The world from my window

New Year's Eve and the shops in My Kind of Town are heaving. Mr Grigg and I go from Lidls to Morrisons, shadowed by a gabbling gipsy family looking for bargains on the salmonella shelf. Mr Grigg hovers closely behind them, puts in a hand and pulls out a tray of pigs in blankets. 'That'll do for tonight,' he says, plucking two half price pork pies and a packet of twelve loaded potato skins from the refrigerated unit. He pulls away from the crowd, the spoils under his arm. The gipsy family look suitably impressed. I struggle to find prunes and cocktail sticks and go back and forth, passing a man who smells like he hasn't had a wash in years who is pondering over whether to buy a 'value' pack of digestives to go with his two tins of new potatoes. After the fifth time of wandering up and down the same aisles, I finally ask a disinterested man stacking shelves. He mutters to himself as if he's remembering the winning numbers of the lottery from a dream. At la...

The day started so well. Christmas Day in The Enchanted Village. Pillowcases stuffed full of presents: new socks, Ferrero Rocher, a personalised calendar of our travels. A bird-within-a-bird-within-a-bird, courtesy of Mr Champagne-Charlie next door, who had bagged four of the six birds before turning them into a culinary creation for us. Cranberry sauce prepared Gordon Ramsay-style, Louis Prima on the stereo and then the bottle of champagne. Looking back, that's where it all started to go wrong. Niggling rows with Mr Grigg as we prepared the veg at the kitchen island, the disappointment at a new pair of boots a half size too small and then the decision to wander over to the pub for just the one drink while the bird-within-a-bird cooked merrily in the Aga. Two hours and five drinks later, Mr Grigg's younger brother and two children wandered in. We staggered out to go home, the cold air hit me and I was out for the count. This morning, I have just had a slice of cold bird...

This was going to be a short and sweet blog, just before Christmas. It went something like this: All is calm in The Enchanted Village and - at last - bright. The Christmas trees have finally gone up above the houses in the square. The lights are on and everyone’s at home. It may well stay that way if any more snow comes our way. Cut off from everyone, except ourselves. A very merry Christmas to you, wherever you are. That's about it. Love Maddie x ...However , I get home in the dark from a hard day's work. The tree above the Grigg hovel is flashing like something from New York's Times Square. 'We've had complaints,' says my neighbour Mrs Bancroft, the owner of a beautifully arranged Christmas tree on the corner of her house. The tree is a wonderful shape and the lights are perfect. Just like her. As I stand gawping in the square, Mr Grigg pulls up from five hours of shopping in my kind of town and a swift pint in the only free house for miles around. 'What...

It was all building up to a crescendo. And then it came. Deep and crisp and even. For the past few days, we have been up to our necks in snow. Across the land, we're feeling The Grinch's icy pinch. Oil stocks are running low, trains are being cancelled and freezers are being raided for fruit and veg sensibly put in during a summer glut. We made our way to a carol concert at the Big House, walking along the snowy driveway. Brushstrokes in a Brueghel painting, illuminated by a waxing gibbous moon. Mr Putter sang his longed-for solo when Caruso threw him a verse for We Three Kings, with Caspar landing in his lap, at the last minute. There was a round of applause when he finished, in time and on tune. And then the concert we had all been waiting for, practising for, singing for, was cancelled. So it was off to the pub for scampi and chips and an impromptu folk session featuring Ding Dong Daddy and friends, including the 2010 international solo jig champion. As the dancer bounced up...

As the choir sits down to its Christmas meal in the pub, Caruso, with festive hat at a jaunty angle, fumbles around with his music. ‘I think it’s time we had a song,’ he says. Quick as mustard, Mr Putter steps up to the podium, rapidly dishing out photocopied sheets bearing the immortal words of Donald Where’s Yer Troosers . We all join in, much too low, and Caruso’s face is like thunder. He was thinking more along the lines of a tuneful The Holly and The Ivy in rounds. The pub rapidly empties of customers. We fear people with tickets for the concert at the weekend might soon be asking for a refund. And then, like a saviour, Caruso redeems us all with a beautiful rendition of William Butler Yeats’ poem, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven , in song. Mr Putter makes an emotional speech about how much he has enjoyed our singing evenings, expresses his deep love for Caruso (but not in a weird way as he squeezes the knee of his fragrant wife) and we all applaud. Caruso th...

As the lights twinkle in towns near us, just prior to them all shorting out on Christmas Eve, the Enchanted Village is preparing for its own illuminations. The lights on the Christmas tree on the village green are so far holding out against the teenage vandals. There is a hidden power source within the folds of the tree’s green skirt, which reaches down to where the ley lines cross. In the next week, the trees will go up above people’s houses, their white lights chosen carefully to enhance rather than detract from the cluster of listed buildings in the square. On the outskirts of the village, a house is bedecked with flashing santas, eager-looking elves and jumping snowmen all jostling for attention. At the other end of the village, an inflatable reindeer and an incongruous Mickey Mouse in wizard’s costume wobble up and down, ready to deflate when the power goes off via the timer switch in the night. In the early morning, the air will pump back through the reindeer’s plasti...

For the last few months, the gazing from my window has been less frequent as I knuckle down to another office job. Not for me the joys of walking the dogs while the village children skip to school. These days, I head out in the dark with two panting spaniels and a dodgy torch from Lidl before driving off to workland. So I find myself at the office Christmas party, surprisingly sober, and watching the dramas unfolding around me: acres of flesh on display, flesh that would be better housed under a nice little bolero jacket, legs up to armpits and people who usually wear glasses suddenly small-eyed and slightly scared looking as they witness the spectacale in contact lenses. There is pent-up passion, hands-on knees-under-tables, a look, a glance, sighing, raised voices, ladies bopping wistfully to Dancing Queen and someone from IT getting up to applause for Sex Machine. I smile inside, above all this predictable chicanery. I excuse myself and go to the ladies, where colleagues are ye...

Christmas is on its way. The Enchanted Village's version of Last of The Summer Wine is huddled under the teenage shelter drinking coffee and eating toast. There's Mr Champagne-Charlie with flat cap on as Foggy, Mr Sheepwash with wry observations on life as Clegg and Mr Grigg and Nobby Odd-Job doing a double act as Compo. Nobby is wearing the Compo hat but Mr Grigg is wearing the Compo mouth, stating the crude and obvious. They are on the village green, putting up the Christmas tree lights. The power comes from a hole in the tree - magic, see? - where the Punch and Judy man normally plugs in his microphone on village fete day. The Enchanted Village mist swirls as Celebrity Farmer and his father meet each other on tractors where the ley lines cross in the square. They wave to me as if it is quite normal for me to be walking across the square in a colourful apron and carrying a tray of spotted coffee cups. Next to the village pump, a white van has broken down, and there are ball ...

As we traipse down a snowy driveway to the Big House, our thoughts are on a poignant funeral service for a friend. A cold church, puffs of steam coming from people's mouths and noses as they sing Amazing Grace , a floral tribute that says 'Mum', a tolling bell and memories of a feisty, fun and pint-sized woman loved by all who knew her. The church is packed with villagers, in big coats and warm hats. They stand in the pews: Caruso, Princess Peach, the Popes, the Parson's Daughter, Nobby Odd-Job, Mamma Mia, Mr and Mrs Sheepwash and Mrs Bancroft. There is Night Nurse beside the Loveliest Lady in the Village, there is Posh Totty and Mr F Word and Camilla and Mr and Mrs Putter. The church is so full that Tuppence and Ding Dong Daddy and his wife have to sit in the choir stalls, just steps away from our departed friend. She leaves the church to a soundtrack of sobs, sad faces and Leonard Cohen singing Hallelujah. It is the first day of advent, a time when our thoughts are us...

The snow is compacted underfoot. It crunches as I walk along the lane towards the Sheepwash house. A little wren perches on their door knocker and hops around, as if she is desperate to get in from the cold. Up in the field, sheep scrabble around in icy grass. One of them has a bramble attached to its back. It is hooped like the skeletal framework of a nativity angel's wing. Children in beanie hats, thick coats and scarves pad along to primary school. In a few years' time they will discard their winter gear and insist they're quite warm enough, thank you very much, as they shiver to big school in short skirts and thin tights. The school bell rings and all is calm again. There is an eerie silence in The Enchanted Village today. Cars pull up outside the shop, the drivers get out and then get back in again when they realise it is closed as a mark of love and respect for the funeral of our shopkeeper. She was plucked from us far too early. Black cars line up around the square, ...

So there we were, swimming up and down rather leisurely, in an indoor pool all to ourselves and bathed in soft blue light. The Book Club girls on tour, enjoying the hospitality of Darling Loggins who is still living in her rented cottage on a campsite on the coast while her wooden house takes shape on the hill back in The Enchanted Village. Outside, the skies were clear, sprinkled liberally with sharp constellations: the eyes of Cancer, the horns of Taurus. Up country and down in Cornwall they've had snow. But here in Dorset we had one of those beautiful, cold winter days where the sky is blue and the light seems like it's been imported from Photoshop. In the sauna, we got fired up and pulled apart the book we'd been reading ( Sister ), all agreeing we were either irritated, puzzled or underwhelmed. Which was reassuring, because you never really know if people are on the same wavelength as you. We dined on vegetable curry and pears poached in cider, compared books-we-have-l...

Jupiter shines like a beacon in the southern sky. There is an eerie halo around a waxing gibbous moon. This circle of ice crystals disappears as the clouds make way for the moon to throw its ghostly light across fields and hedges. Bright stars are revealed, studding the heavens like sparkling eyes. Lyra and Cygnus, Cassiopeia and Andromeda. Mythical names in faraway places. We are tiny. Specks in a massive universe. The Enchanted Village is still tonight, in mourning for two good souls who are no longer with us. Our wise neighbour, Gandalf, once so active and skilful, who gradually became old and weary and was ready to go. Every time I walk in my kitchen I see him in my mind, fitting my cupboard and plastering a wall when he was eighty years old and running around like a man half his age. And then the sad, sad passing of our shopkeeper, a woman not much older than me, who died suddenly on holiday. She was far too young to go. A serene, kind person, a hard worker who did not deserve to ...

It is cold and frosty in The Enchanted Village. This morning, ribbons of mist lie in the valleys like trails of whipped-up egg white. And tonight, the nymph statue that welcomes visitors to the village ought to be wearing a hat, scarf and gloves. Up at the community room, Mr Putter is reprimanded for a tuneful burst of Where have all the young men gone. Caruso makes a knife motion across his throat and shouts: 'Cut!' It is choir practice night and Mr Putter is feeling confident. Mr Grigg, who has only been to one singing session and is still to be convinced he has a decent voice, is away. Night Nurse is scolded again for losing her place, while I forget a dotted note and someone else is blamed for the clashing of voices. Sometimes it is good to be teacher's pet. 'I remember performing at The Albert Hall,' Caruso says, 'I was singing Haydn's Creation . The old dear next to me was singing Handel's Messiah .' He raps his harmonica and calls for order....

A peal rings out from the church bells. Their song is echoed by a ghostly refrain, perfectly matched. The half-muffled bells call to each other as if from two sides of a valley, a yawning chasm or from green hills far away. It is Remembrance Sunday, the day when we remember those who gave their lives for their country in times of conflict. In The Enchanted Village, it has been grey all day before darkness descends. In our ancient church, the elders line up in dark coats, with poppies on lapels, and prepare themselves for this sombre ceremony.  They sing hymns of remembrance, reflect in silent prayers and listen as the names of village men from two world wars are read out, chanted like a litany of lost souls. Up in the bellringing chamber, a bugle player waits, patiently, for his moment. For The Last Post and Reveille . On my wall, a picture of my ANZAC grandfather and his best friend, both in uniform and smiling at the camera as they pose in the photographer's studio ju...

A cow gives a high pitched bellow in the dark and the haunting sound echoes across the valley. The long note is similar to that of the hunting horn played by the landlady last Friday night. But it is more forlorn, like a cow on market day that missed the chance of saying goodbye to its calf. It is cold in The Enchanted Village. There is ice on the inside of car windows and the smell of woodsmoke is thick in the evening air. The street lights spread a false smile in the village centre, while the outskirts are dark, frosty and wintry. Wrapped up in the cosy Grigg hovel, I am cheered by a surprise visitor, a Sheepwashlet on my doorstep with two eggs, one still warm. Just what the doctor ordered. Smelling of Vick's vapour rub and with a chest that hurts when I breathe in, my spirits lift when I think back to Caruso's singing class last night. Accompanied by Mr Grigg - for one night only - I am greeted almost with applause by the rest of the choir, who are sitting in a horseshoe fac...

The winds roared through the night, as the window were lashed with heavy rain. This morning there are puddles everywhere. A thick, brown gilet of sycamore and beech leaves lines the windscreen and bonnet of a parked car, keeping the vehicle warm until it awakes. The weather held out for bonfire night and the skies around The Enchanted Village were a riot of colour as Mr Grigg set off rockets with names like 'Explorer' and 'Goliath'. As well as our own village do, the posh people up the road pitched in, with fireworks even bigger and better than we commoners could afford. Over the hill, the sky lit up from north to south, from east to west, with flashes of light accompanied by loud booms. For one night only, World War Three had been declared. And in the pub and several pints of cider later, Mr Putter led a small table in a singsong, starting with Donald Where’s Yer Troosers . Mr Grigg lowered the tone, with a cheeky rendition of Adge Cutler and The Wurzels' Twi...

A tattered St George’s flag ripples on top of the church. It is early morning and a regiment of rooks descends on the stays of the flagpole, sinister, like something from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds . The pink-tinged clouds signal the arrival of Homer’s rosy fingered dawn and The Enchanted Village awakes, twinkling lights coming on up and along the valley to a theme of The Planet Suite on my iPod. Autumn has well and truly arrived. At Halloween, candelit pumpkins grin in the windows while children dressed as vampires, skeletons and ghosts tour the village in packs, pouncing on sweets thrown from the doorways like pigeons after crumbs. At Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie’s, a bumper parcel arrives, stashed with fireworks. These are the ones Mr Grigg and his pals will be setting off on Friday evening to celebrate Bonfire Night. The crowds will be thronging the square, queuing up for burgers and hot dogs, going ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ in all the right places when Nobby Odd-Job and Mr Sheepwash ligh...

The rooks are doing merry dive-bombing dances in the fields, catching a thermal here, taking it to the next level and then spiralling downwards. The trees are red and orange and yellow and green, orange and purple and brown. Crab apples underfoot, a perfect imprint of a sycamore leaf on the bonnet of my car and pink-tinged clouds at sunset. Later, I venture from the house and make my way to Mrs Putter's for the first meeting of our new book club, with six hand-picked handmaidens as members. I call in at Mrs Bancroft's but there is no-one at home. I peer through the letterbox to see a pair of pumps at the foot of the stairs. But there is no sign of their owner. Has she spontaneously combusted? I venture on, hoping to meet Pelly at the end of her lane, because I have forgotten my torch. Living in the floodlit square, I forget how wonderfully dark it is on the village's edges. As I tiptoe past Bellow Packman's so as not to wake the goats, a security light goes on and I...

This Sunday, we say goodbye to British Summer Time, an annual occurence that causes no end of chaos in The Enchanted Village. To find out why, please take a look at my guest post on Smitten by Britain . That's about it. Love Maddie x

In The Enchanted Village, we are enjoying the strong light of October, the month that is to winter what May is to summer. The early morning frost sprinkles like fairy dust from passing Land Rovers. Wood smoke rises from the chimneys as we crunch through brown beech leaves. In the afternoon, cows graze under Flemish landscape painting skies and at night, a waning Blood Moon holds court over an impressive Orion and ever-present Plough. Oh, the joys of autumn. That’s about it. Love Maddie x

Up in the village hall, Mr Grigg is clearing away the debris from a party to celebrate Tuppence's birthday. A few weeks ago, she almost lost her eyesight. But last night, she was up on stage, a tiny woman with a big voice, belting out numbers and starting the first of two sets with Cockney Rebel's Make Me Smile . And there were smiles all round. Some of us have been through tough times lately, and are still going through them. But the illustration by Jules Feiffer on Tuppence's party invitation says it all: If the devil could have cast his net on the dance floor last night, he would have killed off my blog in one fell swoop. We were running the bar and in among the bohemian creative types (with fascinating colour combinations, fab hair and Doc Martens), there was Nobby Odd-Job, Pelly Sheepwash, Mrs Bancroft, General Custer, Farmer Mayfield, Mamma Mia and Night Nurse, Old Ding Dong Daddy and all, old Ding Dong Daddy and all. We took bets on how many times a drunken M...

We're just back from the Ionian after the worst weather in 20 years and Number One Daughter decides to go into labour as my neighbour Mrs Bancroft gives us a welcome home party with five other blog characters. Our phone doesn't work, Number One Daughter has to call in the reserves for babysitting duty for Number One Granddaughter and then valiantly gives birth to the biggest baby I have ever seen. 'Golly,' my mother says. 'It's an elephant.' Well, no, it's Tilly Honey, eight pounds and 14 ounces, with beautiful rosebud lips and a huge pair of lungs. Big sister tomboy was disappointed - she'd wanted a boy so she could call it Ron Weasley. But we are all thrilled. Maybe this one will like pink. That's about it Love Maddie x

As my resourceful Odysseus - Mr Grigg to you and me - makes sure our boat is watertight,  I am longing to be home. I am in the Ionian - see here - and the rain is pouring down like a patio water-feature set on high-speed. We have had thunder and lightning so loud and bright it could have been Zeus sending us a message from on high. We have family who need us back home and I am desperately missing The Enchanted Village and all its comings and goings. Even in paradise, things are not always as they seem. 'There is only one place to be when the weather is like this,' I say to Mr Grigg. 'Where's that?' he says, writing his daily log boat in the shelter of the cabin. 'Home.' That's about it. Love Maddie x

Join me on a journey to the centre of the earth and a hymn to Delphi, ancient and modern. Visit my occasional blog, The World from my Porthole , for the latest leg of our Homeric voyage in the Ionian in which Mr Grigg meets a real-life Python. I think you'll like it. See you shortly. Love Maddie x

Calamity and woe has hit The Enchanted Village in spades over the past few weeks. My dear friend, Tuppence, has just come through a frightening experience and is thanking her lucky stars for the gift of sight, which she so very nearly lost. She has now been visited by a joyful army of ladybirds, late visitors to her garden, who have popped in to wish her well. Here's to a safe recovery. Up the road, the partner of another dear friend is nursing broken ribs after a nasty fall. Down the road, Mrs Pope, that village stalwart, is painfully recovering from sciatica and has barely moved from her chair for the past few weeks. Then there's Pelly Sheepwash, nursing a terribly bad back while her get-up-and-go has just got up and gone. I am hoping Tuppence will look out from her window and see Pelly's get-up-and-go safely returning along the lane, led by a battalion of butterflies. It will be arm-in-arm with Night Nurse's freedom-from-pain,which I hope comes soon. And then the Log...

More often than not, my camera is with me everywhere I go. Oh what images I could show you of The Enchanted Village: the Loggins’ log house as it takes shape, the Sheepwash abode, Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie playing croquet on their manicured lawn or Posh Totty's rear-of-the-year on a very fine hunter. I know you were probably hoping for a picture of Posh Totty on horseback. But Mr and Mrs C-C's legs, croquet mallets and a small table of nibbles and G&Ts will just have to do. Only a toff could get away with trousers that colour. I love taking photos although I prefer painting pictures in words. It’s what I do. The only tools I need are my little notebook, a pen and an eye for the absurd. However, I was drawn to a photography competition advertised in a national newspaper. It was organised by Photobox and the theme was Around the World in 80 Days . I’ve never entered a contest like this so I put in several pictures from my travels in Australia and New Zealand earlier this ...

Sea views, paper thin walls. A band of happy, suited and booted Baptists on a weekend away wander through the hotel. Fifty-year-old Mods zoom past on a scooter rally to Woollacombe. Fred Perry shirts, Doc Martens under half-mast Levi's. Long, wistful looks at Lambrettas and Vespas. Those were the days. Mr Loggins and Darling, bodyboarding in wetsuits in between the flags on the acres-long shore of white sand. Mrs Sheepwash going into raptures at a springer spaniel puppy running and laughing along the beach, all the time looking back to make sure mum and dad are still watching. This is The Enchanted Village annual outing. Some 32 people of us are on tour, Lush Places gone large. Out to settle old scores with a team from Trowbridge, Wiltshire. Canteen catering, plenty for seconds. And thirds. Plates piled high. Chips on the seafront, £4.50 for parking. Mr Grigg buys me new shoes because he's left my hiking boots at home. Or so he thinks. A walk up the hill, Manual and M...

As I write, it’s a mad scramble to get things done before heading off on the annual weekend trip to North Devon. In years gone by, there would have been a charabanc pulling up outside my house, filled with cloche-hatted ladies and men with moustaches and a kite-tail trail of freshly-scrubbed children flying (securely attached) in its wake. But today we’ll be heading for the seaside under our own steam, with some taking their time while others - like me - will be rushing. It’s the first time I’ve been to this weekend event, organised by Manuel and Mrs Regal Bird, and I’m not really sure what to expect. We’ve been told to pack our swimming costumes (striped, knitted bathing suits) and hiking boots (hobnails) and be prepared for fun and organised games. Ooer. I’m not much of a participant, more of a watcher, so this could be very interesting. In the meantime, I will leave you with the following titbits that have come to me via the Enchanted Village’s jungle drums. Each of them...

It's fungus foraging time in this part of Dorset, with crocodiles of woodland treasure hunters trudging up to Bluebell Hill armed with baskets, a reliable guidebook and a heart full of hope. They are searching for the penny bun, the name we give to the Cep , that most prized of mushrooms, which lurks on the forest floor beneath ancient beech trees. As country children growing up, my four siblings and I stuck mostly to field mushrooms on the farm, cursing the townies for getting to them before we did. These days, the Sunday and Saturday supplements are bursting with tales of forages and forays, as if everyone's doing it. Last year, I was lucky enough to go with a friend on a fungus foray with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's expert John Wright, who knows a thing or two about mushrooms. He wrote the excellent Mushrooms: River Cottage Handbook No 1 . You can hear about our foray here . John is as delighted with a close-up inspection of a tiny orange toadstool sprouting from a cow...

As I gaze from my window across the square this morning, the white-sand 'beach' installed outside the village shop is blemished. Splatters of scraped-up cow dung stand out like a pimple on a clear-skinned 90-year-old. Mixed in with tyre prints and oil from leaking radiators, the beach installed by the council to denote where cars can park could do with a tidy up. Luckily, today is the day of the Great Dorset Beach Clean. Unluckily, The Enchanted Village is just a bit too far inland. Eight miles too far. This week the council came to paint a 'No Entry' sign on the junction outside the pub. Not to stop the boozers going in but to prevent vehicles driving the wrong way up the one-way street. The traffic lights secured for the occasion had been found in the props department of an Ealing comedy. When they were green, the cars came through from the other direction and when they were red you were expected to proceed with caution. As one female driver waited patiently at the re...

When we got wind that a major film was being made in west Dorset last year, it was the talk of The Enchanted Village. We were to be the epicentre, twixt Yetminster, Salway Ash and Blackdown where many of the scenes for Tamara Drewe were filmed. A house we passed every day suddenly had a new fence. Not just any new fence, but a wibbly-wobbly, rustic-style fence. It looked like something from Babe . ‘Why would anyone put up such a stupid, hideous fence?’ my friend Pelly asked, before we realised this was the location for the ‘writers’ retreat’ run by central characters Beth and Nicholas Hardiment. And then the trailers began to arrive. Cars and vehicles parked under an electricity pylon in the middle of a field. The Tamara Drewe Circus had come to town. There was money to be made, deals to be struck. Celebrities wandered through Beaminster, flash cars drove through our lanes and a catering truck paid to park on the village allotments. There was swooning from period drama fans ...

On the afternoon walk, there are shiny conkers on the ground, disinterested sheep in the field and shots being fired across the valley. The dog limbos under the gate to greet three walkers by growling and barking at them. This is unusual, because Bertie is usually quite polite. Then I recognise the rabbit-in-the-headlights look of one of the trio and realise the last time we met he was canvassing for my vote in the General Election. It is Oliver Letwin, closely followed by a tall friend down for the weekend, who is trying desperately to get his phone to work. 'Fat chance, mate,' I say in my head. 'The Enchanted Village is a signal-free zone, as any fule kno.' I then realise the very tall man is no fule, he is Charles Moore, one-time editor of The Sunday Torygraph, The Daily Torygraph and The Spectator. I smile because I am more civil than my dog, which jumps in the stream and then comes out shaking water all over them. Just up the lane, I spy Pelly Sheepwash...

I am turning into a girly-girl. This is worrying, because for as long as I can remember I have been an ardent feminist. I used to get very indignant as a child when the rag doll Looby Loo secretly cleared up after Teddy and Andy Pandy had retired, knackered, for a sleep in the picnic basket. Why would she even think of doing that? A few years later in the 1960s, however, I was a real Miss World fan. In our tiny primary school, we used to play Miss World in the playground. I was always a Scandinavian contestant who, although blonde and beautiful, disgraced herself by tripping over. I thought it added a bit more character, a bit more interest, to the role. I didn’t think the two viewpoints were mutually exclusive. You could have beauty as well as brains and I always went for the underdog. Girl power. What I didn’t like was the traditional perception that a woman’s place was in the home where she looked after the children and did the housework. And nothing else. That independent s...

This evening, I tear in from work, take the dogs for a tour around the maize field, stop off to give Pelly Sheepwash a cashmere scarf of turquoise blue, then ring Mrs Putter (a new face on the blog) about a book club she and I are going to run this autumn. Both book lovers, but nothing too heavy ( War and Peace brought me the onset of early labour resulting in Number One Son 21 years ago), we've decided to experiment with the circle of six. The rest of the club consists of dear Mrs Bancroft (I love her), Pelly (of course), Darling Loggins (who scares me, just a little bit) and Mrs Champagne-Charlie (who, I hope, will be in charge of liquid refreshments). So Book Club begins next month but not before Mrs Putter and I get together to discuss ground rules later this week. It is our idea, after all, so what we say goes. Anyway tonight, Mr Grigg comes home from work, accompanied by Mr Loggins whom he has found loitering outside. I have no time for chit chat, there is a pan of bro...

From my window, you can see the village square. It isn't typically English in the traditional sense - there is no market cross in the middle. But we have a village pump that people gossip around, a shop, a pub, a red telephone box and a village green behind a picket fence. The square is bounded by old cottages, mostly dating back to Victorian times but, in the case of the Grigg hovel, the crick frame inside indicates its 16th century origins. There is a plaque on a cottage wall commemorating the visit in 1651 of a king on the run from the Roundheads. It is an interesting square, a focal point, and many of the buildings are listed. You have to jump through various hoops in triplicate before you are allowed to carry out alterations. And quite right too. However, if you are the county council, you can do what you like. In recent years we have had modern street lights that look like the monsters from the War of the Worlds movie. The lamp posts start in the square and then march down t...

As the swallows preen themselves, making last minute preparations for their flight south, the water gurgles and burbles down the street. A burst main, ignored by the water board. Across the road, the new water feature behind the gated gravelled drive of Monty Chocs-Away echoes in frustration on its endless, tinkling cycle. It yearns to be free like the youthful tributary in the road. I walk through the hayfield and pick up the last hay of the season, freshly turned. I put it to my nose, breathe in deeply and smell the last days of summer and the early days of my childhood. In the next field, the maize is as high as an elephant's eye and the path through it is unfamiliar, sinister, until you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the gateway down from Bluebell Hill and beyond. Every which way but loose. It is a like a scene from Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Any minute, I expect a crop dusting plane to appear from nowhere as Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint burst through the m...

We arrive back in The Enchanted Village as night falls. Along the way we see wisps of woodsmoke and take in its lovely autumnal smell as it rises up out of clusters of chimneys. It has been another night of hospital visiting. Things are slowly improving, a fleeting smile on a face where before there was only terror. I will write about it some day. But not here, that is for another blog. As we draw up outside our house, the church bells are ringing down after the weekly practice meeting. I meet Champagne-Charlie and his dog in the square as they come back from supper in the pub. Mrs Regal Bird is chatting to another bell ringer and Mrs Bancroft comes down to my doorstep bearing a tub of clotted cream for late night scones. Mrs B is on a high. A first in the 'buttonhole for a gentleman' category at the village show. All I managed was a highly commended in the photographic section, an official 'well done for trying', for the most boring of all my pictures. The biggest priz...

As I prepare my photographic entries for the village show tomorrow, I can see from inside that outside there is a rain soaked sky beginning to turn blue. The phone rings. It's a neighbour. 'Go outside,' they say. 'There's a rainbow.' 'And?' I reply, pretty non-plussed. 'It's upside down .' Sure enough, there is a prismatic smile overhead. So what's all that about? That's about it. Love Maddie x

Mr Grigg has has a bad day. One of the people he loves most in the world is very ill. He comes home, weary after hours of sitting helplessly next to a hospital bed. This evening, he is due to be main man at the party our fund raising group holds every year to say thank you to all our helpers. He picks himself up, dusts himself off and starts all over again. It is the best tonic ever, and no gin required. As we sit around the hall, wearing sparkly outfits, pens and bingo cards on tables, Mr Grigg walks in with a pair of black, glittery wings strapped to his back, a present that had been set aside for the grand daughter. Tonight, Matthew, he becomes bingo caller for the evening, operating a very noisy toy machine made from plastic. 'On its own...16,' he calls from the stage, much to everyone's confusion. 'Two fat ladies...76.' 'What?' yells Mamma Mia from the back. 'Top of the shop...soixante neuf,' Mr Grig shouts, with a schoolboy grin. The vice-chair...

It’s my birthday today and it’s raining. It never rains on my birthday. There’s a time and a place for everything. The seagulls are swirling inland, caw, caw, cawing, far away from stormy waters. The rooks dive-bomb a hovering buzzard and a passing car crunches an ambling snail. My mother recalls this moment 49 years ago when she went out to the cowstalls at six-thirty, to take my father his morning cup of tea. A short while later, she bedded down in our front room and gave birth to me, the youngest of five (and only one of them a boy) at a quarter to nine. When my father came in for breakfast the midwife told him he'd had another daughter. Family folklore says he turned round very quickly and headed back to the cowstalls. But I was the youngest and spoilt rotten. Brown eyes like coal and nicknamed ‘Sausage’ because I was so deliciously fat. I was a terrific sulker who would dive under the nearest table if I didn’t get my own way. I once poured milk into the Roberts wireless becau...

A blanket of mizzle smothers The Enchanted Village.  Pairs of grumpy jackdaw babies, feathers ruffled, huddle on chimney pots. Swallows, trying desperately to be cheerful, swoop low to the ground in search of food. They dart in and out of the damp cattle, attempting to stir up some frivolity in the misty rain and peasouper fog. Along the road in Trumpton, the weather has washed out fun day. It is doubtful the Red Arrows will be seen in the greyness, even if they miraculously managed to put in their planned appearance.  Down in My Kind of Town, carnival organisers are looking to the skies in advance of tonight's procession. Their hands are outstretched. They are saying 'why?' Over the hill, Doc Martin and Men Behaving Badly star Martin Clunes is anxious for tomorrow. For the past year, he and his family have been planning their horse and dog show at Buckham Down. It raises thousands for the local hospice and comes complete with funfair and squid tent run by the Riversi...

A rat the size of a bulldog has been shot dead on a Bradford council estate . Word is, the creature - dubbed 'Ratzilla' by The Sun newspaper - could be descended from the coypu, a large rodent native to South America. I'm sorry Bradford, but we've got a rat the size of a flat-coated retriever   in The Enchanted Village . It's more like a capybara than a coypu . And it's getting bigger by the day. Champagne-Charlie has been lying in wait for the monster from the safety of the garden shed while he keeps watch over the Sheepwash hens. Mr Grigg and I dismissed the tale as something told by a big game hunter who's had one too many gins. But C-C is adamant. 'It was about this long,' he said, doing an impersonation of a coarse fisherman who's narrowly missed landing a 5ft pike. 'Not only that, it had three little babies trailing in its wake.' Not just a capybara, then, but a bloody pied piper. Yeuch. That's about it. Lov...

There are a few things I dislike in life. Bureaucracy, bad manners and the destruction of natural beauty and the built environment are three of them. I am a girl in love with her surroundings. It wounds me deeply when things are changed and not for the better. Well my three pet hates have just happened here in The Enchanted Village, right under our noses. One day, while no-one was looking, two council workmen turned up and installed six bollards in front of the listed building next door. It now looks like a mini-version of Avebury. But unlike the mysterious stone circles of that famous Wiltshire village, this one is a semi-circle of the black plastic variety. This is a village square with historical features that include an old pub, a commemorative plaque, a village pump and a red telephone box. It is quintessentially English. Mrs Champagne-Charlie, who is so lovingly restoring the house, wailed: 'I can't believe they can just do that without telling anyone. If they had to do i...

The Perseids meteor shower - here's how it went . The link takes you to my friend's Real West Dorset website, where I have blogged under the Lush Places banner. How was it for you? That's about it. Love Maddie x

Today as I walk the dogs, there is a real what I call ‘a Melplash Show morning’ feel to the air. Our local agricultural show is always at the end of August and it coincides with the slight chill and morning dew that signals the onset of autumn. The hedges are damp and smell of vegetation, decaying yet fruiting all at the same time. There are muddy puddles that sparkle with a splash of anticipation as the sun comes up. A hot air balloon drifts slowly, noiselessly, effortlessly across the Enchanted Village. It is a Ray Bradbury story, but not Something Wicked This Way Comes . It’s called Something Very Good Is About To Happen . I love the summer but I don’t mourn its passing. I embrace the autumn, the change in the seasons, the constant life cycle that reminds us it’s good to be alive. We are here only fleetingly but we are stardust. We are golden. Tonight and tomorrow I will be trying to persuade Mr Grigg to come with me for an evening of adventure that will start just after midnight. ...

As I sit here, the most beautiful piano music is coming from the stereo. I wish you could hear it: it's got a gentle, rising melody, sad chords and builds up to a hopeful and happy ending. It sounds like a film score. It was composed and played by Dudley, who was buried yesterday in the village churchyard. As the many mourners filed out behind his coffin, I picked up one of his CDs that his family requested people to take. They were astounded at the turn-out of villagers. 'We didn't realise he knew so many people,' his cousin said.  It was a typical Enchanted Village day, with that misty mizzle swirling through the rooftops and in and out of the church gates. 'Do you know?' I said. 'He had his problems but we all loved him. He was Dudley. We'll miss him.' The church was full of the great and the good, villagers, eccentrics and even a tramp, who had scrubbed up well for the day. He looked bewildered as he gazed out across the pews but here...