

So I know the die has already been cast, but a few fingers crossed around the world would be very much appreciated. I'll let you know how I get on.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Open all hours

2011-07-28T10:10:00.002Z

And as I walk out across the fields at just after 6.30 this morning, I meet a neighbour carrying a giant yoghurt pot, full of slugs.

‘Been gardening?’ I say.

She nods, looking like she might want to punch me after spotting me yesterday throwing the snails I found munching my nicotianas straight into the path of a passing car. Crunch.

But I am bold, I am brave. I can cope.

Things are looking up. After experiencing something of an epiphany when the village store didn’t sell at auction, our weary shopkeeper has decided to carry on. He’s not going to shut up shop after all, he’s going to ask the people of Lush Places what they’d like to see on the shelves and try to accommodate us.

So for Champagne-Charlie that would be, erm, champagne, the fragrant Mrs Putter something by Chanel and a Che Guevara T-shirt for the revolutionary Pelly Sheepwash.

Me? I’d be happy with some slug bait.

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x

This town is coming like a ghost town

2011-07-25T11:40:00.005Z

As the rest of Lush Places toddled off to a party to which we were not invited (how could that possibly be?), our thoughts turned to the village shop.

It's the centrepiece of The Enchanted Village, along with our pub, church, phone box, village hall, school and parish pump. We're lucky to have them. But, like the parish pump, the shop might not be in full working order for much longer.

For some time now, the shop has been for sale. Our shopkeeper has had enough, the stock has been running down and his final hope was an auction last Friday.

Despite Mr Grigg's best efforts (see my blog post for the Real West Dorset website), the bids failed to reach the reserve.

And with the publican throwing in the towel, we will soon be looking out on to a soulless, empty square. I can hear the clock strike thirteen, the shop sign creaking and a ginger wig blowing like tumbleweed up the path.

Watch this space.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Surprise, surprise

2011-07-19T20:05:00.004Z

I looked out at the world from my window.

It was grey and a view I was not used to seeing.

The waves gently crashed on the pebbles and the seagulls flew in ever decreasing circles.

The weekend had not started well. The first clue in my birthday treasure hunt saw us sitting in the car for quarter of an hour while Mr Grigg tried to work it out and I became more and more exasperated.

'Maddie’s favourite Hitchcock film starring my cousin Archie? Is it The Birds, Rear Window?’

‘Oh for goodness sake,’ I said, hitting him with a road atlas. ‘The direction we're going is in the film title.’

‘Oh, I know,’ he said. ‘Archie Leach, whose mother is on my family tree, is Cary Grant and he was in Adolf Hitchcock’s North by North East.’

I was tempted to beat him around the head with the Good Pub Guide but thought that wasn’t really in the birthday spirit. At this rate, we were going to end up in Grimsby.

A leisurely day later and we are ambling up the cobbled hill into Clovelly, the North Devon village that tumbles into the sea.

‘So this is where you’ve booked us for dinner tonight?’ Mr Grigg says, supping a pint of Clovelly Cobbler ale at the New Inn.

‘I’m not sure I’ll like it, not sure at all.’

I make my excuses and pay a visit to the Ladies. Still no signal on the mobile. I have a brainwave. I stay in there a bit longer and then come out again.

‘I’ll go up to reception and get hold of a menu.’ I say.

Outside, and a bit further up the hill, deep joy as my mobile suddenly gets a signal. Time is ticking. I need to phone. And phone quickly.

‘Where are you?’ I ask.

‘We’ve just arrived,’ Pelly Sheepwash says.

‘OK, we’ll be down at the Red Lion in ten minutes.’

When I say to Mr Grigg we are going back to our hotel, he thinks he is on a promise. He leaps up from his empty pint glass and runs down the hill like a sprightly old mountain goat.

At reception, I can see nine of the Enchanted Village cast lurking in a side room. Eighteen eyes, ready to pounce.

Mr Grigg picks up the keys, shoots me a leering look and walks straight past them.

‘Hello?’ says a plaintive Mrs Bancroft.

‘I say, Chap,” Mr Champagne-Charlie chirps.

‘He hasn’t even seen us,’ says a gloomy Nobby Odd Job.

‘SURPRISE!’ yells Mr Loggins.

And there they are, all around us. An unruly bunch of friends who whip out a picnic and take it out to the windswept beach. And then a lovely meal at the New Inn.

Happy birthday Mr Grigg. Everyone loves you.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Let's get away from it all

2011-07-14T16:18:00.004Z

We are back from our travels, despite Mr Grigg’s best efforts. When we reached the airport, he realised we had left our passports and tickets in a bar on Corfu Town’s sunny Liston.

‘I’ll go back and get them,’ he said. ‘You go on ahead.’

But I couldn’t go on ahead because I didn’t have a ticket or a passport. So I sat, like Paddington Bear, with my luggage waiting for my man to return.

Times are hard but ordinary Greeks are an honest bunch, even if their politicians aren’t. The document wallet was safe and well. So Mr Grigg was able to roar back across town, drop the hire car off and still do the Easyjet Strut and be first on the plane.

Back in Blighty and driving from the airport to home, I had a strange feeling in my stomach which had nothing to do with the tube of Pringles and Sprite I'd had for my supper.

‘Have you got the front door key?’ I asked Mr Grigg.

‘No, I thought you had it.’

Much searching later, we pulled into a Travelodge twenty minutes from home, not wanting to wake Mrs Bancroft, Mr and Mrs Champagne Charlie or Mr and Mrs Sheepwash for a bed for the night.

‘Let me have one more look,’ I said, turning my bag upside down in the footwell.

There was a reassuring chink of metal and there was the front door key, shining like the Holy Grail and accompanied by a heavenly chorus.

‘You f*ck*r’ Mr Grigg said. This, from the man who had left our travel documents in a bar.

A week later and he already needs a break. I am taking him away for the weekend. He doesn’t know where we’re going and will have to solve a series of treasure hunt clues before we reach our destination.

It’s my birthday surprise for him and, boy, does he need it. The birthday itself was spent watching a foreign harbour wall to make sure the boat didn’t crash against it in high winds. On top of that, two out of three children forgot the special birthday completely and his bus pass failed to materialise.

His malapropisms are getting worse. He described someone’s allergy to bee stings as ‘prophylactic shock’ and then said I looked very Bavarian when he meant Bohemian.

This morning, he was waiting for the parish council chairman to turn up after receiving a phone call last night.

But at the door was the one-legged Aga man, who looks a lot like Pop Larkin but is even more of a character.

“I don’t recall you phoning about today,” Mr Grigg said.

“Yes I did,” the one-legged Aga man said. “We spoke last night, you told me all about your holiday.”

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x

All at sea

2011-06-30T15:43:00.001Z

Mr Grigg and I are on our hols, all at sea in Greece.

See you there soon.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Hop across to The world from my porthole

2011-06-28T14:49:00.001Z

I have just received an award from two lovely bloggers, Cheryl from Kangaroos of the Scrubby Bush (sorry Cheryl, but I'm from the Benny Hill generation and a title like that is bound to make me snigger), and Kelly Garriott Waite at Writing in the Margins, Bursting At The Seams (now that makes me think of an educated Victorian woman scribbling in stays, working hard to be noticed for her body and her prose).

Now, as well as saying thank you, I know I am meant to do something before I can accept this award.

I know you don't get anything for nothing.

But while I figure out just what it is I have to do, hop across to my other blog, The World from My Porthole, for a sweet slice of life in the Ionian as Mr Grigg and I celebrate his special birthday today in western Greece.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Only fools, horses and Mr Grigg

2011-06-23T20:57:00.000Z

So it's Mr Grigg's Big Birthday. He walks into the office to find his desk covered in balloons, cards, presents and a big Happy 60th banner.

He is overwhelmed by the surprise, which includes a large box from The Bristol Cider Shop, full of bottles, a polypin and rather nice looking chutney.

A little later he goes to the gents and comes back to find two young women dressed as police officers in his office.

He sits in his chair, leans forward and rubs his hands together and says: 'OK. So get on with it then.'

His secretary, behind them, shakes her head and waves her arms. Very slowly and with exaggerated mouthing, she mimes: 'No, they really are police officers.'

Sometimes I think I am married to Del Boy Trotter.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Waking up the neighbours

2011-06-21T22:56:00.002Z

The sky today is very strange.

I drop off a letter to the county council Death Star and walk to the gym, to sign up for a stone off in weight and a reduction in wobble factor.

As I walk to the gym entrance, with pictures of toned physiques and body-sculpted, weird looking people accosting me, I look up at the sky. There are two sets of clouds, one close and one distant. The close ones are whirring to the right and the distant ones are going to the left. I look away. It makes me feel dizzy.

I think this is how going to the gym on a regular basis will make me feel.

Back at the Grigg abode, I discover via Facebook that I can't have my Pelly Sheepwash fix because my friend has shingles and I haven't even had chicken pox.

Now I am not good at close contact, even with family, but I make an exception with people like Pelly (and Mrs Bancroft, Tuppence and the fragrant Mrs Putter). It's not all about me, for goodness sake, Pelly is in pain, but this reluctant hugger is a bit hacked off because I can't say a proper goodbye before going on holiday.

So I take Mr Grigg out for a very nice meal and whinge about people (our village hall neighbour included) who move to the countryside and complain about things that have been like that for years. I then listen to three farmers comparing notes about the pub cuisine around these parts.

Generally, farmers favour places that serve big portions, but this trio are a bit more discerning.They come up with the same top three as me, only they don't know I am listening. When they make disparaging comments about other places, Mr Grigg restrains me from saying 'hear, hear', reminding me my role is just to listen and observe.

We come home to The Enchanted Village, pub closed, all quiet, and just the lights on in Champagne Charlie's front room to greet us in the Square.

Mr Grigg sidles up to the neighbours' window. Through the glass we can see the TV screen flickering, Newsnight bellowing out and Champagne-Charlie in his low-slung arm chair, mouth agape. We tap on the window but he is dead to the world. Jeremy Paxman has no sway in this household, and neither do we.

So later, Mr Grigg, now in bed, tries Skyping Mrs Champagne-Charlie. She answers, takes one look at his naked chest propped up against the pillows, says a few words, mutters about a problem with the picture and then hangs up.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

A countryside scene

2011-06-18T17:26:00.002Z

High up on Blubell Hill, if you look out between the twin pines, a tableau is laid out before you, a tableau of green and brown with a ceiling of blue. In the distance you can see the sea, a few miles away.

Turn around back towards the hill top and you will see Mr Grigg doing his exercises. He touches his toes and a spaniel runs through his legs. He reaches down one side of his thigh and then down to the other.

This is his three-times-a-week routine, so if you ever venture up here and see a strange man stretching on the hilltop, you will know exactly who it is.

Inland, you gaze from a gateway down through the fields planted with maize, the straight lines giving perspective to this picture and pointing you in the direction of The Enchanted Village.

In the Square, the church bells are ringing for a farming wedding. You see people in their village finery, women with fascinators in blow-dried hair, little children in Sunday best and strapping young men in top hats and tails.

Tonight there will be a party in the village hall. And among the guests will be Number One Son, who is coming home to celebrate his old school friend's nuptials.

And woe betide the man who lives over the road from the hall should he decide to make a countryside scene and complain about the noise. This farming family is known far and wide. They're the Ewings of Lush Places. He might just find himself up a hayrick without a ladder.

And quite right too.

That's about it.

Love Maddie

All the fun of the fun day

2011-06-14T18:23:00.101Z

The mist clouds encircled The Enchanted Village either side of Fun Day and scarecrow festival weekend, as the international bunting flapped against a backdrop of an ominous grey sky.

My global village scarecrow fell apart three times, his straw innards billowing out in protest at the indignity of it all. He was meant to be a French onion seller but a distinct lack of onions in the Grigg household called for a sign proclaiming an EC onion shortage due to the E.coli crisis.

This led to Monty Chocs-Away putting up a competing notice that pointed people to E.coli-free onions 200 yards away, where a much superior French onion seller scarecrow was on display outside his mansion.

As the parade roared around the village toward the opening ceremony, like a boy racer in search of a speed trap, Ding Dong Daddy and his merry men and women tried to keep pace with thestandard bearer from the Royal British Legion.

Up on the village green, the gastropods in the snail race were refusing to come out to play because it was so cold. They slithered around in circles before bundling up on the middle of the race track, desperate to get warm.

A tramp stopped by for free tea and biscuits, the chocolate fountain solidified and a man with strange eyes jangled coins in his trouser pockets (at least we think it was coins) when the shivering and straw-boatered Pelly Sheepwash supplied him with just one cornetto, the only ice cream sale of the day.

The Russian skittles did the polka and Randy Munchkin tried to keep score.

The takings from the Human Fruit Machine went missing, only to be found later in the pushchair of Mrs Bancroft's newborn grandson.

But do you know what? It didn't rain. And everyone agreed, it was the best fun day weekend yet. Until next year, when we have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee to look forward to.

Here's a clip of The Village Band's last number:

Sorry for the abrubt ending. The cold also had fun with my camera.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

A world party - or will it rain on our parade?

2011-06-10T15:41:00.005Z

There's a bishop's mitre in the hallway, a Greek urn on the bed. There's a pair of Gladiator sandals on the cushion and an old sheet about to be transformed into a gown for an Athenian goddess.

The Lidl bags are full of cider, little beers and dozens of fruit shots. And there's a handful of kids' colouring books from the pound shop, ready for unwrapping to be used as prizes on the wheel spinner.

In Champagne-Charlie's garden next door, a frame hangs like a crucifix waiting to be dressed. In the Grigg household, there are a few props and an idea ready to explode if only I had the inclination to feel creative. Across the way at the Bancrofts, they haven't even started to think about what they're going to make.

And as the village fete, parade of banners and scarecrow festival gets nearer by the hour, there are curses from garages as chicken wire is stuffed into trousers, straw into old checked shirts. A limb here, a limb there, a headless torso, a head without a body. We are all getting too old for this. This is meant to be fun.

And then one of the main organisers - due to be on the plate smashing stall with Mr Grigg tomorrow - breaks his thumb and will have to direct things, like Zeus from Mount Olympus, in toga and bandage.

The bagpiper is double booked and the face painter is unwell.

And, as Bubbles tests out her ping pong balls next door (it's not a rude game, believe me), Tuppence shimmies into her grass skirt for the hula hooping competition and Pelly Sheepwash puts on an Italian accent to take orders at the ice cream stall.

Mr Loggins is excused fancy dress after a nasty little operation while Darling strings a garland of flowers together for the Hawaiian coconut shy. Manual is trying on his French maid's outfit for the snail race and tickling Mrs Regal Bird with a feather duster. Mr Putter is growing a pigtail for the Chinese tombola.

Nobby Odd Job will have corks around his hat for the Aussie barbie while Lady Friend will be performing Annie Get Your Gun behind the Wild West bar. Mrs Mabel Lucie-Attwell is Native American and the fragrant Mrs Putter will be something exotic, like a sweet smelling lotus blossom.

The skittles have been painted as Russian dolls and will be manned by a team led by Randy Munchkin, with deep pockets full of vodka.

Caruso and his singers are practising their Hungarian rhapsodies while Ding Dong Daddy and his genuinely international band of musicians limber up for the limbo.

This year, you see, the fete has 'global village' as its theme. And this is how the after fete party might go:

But then again, it could pour down.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The world from my window: the video

2011-05-30T21:25:00.006Z

This is a first for me, a video of the place I love, captured by a friend of mine, who, on the blog, is known as Ding Dong Daddy. It's through the eyes of his springer spaniel, Spice, who very nearly became Mrs Spice-Grigg after a meeting on Bluebell Hill with my springer spaniel some while ago.

Thankfully for Spice, it did not happen. I could not be held responsible for the dodgy hips the puppies might have had.

The music is original, and so is the landscape. This is the world from my window. If you've ever wondered why I wax lyrical about this place, click the video and you'll see.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

For the beauty of the earth

2011-05-29T14:49:00.001Z

I look out from my window today, over the rooftops, the school field, the allotments and across the patchwork squares of Dorset fields into Somerset, the county where I was born.

Today is Oak Apple Day, which was created to celebrate the restoration of the British monarchy in 1660. It was the birthday of King Charles II, who famously hid in an oak tree when he was on the run from the Roundheads after the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

In his desperate bid to escape, he took cover in all sorts of places, including The Enchanted Village and, more specifically, the house where Mr Grigg and I now live. I will tell you about that one day.

But today is also Rogation Sunday, a day when countryside folk ask for a good harvest, when the clergymen bless the fields and the communities whose lives are intertwined with the land.

The day always reminds me of a childhood role in the church choir, along with my sisters and brother, in our farming village. In our purple and white robes, we would gather in the field overlooking the church and the school, up above the wartime pillbox and tank traps that would have protected us from invasion had the Germans broken through onto English soil. My brother would hold the tall cross and I would squint in the sun, a scrap of a seven-year-old with skinny legs and long, straight, fair hair.

We would sing a hymn to nature, For the Beauty of the Earth, and the rector would bless the land. A border collie puppy would strain on a lead and bark throughout the service. The sun would come out, rain clouds would gather and then, in the wind, blow away to another place.

This week, the Grigg family lost someone very dear to us. I like to think of her blowing in the wind, laughing in the breeze, telling a funny story to the trees, while all the time looking immaculate, hair just-so, painted nails and a beautiful face and a lovely smile.

For the beauty of the earth indeed.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Who has seen the wind?

2011-05-22T10:01:00.002Z

The sky is a bright blue and then grey and then black and then white as clouds scuttle across overhead so very quickly.

The cockerel and hen on the weather vane swing back and forth from south to west. The cord on the church tower's flagpole flips and flaps to a regular beat, like the mast of a yacht trapped in a blustery harbour or the sound of eggs being whisked professionally in a metal bowl.

There are high winds today in The Enchanted Village. There is an edge to the air. You are a witness to the wind's power, the roar, the rush. You can hear it, you can feel it. You can even smell it. But you cannot see it.

The beech trees break out into rapturous applause. A laurel bush waves frantically, the ash tree whooshes and rushes, its branches dancing, the yew moans as if to tell the world this breeze is far too strong for its ancient bones. The oak tree - solid, dependable - takes it all in its stride.

In my head I am a child, my mother reading me this poem by Christina Rosetti:

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

And suddenly it all makes sense.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Back in the saddle again

2011-05-20T09:42:00.001Z

I've lost my way a bit lately. Seeing the bigger picture but missing out on the detail. And it's the detail I love. In my haste to walk the dogs in the mornings before rushing off to work, I've been head down, getting on with it. No time to stop and stare.

I've forgotten to write things in my writer's notebook, phrases I hear, nature notes and things of beauty. I've not bothered to take my camera and missed all the beautiful, wonderful things around me. I've idled away down-time, mucking about on the computer, reading books I'm not that interested in. I've started to write a blog post and then abandoned it. I've been unsettled.

Yesterday, though, the old Maddie came back. I noticed a skinny fly landing on a hairy nettle leaf. I heard the coo-coo of a wood pigeon overhead, a great big thing sitting on a telephone wire. I saw what looked like the beginnings of a tipi encampment on the allotments, five cane wigwams marching across the soil ready to bear their summer loads of runner beans.

A squirrel scuttled across into Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie's garden, Mr F Word waddled up to the shop for his daily paper. Celebrity Farmer's dad drove by in his Land Rover and gave me a flirty wave. And then the swallows swooped across the square, helter skelter, and dived into the churchyard.

As my friend Buggles' partner said to me last night: 'You've still got stuff to strut.'

He's right. So let's get on with it.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

Here's to the birthday boy

2011-05-20T09:05:00.000Z

Twenty two years ago, I was digging a hole in the garden for some nicotianas. A little while later, I sat down in the house and had some leftover spaghetti bolognese at six o'clock. It must have been off, I thought, because I got indigestion pretty soon afterwards.

I rang my friend and said: 'I think I'm all right but I feel a bit weird. I wonder if you ought to come over?'

She was round like a shot. Because, you see, I was a week away from my 'expected date of confinement'.

'I'm sure sure it's nothing,' I said to my friend.

'You idiot,' she said. 'You're in labour.'

So we flew over the top road, up and down, past the glorious views of the sea, the grassy knolls, the tree-topped hills and the patchwork blanket of fields, the Devil's Nine Stones, the old radio station and a roundabout called Monkey's Jump.

I walked about a bit in hospital but nothing much happened, until I opened a magazine with a full page, colour photograph of the Spitting Image puppet face of Margaret Thatcher. It was enough to send anyone into an advanced stage of labour.

At six minutes to midnight, with my dear friend at the business end, Number One Son was born, with minimal yelling from me, unlike with first-born Number One Daughter when I woke up the entire hospital.

My friend cried all the way home and the baby slept for the next couple of days. But I was wide awake. I could not take my eyes off my perfect, nut-brown-jaundiced baby.

At 22, Number One Son, The Boy, The Chosen One, The Golden Child still sleeps whenever he can. I tell him to enjoy it while it lasts. He has just secured a three-month internship with a prestigious company after graduating from the University of Bristol last year with a 2:1 degree in environmental geoscience. Fingers crossed it will lead to a full-time job.

Where did those 22 years go?

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The phantom of the night

2011-05-09T23:36:00.003Z

Tomorrow is rubbish day. The day when all our bin bags full of village detritus get put out for all to see, seven days of life safely encased in a black plastic sack.

Tomorrow is also recycling day, although we get confused in The Enchanted Village as to which fortnight is which. If Mrs Bancroft has put hers out, we know it's the wrong week. She may be wise and regal, but she is useless when it comes to knowing which week is recycling week. Pelly, oh-Girl-Guide-wise-one, always gets it right but her lane is a little bit far for us to check every week. She is also the kind of person to make her recycled goods into a wholesome Christmas present so there is never much evidence of her every-day folk life.

Jamie Lee and Ted Moult usually know recycling week from their elbow. Pelly has often counted their bottles of Becks and Chardonnay when passing by in the morning.

'They've had a party and we weren't invited,' she'll say, as she crosses the road and goes on to prod the recycling pile of Posh Totty and MDF Man with her sort of walking-ski-stick. Plenty of beer and wine there, we agree.

Well, this week we were invited to the party. And Jamie Lee says we were the first to be asked. If we could come, she confides some weeks ago, she'd build the date around us. (I'm sure she says that to all the bright young things in The Enchanted Village).

And what a party it was. This is their recycling this week, photographed from the safety of Mr Grigg's Freeloader as we shoot up through the street. I do not wish to incur Ted's wrath, so we take the picture with stealth, like a pocket camera paparazzi.

'If they see this on the blog,' I say, 'I'll tell them Pelly took the photo.'

Mmm, kind of shot myself in the foot there.

Anyway, tonight we swoop back into the village after a fundraising meeting and spot a phantom of the night, creeping out from the front of his house with a hefty bin bag full of stuff which he then straps to the public bin next to the village green.

'Porn,' says Mr Grigg, confidently.

The phantom looks around and goes back inside for several cases of spent Chilean Merlot which he then secretes on the doorsteps of Night Nurse and Mrs Bancroft. Caught in the act! And to think for some months we thought these two dear ladies were particularly heavy drinkers. Arsenic and old lace.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

I found my thrill...on Bluebell Hill

2011-05-06T10:07:00.002Z

High up on Bluebell Hill, you can forget the world around you. You wouldn't know the United Kingdom had voted yesterday on a new electoral system. You wouldn't know the shooting of the world's most wanted man was causing a furore around the globe.

Dorset's highest point is a peaceful place for an early morning walk. It makes you feel good to be alive and proud to be English, as a soundtrack of Vaughan Williams plays through your head.

As the day progresses, you can sometimes meet Tuppence here, trilling like a canary, or Ding Dong Daddy recording birdsong in Lush Places, or Mr Sheepwash out with binoculars looking for ravens.

On the way up, the gypsy lace gently nods in the lane, in contrast to its furious movements earlier this week when the wind whipped through these parts. The pink campions and the buttercups clamour for sunlight and jostle for space along the verge, like the crowds lining the streets for a royal wedding.

Dead nettles, when upturned, showing two perfect pairs of fairy shoes ready for the little folk of Bluebell Hill to grab as they pass by on gossamer wings. The regal candelabra of horsechestnut trees, bobbing in the breeze, unusually quiet sheep and then chattering swallows, stretching out in their nests and gossiping, ready for the day ahead.

The walk up the hill is lined with beech trees, rustling and whispering a song in lime green.

And then the bluebells. Oh, those bluebells.

The poetry of the moment is all too brief. After making our descent we meet Champagne-Charlie clutching a copy of the Shooting Times.

'This is for you, chap,' he says to Mr Grigg, pulling out a supplement.

'The Bravissimo catalogue?' I say, with eyes open wide.

'Well I thought Mr Grigg was working at home today. Alone.'

I ask you. Grab your moments while you can.

That's about it.

Love Maddie

Mad hats, union flags and afternoon tea: a very English royal wedding

2011-04-30T15:19:00.002Z

The union flags fluttered in the breeze as Champagne-Charlie walked into the village shop for dog food and a paper.

He doffed his top hat at the shop assistant, who minutes later was serving an equally elegant Mrs Bancroft and the fragrant Mrs Putter.

We watched the wedding in between mouthfuls of bacon and scallops and sips of champagne. The Archbishop of Canterbury looked like the holy goat and the trees were brought into Westminster Abbey for Prince Charles to talk to.

We loved the kiss on the balcony but there were gasps at the hideous kinky sisters, Beatrice and Eugenie, who had come as pantomime dames for the day. Timmy Mallet and Christopher Biggins had never looked finer.

'What has she got on her head?' Champagne-Charlie said. 'It looks like something I shot in Africa.'

It knocked all of the creations at our afternoon tea party in the village hall into a cocked hat.

There were multi-coloured stovepipes, Carmen Mirandas, union flag bowlers and tiaras. But nothing topped what Beatrice was wearing. Talk about Emperor's New Clothes. I can only think they did it deliberately, knowing they'd be sitting behind the Queen so made a fashion protest at not having their mother there.

They should have taken some style advice from Champagne-Charlie's wife, Bubbles.

We waved our flags, ate our dainty sandwiches, guessed whose wedding dresses were hanging up around the hall and then tucked into wedding cake.

A splendid day. How was yours?

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

A right Royal knees-up

2011-04-27T11:31:00.025Z

A nation holds its collective breath as one half of the country is gripped by Royal Wedding fever and the other decides to use the extra day off work to go shopping.

It’s a bit like that in The Enchanted Village. There will be those of us who will ignore all the fuss this Friday and instead climb up to Bluebell Hill. Our souls will vacuum up the carpet of loveliness in between the beech trees. And then we'll gaze out from the Scots pine to the sublime view across vale and sea.

I’d like to think that would be me: free spirit, free thinker and not even a conservative with a small ‘c’. But that’ll be the Sheepwash household then. A family of principles and no time for tosh.

And then there will be others, like the Griggs, the Bancrofts, the Champagne-Charlies and the Putters who will be rah-rah-rah-ing it in the village hall in the afternoon. We’ll have bunting, union flags and jelly and ice cream.

We’ll drink from pretty teacups collected by the elfin Tuppence, using teapots provided by Mr and Mrs Pope. There will be hats, mad hats, and general frivolity. Posh Totty ought to be there, in killer heels and a frilly frock, Mr St John in freshly-pressed shorts and Mr and Mrs Loggins in matching cummerbunds.

There’ll be a raffle with prizes provided by me – a bottle of Lambrini, fridge magnets, Easter eggs and commemorative mugs, including this little beauty, below, on the left.

Look closely...

...it’s showing the wrong prince.

I’d like to say I’m above all this royal-ness. I not too keen on the privileged few and certainly don’t like the hangers-on and have absolutely no time for silver spoon mentality.

However, this mad hatter’s tea party is actually my idea. I love any excuse to get people together, and Mr Grigg rises like a colossus when the word ‘party’ is mentioned. He is the host with the most.

And whilst I’ve been convincing myself I actually won’t be watching the Big Event in the morning, I shall be taking a sneak peep every now and then. I shall tell everybody I’m not that interested and only watching it to spot the dress made by my brother-in-law for a very important guest and seeing if I can make out my dear niece’s boyfriend banging on a side drum with the regimental band in the courtyard of Buckingham Palace.

But everyone loves a good wedding, don’t they? And this is history in the making.

So mad hats off to Wills and Kate. The cast of The Enchanted Village wishes them well.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Only connect

2011-04-22T08:04:00.000Z

As the church strikes eight o'clock across a still village square, the blinds come up on the shop window and customers line up on the pavement outside to get their Good Friday paper. Even on a bank holiday, there is not much time for a rest for the shopkeeper and his little band of helpers.

Dandelion clocks breeze across the fields, much too early for this time of year. We are living in a hazy heatwave this past week, summer has arrived and it is still only April.

On the church tower, the union flag is still flying to mark the Queen's (real) birthday yesterday. Hot cross buns are waiting in the wings to come out at The Enchanted Village hall a little while later. We will gather and natter, have tea and coffee, sitting out at tables and chairs arranged in the car park and soaking up this glorious weather.

And we will say: 'I just can't believe all this sunshine. Isn't it wonderful?'

This morning we emerge from the hovel after a surreal night on the tiles with Mr Grigg's skittles team.

Rewind to last night at the annual prizegiving dinner at a holiday camp down by the sea, when the country's second richest woman next to the Queen hands out the prizes to the predominantly farming fraternity.

There are no prizes for our table apart from Manual, who walks away with a wooden spoon for the lowest score.

Meanwhile, I have a running commentary on my left as one of Mr Grigg's skittling colleagues tells me who everyone is and their complete family history. The narrator in my ear is perfect. I am fascinated by the connections in the farming world, fascinated by people in general.

So I work out that one elderly gentleman is my uncle's cousin. I introduce myself to an almost blind 87-year-old who still manages the occasional flopper (for the uninitiated, this is when you knock down all the skittles with one ball).

'I don't have to worry about drinking and driving,' he says. 'Because I can't drive.'

Then an ebullient woman I have never met comes over and hugs Mr Grigg.

'I didn't recognise you!' she says.

He turns to me and says: 'This is Nurse Gladys.'

'What, the one who gave you the rectal examination?'

Mr Grigg gulps and nods, all at the same time.

'No wonder she didn't recognise you,' I say.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The Pyjama Game

2011-04-19T18:05:00.002Z

On Bluebell Hill, the fronds of ferns are beginning to uncurl. The bluebells are beginning to burst into bloom and the hill is beginning to come alive with the sound of walkers.

Mr Grigg, on two weeks' leave, decides to have an early morning route march up and over the hill during the next fortnight, to reclaim his once-trim figure. He wants it back, you see, and the daily brisk walk up Bluebell Hill is the only way to achieve it.

I found this commitment highly commendable, until I accompanied him at the weekend.

We walked past Tuppence's house, where the petite householder was busy pushing a flymo up and down the grass, like a dolly trying to manhandle a supermarket trolley. As she paused for breath, Mr Grigg went by and did his jaw-dropping-to-the-floor stare.

She was wearing the sort of skimpy shorts I last saw on a savvy and provocative fifteen-year-old.

He complimented her on her attire.

'Oh, these are my pyjamas,' she said.

Now he's talking about doing the route march twice a day. I really can't imagine why.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The Enchanted Village does the royal wedding

2011-04-15T11:13:00.000Z

The cuckoo flowers are in drifts across the fields There are dandelions, nettles, honesty. Bluebells line the banks and a new baby is born to the Sheepwash household. Welcome to the world, little one.

In The Enchanted Village, the lovely Mrs Bancroft and I are planning a mad hatter's tea party to celebrate the impending nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. My friend, Tuppence, has helped me collect lots of pretty china and we'll dot it around long trestle tables lined with union jacks, jelly, sandwiches and cake.

As I showed Mrs B the poster I had prepared for the event, she said: 'Yes, it's very nice. But you haven't actually mentioned the royal wedding.'

'Oh, do I have to?' I said like a petulant teenager.

I, you see, am by no means a monarchist. I get tired of all the hangers-on, the cap doffing, the cow-towing. But any excuse for a party and I'm right there in amongst it all. Any excuse for the village to get together and have a good time on an extra bank holiday.

And it's not about the Big Society, hijacked by the Government as if it invented community spirit. It's about people doing things together, in a spirit of oneness, cavaliers and roundheads alike.

So we're looking forward to a village party, where we can all bring food to share and marvel at our millinery magic. Although I wouldn't be at all surprised if Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie have been invited to the real deal.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Something to celebrate

2011-04-10T19:17:00.002Z

I am sitting here, sipping champagne as Mr Grigg does some DIY in the garage just before the sun goes down.

Forgive the decadence, but if you read my last post, you'll understand why I'm celebrating. Not only did my knitting Land Girl colleague and I win the best exhibition stand, we also had a visit from a certain former MP.

Yay! Here he is trying to put the country's economic woes to rights by having a go on the roll-a-penny, which my dear old aunt made before decimalisation.

From those dizzy heights, it was off to Maiden Castle, near Dorchester, where the grandchildren, Mr Grigg and I played Ancient Romans.

'Not sure you did very much,' Mr Grigg said, weary after all that marching.

'I had a very important job,' I said. 'I was giving out the orders. My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius.'

And today, as the sun beat down on our backs, they were under starters orders for the annual point-to-point races just a hop, skip and a trot away from The Enchanted Village.

The horses were so well dressed, they were all wearing Boden.

And with my hosts, Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie, there was only one thing we could possibly in our glasses.

So there we are, back to the beginning.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Keeping the home fires burning

2011-04-07T17:15:00.000Z

The world from my window is very different this evening. Instead of looking out on to the village square, with its red telephone box, pub, corner shop and parish pump, I'm gazing out across the sea from the South Devon Riveria.

It's a warm and balmy night and the sea is like blue mercury, still and silent. I can hear birds tweeting and the television in the room upstairs where my colleague is putting her feet up after a long, hard day.

Mr Grigg is keeping the home fires burning while I am in Torquay, staying at the hotel that inspired John Cleese to write Fawlty Towers. Honestly. Although the view from my hotel room is absoluletly stunning. If I squint my eyes a bit I can just make out a herd of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain.

This evening we will be putting on our posh frocks and dancing shoes for a gala dinner before retiring sensibly to prepare ourselves for another long day tomorrow manning an exhibition stand.

The theme is Opportunities in The Time of Austerity and my granny's old china has been dusted off and knitting needles brought out as my colleague and I, dressed as Land Girls, make do and mend and smile bright red lipstick smiles at all who pass by. To demonstrate value for money, we have recycled last year's stand and added to it, with a vintage roll-a-penny board (made by my late aunt), and a table set for tea for two, with photos of our sweethearts, ration books and a spotter's guide to bombers interspersed among the cupcakes.

We have become known as The Knitting Ladies as we sit in our tartan rug-covered chairs click-clacking away as we pull in the punters to take part in our games.

I swear my colleague will punch someone if we do not win the prize for the best stand. I'm not worried about that - my aim is to catch the eye of guest speaker Michael Portillo as he walks around the exhibition hall in the morning.

He will make a beeline for us, pick up our dropped stitches and then pose for a photograph, as the company logo hovers just above his head.

That's the plan, at least.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Put the kettle on, it's Mothering Sunday

2011-04-03T10:48:00.003Z

This morning we scrabble around for the electric kettle after turning off the Aga.

This might not seem a very exciting first sentence to a blog post but there is a point to it, believe me.

Mr Grigg finds the lead, sprays me with water as he attempts to fill the kettle up at the sink while I'm peeling potatoes and then goes off in a huff to see his dear old mum with an orchid after I tell him off for whistling tunelessly to the theme from Gladiator.

Peace at last. I contemplate a pottering kind of morning, preparing a family buffet while listening to music as loud and tuneful as I like.

Today it is the stirring tunes of Hans Zimmer. It is Mothering Sunday, it is my day and I get to choose the music.

'My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.'

I put the kettle on, promising myself the reward of a nice cup of tea after I've polished the table.

The phone rings. A Welshman, whose accent is so strong I can only decipher the word 'car', rambles on.

I realise he enquiring about my ancient VW Beetle, my pride and joy, my primrose yellow cabriolet peril, my 1969 bundle of loveliness, which I have just advertised for sale.

'What can you tell me about it?' he says (well, I think that's what he says).

'What do you want to know?'

It goes on like this for a bit longer and then the doorbell rings. I get to the door, can't find the keys and look out the window. It is Celebrity Farmer's mother. I knock at the glass and indicate that I can't find the keys and I'm also on the phone.

I rush off to get the keys while the Welshman in my ear says: 'Well, what's your best price?' and Russell Crowe says with a laugh: 'You knew Marcus Aurelius?' and Oliver Reed says: 'I did not say I knew him. I said he touched me on the shoulder.'

I think in my head that the man from the Rhondda Valley is actually meant to haggle and then I'm thankful Mr Grigg isn't here because he'd charge double the asking price just because the man is Welsh.

I find the keys, struggle with the lock and open the door.

Celebrity Farmer's mum says something about the church boiler not working and the congregation needing a kettle for the Mothering Sunday service.

Still on the phone trying to do a deal, I gesture to her to follow me to the kitchen where I hand over the kettle.

She goes out, saying : 'Thank goodness for the Griggs', the Welshman rings off and I'm desperate for a cup of tea. But there's no kettle.

The phone goes again, it's Mrs Bancroft ringing me by mistake but before she can put the receiver down, I yell out: 'Can I come over and get a cup of boiling water?'

'Yes, but you'd better be quick,' she says. 'I'm off to church.'

I dash out in my friesan cow-print pinny, carrying pink spotty cup aloft as the bus does its peeping three point turn around the square.

I come back, settle down to write this blog, cup of tea in hand, and then the doorbell rings again.

'Bugger off,' I say out loud. 'It's Mother's Day and I'm not in.'

Then having visions of the Interflora man turning away with a huge bouquet because he can't deliver it, I get up, only to find an ex-neighbour at the door with a dozen posters advertising a Hot Cross Bun morning in the village on Good Friday.

So now I'm finally sitting down, with cup of cold tea. It could be worse. I could be in Elysium, and already dead.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

One fine day

2011-04-01T09:10:00.001Z

No sooner is the cherry blossom out then down comes the wind, swooping off the mist-encrusted top of Bluebell Hill, down, down into The Enchanted Village.

At the front of Monty Chocs-Away's house, the blossom forms a carpet of pink, blown up like confetti by the breeze, swirling around in ever decreasing circles.

Down the road, Bellows Packman's goats bleat and the sheep in the field call out. A woodpecker rat-a-tats and a jackdaw dives down Champagne-Charlie's chimney with a large twig in its beak.

Past Tuppence's house there is an exotic smell of patchouli. In the Sheepwash pond the frog spawn is holding its breath before bursting into life.

The village is a tableau, poised, ready and waiting for something to happen.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

In a galaxy far, far away...

2011-03-30T11:33:00.000Z

This day is becoming quirkier by the minute.

At breakfast, Mr Grigg tells me as an afterthought: 'You know that Census thingy? Well, I put you down as a Jedi.'

And then this afternoon, Mr Scruff leaves a comment on my Oldest Swingers in (Camden) Town blogpost.

How cool is that?

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Wind in the willows

2011-03-28T16:34:00.002Z

Mr Grigg and I emerge from our front door into the Square.

Next door and across the road, other people are doing the same, like a mass version of one of those weather predictors where the little old man with the umbrella goes in and the little old lady with the parasol comes out.

We are on our way on foot to Lady Friend's house, The Willows, where the blogroll guest list includes Nobby Odd-Job, Ted Moult and Jamie Lee, Tuppence (dear, sweet Tuppence), and an unaccompanied Mr Loggins, whose wife, Darling, is on the London march protesting against the cuts.

'Good for her,' I say, when the arch-Tory Mr Grigg complains.

We amble up the road with the lovely Mrs Bancroft, Night Nurse and Mrs Champagne-Charlie, with her husband bringing up the rear because he has a bad case of wind.

We are treated to a sumptuous help-yourself meal in equally sumptuous surroundings. We could be in an advert for Interiors magazine.

The first surprise of the evening is the rare sight of Mr St John, whose legs are back on show in shorts now that spring is finally here.

The second surprise of the evening is when a well behaved collie puts her nose up my mini skirt as I am in full flow talking to Jamie Lee about the gentrification of My Kind of Town.

The third surprise of the evening is when Champage-Charlie, looking for a place to rest his weary frame, backs up to the gas stove and sets off a click, click, clicking noise.

'Don't touch that dial!' I yell, when I realise he has just switched on the gas with his behind.

'That was lucky,' Mr Grigg say, as Champagne-Charlie springs away from the cooker like a cornered gazelle.

'If he'd broken wind again we could have all gone out with a bang.'

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Who’s afraid of the big bad school?

2011-03-24T17:11:00.002Z

Twelve years ago, I was invited to a school reunion. It was a strange experience, catching up with people I hadn’t seen since I left the school of hard knocks in the birthplace of powered fight in 1979.

It started in the working men’s club that had recently been ravaged by fire. The paintwork was charred and there was still a sort of burnt smell in the air. I was hugged by the school bully, chatted up by the boy who had rejected me when I was twelve for having no personality and then Dancing Queen blared out from the disco next door as the formerly closet gay came out in all his glory.

We moved on to gatecrash a party at the rugby club and the boys and girls who went out with each other at the age of thirteen ended up smooching to Lionel Richie on the dance floor. As the lights came back on, we all decamped to a friend’s house where the school swot lit up a joint.

Through it all, I was totally sober and well behaved (unlike when I was at school where my quiet, studious side was gobbled up by a quiet rebel desperate to fit in). It was fascinating to watch the gentle drama unfolding around me but rather unnerving.

My school days were not the best of my life. Coming from a village school of twenty to a school year of two hundred was a shock that took me years to overcome.

An old friend of mine later confided after that reunion: “Do you know, it was the weirdest thing. I felt uncomfortable for months afterwards. The whole evening was surreal and stayed etched on my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Wind the clock forward to the present.

I’m walking up the steps of the Perry Street Club, in the middle of nowhere in Somerset. Dancing Queen is again playing as I stride confidently up the steps, with no fear.

At home, after casting aside five outfits, doing a twirl for assembled dinner guests and a grumpy Mr Grigg not at all keen about me leaving for the evening, I was ready for anything.

I walk into the room and the music keeps playing. There is no tumbleweed moment. Everyone still chats among themselves.

As I stand at the door, a gaggle of girls turns around in unison. One of them screams out and runs across to give me the biggest hug I’ve had in years. It is an emotional moment.

‘We’re so pleased you came, so pleased,’ she says.

And I’m pleased too. Clutching a pint of cider, I pore over the old school photos at the bar, pose for new ones and find out what people have been up to. Careers, kids, relationships. So much has happened over the years.

But do you know the biggest change? It’s me. I’m not afraid any more.

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x

On days like these

2011-03-21T20:58:00.001Z

It was a super moon and it was in Virgo, my star sign.

And as I drove around the country lanes in search of my school reunion venue, I wondered what this big pizza pie of a moon had to do with me. A cosmic awakening, a reconnection with the earth, a breakthrough?

It grinned down on me, and I thought of all the things that had happened to me today. A mass decorating session at our village hall, eight hours of painting with a roller and brush amid a sea of magnolia. Sitting down to lunch with twenty others and literally watching paint dry.

Then a quick scoot around the field with the spaniels before every man and his dog descended on us for the England v Ireland rugby match. The doorbell kept ringing, and still they came, until thirteen bodies crammed into the Grigg hovel to watch the game.

The sedate ladies were in the kitchen, chatting about this and that while I sliced the potatoes. The fragrant Mrs Putter, Pelly Sheepwash, Mrs Champagne-Charlie and the lovely Mrs Bancroft with a waif and stray close at heel. In the front room, there was yelling and cursing and swearing as England failed to deliver. The profanity chorus was led by Mr Grigg, with solos by Mr Putter, Mr Sheepwash and Nobby Odd-Job ensconced in a leather armchair, and descant provided by Number One Son, a Sheepwashlet with another waif and stray on his arm.

So we sat down, thirteen of us, like the last supper, for a meal and then I got up and announced I was off to my school reunion, twelve years after the last one. I had been procrastinating about this ever since it was mooted before Christmas. I wanted to go but I didn't want to go. But, as always, curiosity got the better of me and I decided, with a little help from the ladies, that yes, indeed, I would be going.

There were lots of suggestions of what I should wear.

'Killer heels,' said Mrs Bancroft's waif and stray. 'And you can borrow my biker jacket.'

'Wear what's comfortable,' the Queen's Guide Pelly Sheepwash said.

If Mr Grigg had his way, I would have gone in a sack.

'You're not going out like that are you?' he said, when I finally paraded in the sixth outfit I'd tried on upstairs.

'Give us a twirl,' said a naughty Mr Champagne-Charlie, who had turned up to make it 14 after England had lost.

'You look wonderful,' he said. 'I like the boots.'

All Mr Grigg could do was growl.

So I found myself driving around the country lanes, completely lost, until there the place was, a beacon of light in an enchanted village over the Somerset border.

I looked over my shoulder at that big old moon as I entered the door and walked up the stairs to the sound of Dancing Queen.

'You're looking good, girl,' I said to myself. 'You can do it.'

And do you know what? That's not about it. This one's to be continued....

Love Maddie x

My starter kit for ten

2011-03-18T16:46:00.002Z

I get a phone call.

'Have you seen what's under the windscreen wiper of your car?' Pelly whispers.

'No,' I say, phone under chin as I walk out to the front of my house to have a look.

'Well, you might want to,' she says.

It's only another empty wrapper of a bondage starter kit, devoid of its advertised contents of whip, nipple clamps and chain. I extract it, quickly, before anyone else sees it. I look around to make sure no-one is filming the scene.

Until I find out who has placed it there, everyone is under suspicion.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

For one night only...

2011-03-14T18:50:00.002Z

So there we were, rocking all over The Enchanted Village Hall to five vicars singing I want to be break free by Queen.

With a flick of a wrist, their dog collars were off, discarded for the evening as a collection of grey heads and people the wrong side of 50 whooped and hollered.

Earlier my neighbour, Mrs Champagne-Charlie, muttered that it all seemed a bit like community singing at an old folks’ home and then guffawed when she saw my attire and prodded her husband with her elbow.

‘Oh,’ Mr Champagne-Charlie said, doing the mashed potato to I'm a believer. ‘Where on earth did you get those?’

‘You can cut your sarcasm,’ I said. ‘You’re hardly in a position to mock, with your toff’s trousers the colour of calf scour. This, dear neighbour, is the rock chick look.’

Because Mrs Bancroft had arranged for Dogs Without Collars – five Dorset clergymen – to appear for one night only in aid of the three parish churches.

And my job was to look after them.

‘Sorry,’ I said, when asked to help on the bar, ‘I’m with the band.’

Once a groupie, always a groupie.

So I rocked on through the night, brought firmly to heel by Mr Grigg for the last dance.

And do you know, I even won first prize in the raffle.

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x

A funny thing happened on the road to Rio

2011-03-08T20:24:00.003Z

It's Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent. General Custer, he of the face carved out of Mount Rushmore and last seen loitering in the pub doorway smoking fag after fag, is reputedly in Rio enjoying Mardis Gras.

We picture him on his back in the middle of the road, a smile on his face after too many Tequila Slammers and gazing gratefully upwards while scantily clad Brazilians dance all over him as they make their way ever onwards in the parade.

Feels like heaven.

Heaven, meanwhile, is a place on Earth for Mr Champagne-Charlie who goes for £8 worth of pick-and-mix before we pile into the Yeovil Cineworld for an early evening showing of True Grit.

'Fill your hand you sonofabitch,' he says, reaching for the licorice comfits.

'That's a hell of a statement for a one-eyed fatman,' I retort. Mr Champagne-Charlie is neither one-eyed nor fat, but it seems the right response. The two of us are Western fanatics.

In the auditorium, he pours scorn on the shot fired by Rooster Cogburn from a great distance and goes into a long diatribe about Colt 45s, velocity and speeding bullets.

Western fan or not, it's all too much for me and flies right above my head.

'Ned, in one minute I'm going to shoot you or take you back to Fort Smith to hang you at Judge Parker's convenience. Which it'll be?' I whisper.

Mr Grigg and Mrs Champagne-Charlie then tell us to put our popcorn where our mouths are.

Meanwhile, for General Custer in Rio, his experience is even better than a 3-D film. It's for real.

It's Shrove Tuesday and I should be giving up something for Lent. Blogging maybe? I think not.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Read all about it

2011-03-07T21:01:00.000Z

They descended like locusts on the remaining copies of Half of a Yellow Sun.

I started a stampede at The Enchanted Village quilting group when I told the assembled ladies I had a few books to give away.

Hands shot up and there were chants of 'mine, mine, mine.' I emerged from the ensuing scrum shaken, a bit tousled but none the worse for my ordeal.

I handed them out at the village post office, to the girls from the book club, to some intellectual types from a PR agency and to work colleagues. I posted them to my four siblings and to my mother.

It was a great feeling.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x
.

The Enchanted Village does World Book Night

2011-03-03T20:00:00.003Z

It was the instruction: ‘bring a wheeled suitcase, a trolley or a strong friend’ that worried me.

Here I was, chosen as a ‘giver’ for the inaugural World Book Night on Saturday, and illegally parked on a yellow line outside The Book Shop, Bridport, with my boot open for any old car jacker to jump into.

I rushed in.

‘OK, I’m here, let’s go,’ I said, sounding like Bodie (or was it Doyle?) from The Professionals.

As if by magic, the owlish bookshop proprietor, looking like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn but without the fez, peered over his spectacles and said: ‘Oh, it’s you.’

He pointed to two large boxes of books.

‘There you are. Half of a Yellow Sun wasn't it?’

‘Mmmm, yes,’ I said, not sure whether I should be basking in the glory of what seemed an intellectually challenging book choice or admitting I was on the reserve list and was happy to have anything.

Twenty thousand passionate book lovers are giving away a million books this weekend. I had been hoping for a thin tome, maybe Alan Bennett’s autobiography or the children’s book Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman.

Despite having no illustrations, they’d be relatively simple to digest, and I could perhaps persuade some of my intended ‘reluctant reader’ recipients in my village to grab hold of a copy with open arms.

Because brevity and alacrity are my middle names. And theirs too.

But I was on the reserve list.

So I picked up my 48 copies of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book, which is set in 1960s civil war-torn Nigeria, and prepared to do battle.

In true Commando style, I am now lobbing them through letterboxes around the village, with an accompanying note. I’m handing them out to family and friends and anyone I think will read it.

Mr Grigg grunts: ‘What have you signed up for now? Can’t we sell them?’

‘Um, I think that’s against the whole spirit of World Book Night,’ I say. ‘Besides, if I choose the right people to give to, it will increase my popularity.’

Because there is no way I can fob off Half of a Yellow Sun to the drinkers in the part of the pub we call Compost Corner. I’d probably be barred for life.

But it might increase my standing in the book club.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

If the answer is ****, what's the question?

2011-02-28T12:40:00.002Z

A silver sliver of moon is suspended in the early morning sky. A family of rooks fights over the best spot on a gargoyle jutting out from the church tower. Blackbirds skedaddle across a lawn as if they’re on strings.

The mornings are much lighter now, as the daffodils poke their heads out and think about flowering. The spring cycle button has been pushed and it will be March before we know it.

Another month, another week, another day.

Meanwhile, at the Enchanted Village pub quiz, brains are on top form.

The quizmaster asks: ‘What’s the capital of Kuwait?’

The village news correspondent shouts out: ‘K!’

After the laughter subsides, the quizmaster moves on. ‘What’s the name for a group of beavers?’ he says.

Mr Grigg has that look on his face, that smutty, naughty schoolboy grin. He opens his mouth, he's about to say something. I deliver a well-aimed kick under the table.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I snarl, rather too loudly.

‘You’re going to write that on your computer of yours, now, aren’t you?’ the quizmaster says. This blog is the worst-kept secret in The Enchanted Village.

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x

Of human bondage

2011-02-26T00:09:00.003Z

We are at the Enchanted Village book club. My friend Pelly, tonight's hostess, pulls me to one side.

'I've got something for you,' she says, scrabbling around in the kitchen while the other ladies in the living room prepare to talk about The Janissary Tree by local author Jason Goodwin.

The latest book club guest, Number One Grand Daughter, aged five, is holding court as Mrs Champagne-Charlie, Mrs Bancroft, a Rolling Stones' Aunt-Once-Removed and Mrs Mabel Lucie Attwell hear about the books she has brought.

Pelly huddles closer to me: 'I went for a walk up Bluebell Hill and was on the road by the tin hut.' She produces a plastic bag. 'I found this in a layby,' she says.

A sofa or two away, Number One Grand Daughter is telling the Book Club ladies why Mutant Ninja Turtles are so cool and why she quite likes the pictures, even though they are in black and white. She then turns to her Batman book and shows them her favourite illustration, a rather dramatic shot of the caped crusader smashing through a window.

Pelly whispers: 'Just look in the bag. I brought it all the way back so you could take a picture for your blog.'

Rather gingerly, I dip my hand inside. Will I pull out a plum? Or maybe a rabbit from a hat?

Nothing prepares me for the contents.

'Bugger me,' I say, almost choking on freshly-baked focaccia. 'Where did you say you found it?'

'Granny!' yells Number One Grand Daughter.

'I'm a bit tied up at the moment,' I say as I struggle to put the thing back in the plastic bag.

'See, I knew you wouldn't believe it,' Pelly says.

And neither does Mr Grigg when he comes home from his bar billiards session with the boys.

'I thought your book club was about books,' he says, with a king-sized leer.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The oldest swingers in (Camden) town

2011-02-21T14:25:00.001Z

So here we are, walking through Camden at 11 o’clock at night, in a surreal kind of haze, rubbing shoulders with the bohos and the young. We’re in a London bubble, away for the weekend and mouths agape at the ever-changing tableau before us.

Mr Grigg comes over all poetic:

‘As I walk along the street

every person that I meet

no-one is older than me.’

Everyone is under twenty five, apart from two drunks in a broken-up phone box.

We wander down to Mornington Crescent tube station, which for years we thought really only existed in the Radio 4 panel game I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. We’re heading for Club Koko, a majestic-looking former theatre and now a music venue for the hip and trendy.

The music hits us, boom, boom, boom, as we make our way through the young throng and head for the tea house downstairs for a nice cuppa.

This, you see, is a sell-out gig by Mr Scruff, a DJ-extraordinaire whose music Wikipedia describes as downtempo, trip-hop and nu-jazz. He is also a huge tea fan. I once let slip to Number One Son that I liked Mr Scruff's music. So he only went and bought us tickets for Christmas.

We are fish, fish, fish out of water. We take our big cups of tea and go upstairs in this glorious baroque-style theatre, which was opened by Ellen Terry in 1900. I feel the spirit of this celebrated actress looking over my shoulder on to an alien world. A pulsating dance floor, Mr Scruff on stage pressing buttons and his naïve cartoons smiling at us from screens at his side.

A smiley-faced student asks if I will take a photo of him and his mates on the balcony overlooking the stage.

From the safety of a comfy seat, I press the shutter. He sidles up to me and says:

‘Um, why are you here..?

I explain the Christmas gift.

‘Are you enjoying it?’ he says.

‘Immensely,’ I say.

He looks across to Mr Grigg, whose arms are folded and whose face is wearing a pugnacious glare.

‘What about him?’ the boy gestures.

‘Oh, yes, we both love Mr Scruff,’ I say. I get the feeling this photo might soon be doing the rounds of Facebook under the title of: ‘The oldest swingers in town’.

I am very tempted to lie and say we love Mr Scruff because we’re his parents. But I don’t and I’m glad I don’t because Mr Scruff is thirty nine which would have made me ten years old when I had him.

It then occurs to me that, actually, if Mr Grigg is the oldest one here and I’m the second oldest, that would make Mr Scruff the third oldest. And these young ‘uns have paid good money to see him.

So Mr Grigg and I slap our tea cups on the table, get up and wobble those legs.

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x

Friends like these

2011-02-18T11:36:00.002Z

I get home and struggle out of the car with the shopping. The Lidl bags nearly split open with shock when I trip over a large, fluffy rabbit on the doorstep. It's bright eyed and bushy tailed but very dead.

Like me, it's gutted.

Mr Grigg is dispatched to Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie's to say thank you, but it wasn't from them. Mr Grigg decides to skin the thing on my beautiful kitchen island and I wince and bristle and then end up shouting when he spills blood on the beech wood surface.

I remove myself from the scene and look at Facebook, where I am brought down to earth by Number One Daughter's status:

I apologised to The Child this morning as Mummy and Daddy had an argument in front of her last night. Her response...'Mum, it's about friendship, love and keeping your trust - you have to be friends.'

Such maturity for a five-year-old.

So I cuddle up to my big bunny, Mr Grigg. But only after the rabbit has been put in a bag in the freezer.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Smitten by Britain: The King's Speech

2011-02-13T09:38:00.000Z

Everyone is talking about The King's Speech. Mr Grigg and I are off to see it this weekend,with Mr and Mrs Sheepwash and Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie, in The Enchanted Village hall. We've reserved seats because it's already a sell-out.

We're lucky in these parts to enjoy the wonderful services of Moviola, a touring cinema celebrating ten years this year.

You can find out more by going to Smitten by Britain, where I've just done a guest blog post.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The Enchanted Village: the movie

2011-02-10T18:18:00.000Z

A few months ago, a talented young scriptwriter moved into The Enchanted Village.

'Your blog would make a great film or maybe a TV series,' she said.

She'd had a few to drink of course - it was Christmas and the Griggs and the Champagne-Charlies were hitting the gin and tonics - but the idea galloped away with her, and with me. I could see myself being feted by celebrity interviewers, hiring a dresser, being on the front cover of the Sunday supplements or maybe even The Marshwood Vale Magazine.

We drew up a fantasy cast list. I became the willowy Joely Richardson and Mr Grigg Ray Winstone. All the other British actors slotted into place. It would be her spring project, the scriptwriter said, as if she didn't have enough to do to while away her time.

And then I made the mistake of telling Mr Grigg, who now insists on saying 'shut it' every five minutes while looking at me with a wide-boy grin.

We've become Ray and Joely and I'm not sure how it's going to all end.

But if you can suggest who might play all the other parts, I'd be very grateful. I'm not sure anyone could play Mr Champagne-Charlie.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Spring is nearly sprung...

2011-02-09T17:01:00.003Z

It’s been a grey old day here in The Enchanted Village.

When I passed the BBC World Service transmitting station this morning, there was so much mist swirling around, the tops of the masts blended in with the sky. I felt like scrambling to the summit of one of them and stepping off into the clouds in search of the Giant’s golden eggs.

The weather is much milder now, there is soft mud in the gateways and spring bulbs are creeping onwards and upwards before our eyes. Soon, a new season will be upon us, and tete a tete narcissi will be having animated conversations outside the Grigg abode. They’ll be joined later by Queen of Night tulips and sweet-smelling wallflowers.

Before then, though, in March, it’ll be Pancake Day, the clocks will go forward and Mr St John will be wearing shorts. We’ll be planning a mad hatters’ tea party for the Royal Wedding (any excuse for a knees-up) at the end of April and a fete in June with the theme of carnival (expect Mr Grigg in skimpy Rio outfit and lots of feathers, Mrs Bancroft on stilts, Mr Champagne-Charlie banging on a samba drum and Mr Loggins zooming round on roller skates while blowing a whistle).

In between, there will be a dance in the village hall to the music of Dogs Without Collars, a rock band with a line-up of five Dorset vicars. Naturally, we'll be raising money for the local church.

There is a circle of life at work in The Enchanted Village. Every year at about this time we know it is coming and every year it surprises us. What goes around comes around.

That’s about it

Love Maddie x

Love in the morning

2011-02-04T09:08:00.001Z

Emerging pussy willow, dung spread fields, sodden log piles and a saturated, watercolour sky.

It is half past seven in the morning as I walk the spaniels down through the village. But it might as well be the middle of the night. Curtains are closed, with just the odd light here and there indicating someone is up and having breakfast.

I feel like a benign stalker as I glance around me. Night Nurse is still in bed (as usual), as are Manual and Mrs Regal Bird. There is no sign of life at Tuppence's house as I push a note through the catflap. And the Sheepwashes are still snuggily tucked up when I walk past their cottage at ten past eight.

The Champagne-Charlies are awake, thanks to the morning alarm call of our barking dogs excited at going for a walk. And I see the shapely silhouette of Poshy Totty behind her kitchen window, dishing up something for the children and her husband, MDF Man.

Mr Grigg will be sorry he missed that, I think.

Walking back up through the village, I meet Mr F-Word, a retired chef, walking down the road clutching the Daily Mail he has just picked up from the shop.

'Everyone's still asleep,' I say. 'All the curtains are closed.'

'Ah,' he says, patting the dogs, 'that's because they're all in love.'

That's about it.

Love Maddie x