The world from my window

I have just caught the tail end of Celebrity Mastermind. It was won by that smug bastard John Sessions. I knew a number of questions he didn't know, which was very satisfying. But he is too clever by half (whatever that means). He has also started talking in much more of a Scottish accent than he used to than in the days of Whose Line is it Anyway? Is there no beginning to his talents? The TV is being flicked on and off. I am going stir crazy, confined to barracks by a heavy cold. I used to scoff at people who said they had a 'touch of flu' - you've either got it or you haven't. And when flu strikes, you know it. However, this has been really debilitating, annoying and energy-zapping. It really feels like a touch of flu and has wiped me out over Christmas. There used to be a cough medicine in these parts known as Fudge's Firewater. Bottles were restricted to one per household and you had to sign for it. Only one chemist had the recipe and was allowed to sell it....

The whole village is talking about it. It kicked off just after people squeezed into church for midnight mass. I was at home nursing a heavy cold and watching Love Actually. Number One Son, home from University, came back from the village pub. He said it was boring and decided to go into town instead. When he came back a couple of hours later, he asked what was going on. 'What?' I said, oblivious, as I was soaking up the scene where the woman dives in to that muddy lake after Colin Firth's bits of flying paper. 'There's a police car parked outside our house and a load of angry looking people in the pub doorway.'' About half an hour later, Mr Grigg heard the sound of breaking glass and high heels running down the road. The next day, as we had smoked salmon and champagne breakfast at Mr St John's, we heard that a group of people, including a local builder with his shirt off, had been in an angry mood. An hour or so later, Mr Grigg got the low-down from the...

I have just been down the Other End of the Village delivering cards and party invites. Never one to waste an opportunity if it means saving time, I thought I would walk the dogs as well. Big mistake. It is not easy struggling along a muddy lane with a bag, a torch, cards, a sensible dog and a stupid five-month-old puppy that will not stop pulling. I ended up shoving cards through letterboxes using my mouth (sorry if yours is wet in the corner) and then got completely tangled with dog leads when the puppy decided to do a Christmas jig around my legs. I was in danger of falling over completely. My arms were wrapped around my torso as if in a loving embrace. The more the dogs pulled, the worse it became. But my knight in shining armour arrived in the shape of a helpful farmer who pulled up in his Land Rover as I struggled to break free from my shackles. He pondered for a bit and then untangled me as if he were sorting out a bit of binder twine. It was rather like a weird version of Maypol...

Attila the Hen, someone who holds high office in this village, is struggling with new technology. The laptop she is using in her home office - a first floor bedroom - is beyond her. Whatever she seems to do, it won't turn off. She was advised to put it somewhere out of harm's way. So she wrapped it in a plastic bag, lowered it from the window on a rope and left it in the garden over the weekend. In sub-zero temperatures. Now that's what people mean when they say the internet keeps freezing on them. Mr Grigg has been licking logs again. As he was unloading the latest batch, someone from The Other End of the Village asked where they came from. 'Not being funny but...' usually means someone is, but it appears they had a load of wood stacked in a gateway until the cords suddenly disappeared. Valuable stuff, cut wood. Serves them right for leaving it lying about. Can't trust anyone these days. Preparations are being made for an old English Christmas in the hall, wit...

It is so cold even the bronze nymph is wearing a long scarf draped over her private bits. This is the nymph who appeared billowing water as a fountain in the front of someone's garden a few years ago. She is the first thing people see in the village when they enter it from the east and is occasionally dressed in a tutu, a Santa hat and anything else that takes the fancy of passers-by. She was also used as an initiation ceremony for Mr Loggins 12 months ago. One cold December night, wearing only shorts and wellington boots, his task was to go into the garden, fondle the nymph and have his photo taken. The things that nymph gets up to. The ice on the road has taken the local council by surprise. For two days, relatively major roads (for us, at least) were not gritted. As a consequence, accidents have been happening all over the place. Last week a cattle lorry was in a head-on collision with, guess what? A gritter truck. This week, a mother and child had to be taken by air ambulance t...

There are some advantages to being back in the rat race. I hate getting up in the dark and going home in the dark. But the beauty of the skies in December is breathtaking. This morning, a Homeresque dawn greets me as I drive past the BBC transmitting station, that modern take on Stonehenge, metal mast icons for the Age of Aquarius. And then this evening. Wow! Venus is a brilliant diamond in the south west at dusk, following Jupiter down as the evening wears on. It is a joy to drive home towards them. And then, as I walk the dogs, I realise I don't need the torch. The Oak Moon, or Snow Moon, is on its way, rising high above three beech trees in the hedgerow. Absolutely stunning. I stop and take it all in, breathe in the cold air and smell the woodsmoke. I thank God I am healthy and alive. According to the wonderful Stargazers' Almanac, given to me by the boffin who runs the mobile planetarium, we will be able to see Saturn at midnight during the middle of the month and then Merc...

The smell from the hallway has disappeared. But there is an even worse one in the loo. I had to ask Mr Grigg if he'd had a poo this morning. He had, but nothing he's eaten lately could smell that bad. It's like a dead rat. Under the floor. I keep spraying air freshener around and pray to God no-one visits us in the next 24 hours. Because we only have the one loo and I can hardly say, 'sorry, if your name's not on the list you're not coming in'. Last year we were up to our navels in Christmas party invitations. This year, nothing. It's either the credit crunch or nobody likes us. So we are throwing ourselves into organising a traditional old English Christmas with the local mummers' group and a folk band put together by a local record producer. It could be interesting - tickets are selling fast. It's the most exciting thing that's happening over Christmas. I don't even feel festive yet. And I know for sure that when we put the lights on th...

There is something dead in my house. It smells and I can't find it. Yesterday, three large black flies starting doing a dance around the table lamp. The cats are going crazy, chasing after fly shadows and strangely attracted to one of the living room walls. I think there might be a dead mouse inside it, rotting away. But Mr Grigg says this is not possible as the walls are several feet thick. However, I read once that mice can get in the smallest of bloody holes. So who knows? And we do have the Little Nipper up in the attic, just above the living room wall, which is catching a mouse a day. Maybe the smell emanates from the one that got away, or at least thought it did. Before the poison set in. As long as the bloody rats aren't back, that's all I care about. Working at the Death Star today, I took my rather fetching purple Hawkshead cardigan off. I discovered the jumper I had on underneath was inside out. I slipped off to the loo to change. Don't know why, but I told a ...

You're at a ball in your best dress and dolly shoes. You're watching everyone on the dance floor. Sniggering at the man who can't dance and his partner doing his best to look the other way. You're umming and ahhing about getting up and doing your thing. The Temptations start up with Get Ready, you take to the dance floor and get into the swing, albeit a bit self consciously. Your confidence grows as you mouth along to the chorus. And then it changes into bloody Junior Walker and the All Stars. Bugger. Then you're 17 again when Abba's Dancing Queen starts up. But just when you were least expecting it it slips up a gear into Gimme, Gimme, Gimme a Man After Bloody Midnight. Medleys. I hate them. Jive Bunny have a lot to answer for. Mr Grigg was so enraged at Saturday's ball he had words with the DJ. The response was: 'I've been doing this 20 years mate. I know what gets people dancing.' Mr Grigg promptly told him he's been dancing for more t...

The new girl is settling in at last. But the council offices still feel like the Death Star. I expect to see Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader having a fight over the central staircase at any minute. I keep having these visions of black-suited corporate types turning into stormtroopers. Two things made me smile: One, a male colleague went to the loo and saw a chap rather ungainly drying the crotch of his trousers with the hand drier. A quick explanation apparently followed, but the suspicion is perhaps this is how this man gets his kicks. Two, an illicit mobile phone conversation going on in the loo cubicle next to me. The lady was trying to be all lovey-dovey. And then I pulled the flush and her secret location was revealed. Toilet humour, you can't beat it. Meanwhile, back in the rural idyll, the Aga has gone out again - blown out by the wind - and Mr Grigg has been asked to read a lesson at the carol service. He is highly honoured, although I got in first last year. It all went ...

Last night, the hall was heaving as villagers left their warm homes on a chilly night to take part in the annual quiz. There were about 90 people there and I am pleased to say our team members excelled themselves and came second. I was personally very proud to have remembered that Malawi was once Nyassaland. I don't think I spelled it right, but there were no extra points for spelling, which was good news. The winners were a team who should have been called the Smart Arses. A serious lot from the next village, they won it two years ago. But we had been led to believe they would never be back as a protest against the quality of the wine dished out as prizes. But came they did, bold as brass, and they disputed several answers (they were actually correct on one but the adjudicator wasn't having any of it) and when presented with their bottles, very swiftly took them out of the bags to examine the labels. We should have mugged them really on the way out. We managed to make the food...

A looming tax bill has prompted me to sell my soul to the local council. Yesterday, I started working for the council three days a week, temporarily you understand, and I feel like a battery hen. I always wondered why the caged bird sings and it's probably out of frustration. My own singing is taking the form of cursing loudly every time the word 'engagement' jumps out at me from a document on a computer screen, or, even worse, when I hear it spoken with a straight face. At the moment, I am the new girl but I am beginning to understand why every person with whom I attempt to 'engage' in the kitchen or lavatory is either leaving or has just joined. I do so miss my rural idyll. Simple things like taking the dogs out in the morning light rather than stumbling around fields as I fall over leads before the sun comes up. Chatting to my neighbours, hearing a robin warbling in the tree and making endless cups of tea and reorganising the laundry basket as I put off my next...

As Russell's crow goes cockadoodle-doo across the valley, trying to outdo the one belonging to the Lady with the Bright Red Hair, we are still no nearer to unmasking the bacon thief. Gypsy Rose has not been seen for a while now, and suspicion falls on anyone looking slightly bigger than they did when they last went in the shop. The village is obsessed with eating and food so the thief could be anyone. Next to Russell's crow's pen, where he struts around with his hen and chick friends, is a field full of lambs. These are new ones, we have not got to know them very well, unlike the orphan lambs we grew to love in the summer. We loved them so much that when they were slaughtered, they were cut up and distributed to various freezers in the village. Our neighbour, who lives on her own, shared half a lamb with her townie friends up the road. For weeks these people ran their freezers down, emptying them of things that lurked in the corners without labels. Hoorah, the lamb was comi...

As the sun beats down on this soggy corner of England, the skies looking more Greece than Dorset, the news breaks that we have a thief in our midst. The village shop is always busy, at certain times of the day, located as it is on a square where four roads meet. This is the world from my window, the world I look out on and walk through every day. But this is something I did not see. No-one saw it happen - it just did. One minute the chill cabinet was full of bacon, the next minute, nothing. There were just two customers in the shop at the time: a respectable elderly lady who has lived here all her life apart from her formative years in a hamlet she still hankers after and an old gypsy woman, with carrier bags on her feet and a very large coat over her shoulders. The bacon, it is true, was on special offer. But Buy One Get One Free does not usually mean Steal One Get One Free. Suspicion has naturally fallen on Gypsy Rose Lee, which may appear rather judgmental but, hey, that's life...

On a wet autumn day, Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks plays on my stereo. Which is appropriate really, as we have just celebrated Bonfire Night a few days late with the village fireworks. The composer is the right choice but it really ought to be Handel's Water Music, as the rain it raineth, and raineth all the night. We should have known; the forecasters and village soothsayers were all saying the same, as they waved printouts from the BBC website. Beware the rain. But we live in such a strange place, the weather can be completely different from locations just a few miles away. When the sun is shining on the coast just down the road, up here we're in fog land. However, despite the forecast we decided to go for it because of our wise old neighbour next door. In our house, he is known as Gandalf because we are convinced he is a wizard. He does not come and go out of his front door any more, like the little man and woman who lived in the weather house on my grandparents...

The traffic trundles, albeit slowly, past my window now that the road is open. For the past six weeks or so, it has been pretty quiet here, as workmen have been busy creating a new culvert at the bottom of the street. The work involved digging up the tarmac to the stream underneath and pedestrians have had to walk around the edge on a specially-created path and bridge. The traffic, meanwhile, has had to take a diversion. And that has not pleased everyone. The village has been divided - literally and metaphorically. There are those at the posh, leafy end, where residents have drives and can sing at least two verses of Dallas before reaching their front doors. And there are those, like me, whose houses and cottages are all higgledy-piggledy, cheek by jowl sort of places, where when we put the washing out, our neighbours can just about make out our hip size from the labels on the underwear. Up this end, so to speak, the road closure has been bliss. Children have been gaily cycling in the ...

Maddie's back! After narrowly avoiding clinching a book deal and a column in one of the weekend supplements, The World from my Window re-emerges as a regular look at life from England's rural underbelly. It is November 1 - All Souls Day - and in about an hour's time I have to lock up the church. I really need to check it first for tramps sleeping under pews before I turn the key. I'd best take a torch with me. It is very dark down here. There has been a rush on pumpkins at the local nursery for a Halloween competition in the village hall. The gardens and allotments society, in an attempt to get more people interested, put on the event for its AGM last night. We are not members but a friend is, and to show our support for him, we turned up with our pumpkin lantern to add to the table of entries at the back. My Lidl pumpkin, carved on Wednesday, had become quite soft and its once wide open mouth and crooked teeth had shut after the top lip sank into its chin. The committe...

We have a small band of kids in this village who are growing up to a be a complete pain in the arse. One of them snapped off a plum tree that was just about to flower. Destroying a tree, a living thing, is bad enough, but this tree was planted in memory of one of our own, who did loads for the local community. It's no wonder some people would quite gladly take the culprits round the back of the church and give them a damn good thrashing But violence isn't the answer. We have to shame them, make them realise that messing on their own doorstep is not very clever. Every once in a while this kind of thing happens, a particular child with parents who don't care very much or are completely blind to the thug their child is growing into. And then all the kids get blamed, they all get a bad name. So what to do in this situation? A notice has been put on the green to inform people what has happened and how sad it has made people feel. But in the grand scheme of things, it's not a...

There is a power struggle going on in this house, hence the long time since my last blog. We have just taken in a springer spaniel from a rescue centre in Devon to keep our howling dog company, only to find the old dog hates the new one. It's getting better, but there have been fights every now and then, whenever the old dog thinks the new one is getting attention and he isn't. And when I say old dog I don't mean my man. My man is surprisingly stress-free, although he starts to swear when he has to clear up the crap from the patio. I have cleared up several bloodstains from the kitchen floor but lately the two dogs have been cuddling in to each other. It's only when a familiar human comes on the horizon the fur starts to fly. We have been told new dog has a wonderful pedigree, so we're hoping its field trials ancestry will come to the fore when we go beating in the autumn. Until then, I am doing my damndest to keep the bloody thing under control on a lead. I cannot...

Rah, rah rah! Point to point season hits this area with a rash of signs 'to the races' here, there and everywhere, as the thunder of horse boxes and cattle lorries reverberates around the village. This is a social event, high on a hillside overlooking the Axe Valley and several stately piles. Tweed is the order of the day here - with hats, trousers, jackets and even suits jostling for attention. Some are handed down from generation to generation. Barbour jackets are so yesterday, dahling, in these surroundings, as are Wellington boots, in the main, a poor relation to the Game Fair boots that cost £200 and up. Red cords are teamed with yellow shirts, public schoolboys and girls play rugger in between the parked cars and every one kisses each other twice on the cheek. If you don't have a four by four here, dahling, you are an absolute nobody. Because it is not possible to have your hamper, rug, six directors' chairs, sturdy table, tablecloth, linen napkins, enough smoked ...

Easter has come and gone with a mystery surrounding an apostle spoon. A set of 12 were loaned for a hot cross bun morning at the village hall and only 11 turned up at the end. Bins were turned out, window sills checked, as were the spaces behind the radiators. Despite a fingertip search, no trace of the spoon (or fingertips) could be found. It is ironic on Good Friday, the day when Jesus was nailed to the cross after being betrayed by one of the 12, that an apostle spoon should go missing. Will we find it hanging, New Age art-like, from a Judas Tree? This is not the first time spoons have gone missing in this village. A cutlery drawer devoid of spoons was mentioned at a previous hall meeting, when votes and counter votes were taken to go out and buy some replacements. The steel spoon enthusiasts won the day against the fans of the plastic variety and a representative was tasked to get some more. This stock has now dwindled, hence the need to borrow the set of apostle spoons from the ca...

It's the same year after year. Yet again on Mother's Day I wake with a thumping hangover playing double bass in a jazz quartet. Oh, these parties. The night before, Mr and Mrs Sheepwash from down the road threw a bash to mark their 30th wedding anniversary - child bride, she was. Anyway, it was a great night but I forgot to put my contact lenses in and spent the entire evening sharing an armchair with a friend who had also forgotten to put in her lenses. Between us, we gazed into each other's eyes because we were the only people we could see who weren't blurred. We solved all the world's problems while we drank the white wine lake dry. So, for Mothering Sunday, no bellringing for us because a) we got up too late and b) the daughter and grand-daughter visited with a chocolate cake so it seemed like a good excuse not to go up the church tower steps and risk a nasty fall and tinnitus from those bells. The day before, a huge bouquet arrived from the prodigal son from Un...

Do you remember when you were young and watched something risque on the television with your parents right beside you? You'd be so embarrassed you'd stare, non-plussed, straight ahead, terrified of the look on their faces and fearing they might send you to bed once they had got over the shock. Well, we have just had the film Atonement in our village hall and when the sequence with the typewriter came on and Robbie typed the 'C' word you could even hear the tea cups in the kitchen gasp. And when the word kept resurfacing, again and and again, throughout the film my only hope was the entire village was dyslexic and thought the film was about King Cnut. It reminded me of a film show a while back when one of the village hall committee thought a film called La Spagnola looked quite good. The grey heads coped with the scenes showing fumbling in the back of a car. But when the ugly, aged aunt appeared on the giant screen, preparing a ratatouille and then took a fancy to a cour...

You get to a certain age when the man in your life stops looking at younger women and gazes longingly at fallen trees. 'If I had a chainsaw, I'd be in there right now,' he says, as you ask him to keep his bloody eyes on the road to prevent him driving into a ditch. He becomes obsessed with wood, even though you don't yet have a fire to burn it on. 'Do you know how much a load of logs cost?' he says. As if you care. And then it begins. Talks with the listed building officer, planning applications, work on a new chimney for the old fireplace, you can't use old bricks as they're not fire proof... On and on and on until the fire is built and your man gets a hernia lifting a second-hand wood burning stove into the back of his car. And then the badgering begins. 'I'd really like a chainsaw,' he says, pressuring and persuading you. But you're not convinced, having read stories of people slitting their own throats through the careless use of...

Christmas came and went, too many parties to mention all over the village, and everyone suffering from coughs and colds, replicated all over the country. Could this be germ warfare? What a great way to disable the population! On New Year's Eve, the Square comes alive with people in fancy dress pouring out of the pub and nearby houses. Pirates rub shoulders with nurses, a Legionnaire is caught embracing a Roman emperor and several men in kilts do cartwheels across the road. Up in the church tower, the die-hard ringers wait with anticipation, ready to ring the bells when the clock strikes 12. There is a clatter up the steps as a woman in a nun's outfit, whose stockings and suspenders are visible as she hitches up her skirt, and a man dressed as a Roman Catholic priest, complete with small whisky bottle in his top pocket, get there just in time to take their places to ring in 2008. I greet New Year's Day with a sneeze and the sound of bells, as a group of morris dancers fr...