The world from my window

It's back to the future as we prepare to leave Singapore for dear old England, if the gale-force winds allow us to land. Singapore: clean, spacious, well-managed, traffic-flowing, entertainment island, party- until-you-drop, old buildings like Raffles, new buildings that look like spaceships, Chinatown, Little India, black pepper crabs, smiling natives, tourist buses, river boat cruises and the gorgeous taste and smells and colours of all that food. Plenty of Singapore noodles but no time for a Singapore Sling at Raffles, Pondside, as your English double, Mrs Bancroft got there first. However, a trip to Vancouver - maybe to visit the Canadian rellies - could be on the cards... It's been an amazing trip and we're not home yet. That's about it Love Maddie x

On our short road trip on New Zealand's North Island, we spot a giant kiwi nibbling the grass on a distant hillside. We drive through the Hobbity hills, where every vista looks like The Shire. We stroll through the eggy stench of Rotorua, missing the Lady Knox geyser's daily eruption by 15 minutes. We go down to the glow worm caves of Rotorua by rope, and get through by potholing, blackwater rafting and then rockclimbing out. We have had hardly enough time to draw breath, let alone do New Zealand justice. But we've certainly tried. On the excellent girls' day out prior to the wedding, where guests have a chance to meet each other, we battle 48 knot winds to reach Tiritiri Matangi island (the Maori name means buffeted by the wind) while the boys' fishing trip is called off. They sit around in a bar called Carpe Diem while the girls, ever the adventurers, soldier on, encountering rare birds including one straight out of The Dark Crystal and another, the bride's ...

Hi there... Haven't blogged in ages but so much has happened on our Antipodean adventure, and much of it without the aid of the internet. Since my last post, Mr Grigg and I have been Waltzing Matilda in Sydney, driving up the coast to Brisbane sampling the delights of the Hunter Valley, looking at the Richmond Valley sugar cane fields through the expert eye of a Somerset farmer who emigrated out here in the 1940s and exploring the sub-tropical rain forests. And the highpoint? Finding remnants of my great-uncle's life, with a TV series of his adopted town in the offing. Though, sadly, not from my pen but the creators of the Australian version of TV's Heartbeat , who obviously spotted the potential of Rappville, north New South Wales, before we got there. A one-horse, one-track, one-railway track town screaming out for a movie based around it. And in the screenplay I will never write, my great-uncle will be played by Eric Bana. Anyway, more of that later. Today, Mr Grigg an...

Belly boarding on Bondi, Mr Grigg says he does not need the board because his belly is big enough. The waves greet me like the famous scene from The Perfect Storm . I have a fear of being underwater that goes back to a time when I was saved from drowning at Instow, North Devon, as a child. So I slink back to the beach to watch the beautiful people go by. We are staying with The Fit Family in a cool Art Deco apartment building. Bondi suprises me because the residential areas are so green and shady. The city is like that all over, I realise, when I take in the view from the Sydney Tower. I look out across to Centennial Park, where at Sydney Showground my grandfather enlisted in the ANZACs nearly 100 years earlier. This is a holiday about the past as well as the present. Lord and Lady G near Noosa, My Beautiful Cousin and the Twins in Adelaide, The Fit Family in Bondi, Mr Grigg's cousin - officially Australia's Laziest Man - in the sleepy coastal community of Harrington up the coa...

In the migration museum of Adelaide, there is a verse by Mary Thomas, an emigrant in the 1800s: Yes, England, I have fled from thee Fast fades thy beauteous shore then flow my tears, for I shall see my native land no more In 1964, my father's brother took advantage of the assisted passage scheme and left Somerset for the heat of Adelaide, South Australia, as a Ten Pound Pom. He has returned several times since - for holidays - and the last time I saw him was twelve years ago. It is a hugely emotional experience for me to meet him and his family on the other side of the world. He walks out on to the pavement from his front door and playfully asks: 'Who's this then?' I hug him. I can feel the tears running down my cheeks. After 45 years or more, he hasn't lost that lovely and soft Westcountry burr. He tells me about my grandfather, who was an ANZAC and fought at Gallipoli in the First World War. He tells me about my great uncle, who left in the 1920s and never came ba...

In Hong Kong we take a $2 dollar tram to the end of the line and back, just because we can. Black trams, red trams, green trams, purple, advertising everything from insurance to jewellery sales, trundle around like a real-life theme park ride, with us on it. We pass The Sincere Insurance Building, the HSBC building with its very English Landseer-like lions either side of the entrance and then the Bank of China with guardian lions of the ancient imperial variety. It is the lead-up to Chinese New Year and there are red lanterns everywhere, in between The Honest Pharmacy, The Hong Kong Jockey Club betting shops, Vodafone, Reebok and Clarks Shoes, Dolce and Gabbana, De Beers, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Sam Choy Printing and the Ying Kee Tea House. The noises are man-made: traffic stopping and starting, over-revved double decker buses, taxis honking and the rat-a-tat-tat of the pedestrian crossings where the arrival of the green man is signalled by what sounds like a frantic toy monkey on a ti...

Well, it's been a month since my last blog. And after saying I was never going to blog again, three things have happened: * I feel guilty because so many people tell me they miss it * I just saw the film Julie/Julia * I'm in the most incredible place right now So while the world from my window is as misty as ever, it's not Crowman I see going into the village shop for fags and beer or even Celebrity Farmer for a loaf of bread or Mr Grigg for a Ginster's pasty. Outside my window, on the 23rd floor, I can see lots of human ants scuttling around below. A sea of Chinese faces on the underground, all of them different. In the land of the very short people, Mr Grigg, at 6ft tall, is king. We are in Hong Kong on our way to Australia and New Zealand to see family, friends and go to a wedding. It's also a bit of a personal quest - Australia is the place to which my mother and father nearly emigrated in the 1960s, I nearly emigrated in the 1980s and it's the place where ...