The world from my window

The world rushes on around me. We have Indiana Brown on his Last Crusade dealing with the fallout from his very silly ' bigoted woman ' remark (only the penitent man will pass Gordon, and you've still got the leap of faith to go), and politicians of all sides queuing up to have a pop at the weary leader. Meanwhile, in Greece, the economy is in tatters and Germany holds the purse strings. But as I walk my dogs this morning, a sound fills me with such joy I know that, whatever happens, all is well with the world. The unmistakable voice of the cuckoo. Her call has not been heard here for years. It makes me smile. The cuckoo flowers are washing the fields with drifts of pink, the bluebells are coming out on the banks and in the woods. And the swallows and house martins dart in and out of the square, chattering as they go. A pair of Brent geese flap by, pointing out places of interest along the way. All we are waiting for is the ceremonial unveiling of the bronze nymph who welco

The sound of church bells echoes out across the still, evening air. The six bells break out into a run of Whittington , named after the call by Bow bells to the medieval merchant, Dick Whittington: 'Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London...' It is bell ringing practice night in The Enchanted Village and the novices are improving. I was one once, and never really progressed from call changes. The weight of the bell terrified me as did its potential to inflict huge damage. I had visions of the bell crashing down through into the ringing chamber and enveloping me for eternity. But I did like being in direct touch with history, making a sound with an instrument hundreds of years old. Now, though, I am content to hear the ringers from the safety of my own home, listening through the world from my window. The sound is different from yesterday, when a steam engine trundled through after stopping at the stream outside Posh Totty's house to take on water. The noise was enough

I don't believe it. Me, a one-time-almost-hunt-saboteur as a teenager, in the sponsors' area at the annual point-to-point races. We have a stunning view of the racetrack, the paddock and it's just a short stroll to the bookies' stands. I am not quite sure how I managed to get into this ringside position, with the hampers and champers, picnics and shooting sticks. The toffs' trousers - red and calf-scour yellow - the Dubarry boots and the ties and pullovers. It's not what you know, it's who you know, and with Mr and Mrs Champage-Charlie as chaperones, no-one bats an eyelid. The point-to-point, you see, is run by the local hunt. I am a rural child but I am not a hunt fan, although my views have mellowed over the years, partly in reaction to an urban government imposing its will on its country cousins. So I justify my attendance as an observer, aided by my camera and notebook rather than aniseed spray. On the first race, I place a very small bet o

One of our village luminaries, Ding Dong Daddy, has just been interviewed by Channel 4 News. It was a pretty terrifying experience, he says, but sometimes passionate people just have to do these things. Bizarrely, he was sitting in front of a cake shop, the sun's rays bouncing off his head, and a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. He was talking about Folk Against Fascism, a very visible and vocal campaign to kick into touch that political party of hate, the BNP. Because, even more bizarrely, the BNP is claiming folk music as its own. BNP leader Nick Griffin claims to be a Kate Rusby fan and last year the party used a song called Roots as a soundtrack to a video on their website. It was written by Steve Knightley, who used to be a school teacher in Beaminster and is now one half of the folk duo Show of Hands. He was not amused. Neither is another West Dorset-based musician, Billy Bragg, whose home town of Barking is being hijacked by the BNP. So now, with the General Electio

Hop, skip and jump across to my other blog Manor from Heaven . This glorious slice of Dorset has won fourth place in a top ten list of great British gardens. The man who compiled the list must have visited on a day I wasn't manning the till, otherwise he might just be complaining to her Ladyship about being overcharged... That's about it. Love Maddie x

Bugger me, that nice Mr Letwin has just knocked on my door, asking for my vote. Does he not know I've been accused of sedition by one of his most ardent supporters in this village? 'Hello, I'm Oliver Letwin,' he says. And I nearly say 'Yes, I know, although you look different without the horns, moustache and specs.' But I don't. Obviously. 'Can I count on your vote?' he says. 'Well, at least one half of the household,' I say. 'Your husband? Are you wavering?' he says. 'You could say that,' I say, and then blurt out: 'I think you're a great constituency MP' as if I've got George Clooney on the doorstep. Mr Letwin smiles sweetly. He is a very nice man, even if he did write the Conservative Party manifesto. I shuffle, we both look embarrassed, the clock strikes thirteen and a tumbleweed blows past. Just as I wonder what to say, the frozen-moment chasm is filled by the UKIP ice cream van going by, flags-a-waving,

It's election time and the West Dorset countryside is awash with huge blue posters for our incumbent Tory MP, Oliver Letwin. Here and there, you see the odd splash of orange - a quiet, polite hoorah for the Liberal Democrats - but nothing at all for the others. I don't even know who our Labour candidate is. I'm aware, though, that our local Green Party candidate is a very gentle-looking Mrs Greene from Sherborne, who will probably get my vote for having the most appropriate name. Politics is a personal thing. In the Grigg household, we don't talk about it much, as Mr Grigg and I sit on opposite sides of the fence, waiting for it to topple over. He has never forgiven an old flatmate who completely ruined his Edward Du Cann sign by altering two letters in Cann and then stuck the poster in the window. Mr Grigg was nearly done for obscenity. Over the years, there have been some inspired defacing of political signs. Oliver Letwin became LetwinD and outside the railway stat

The washing machine repair man came this week to fix the Hoover, one-year-and-one-month-old and out of warranty. Parts are free for five years but labour is not, so when the thing suddenly sounded on the spin cycle like the Hadron Collider, we made some calls. As the one-year warranty was up, the only thing we could do was take out insurance there and then, at a cost of around £130. This, we were told, would pay for the labour, call-out and also protect us in future. It took nearly three weeks to be fixed. In the interim, I have been running across the road with baskets of dirty laundry, diving into my neighbour's house to use her machine while she was away. But there are only so many times you can avail yourself of such kindness. So, in the meantime, the washing has piled up. And this week, the Grigg household resembles a Chinese laundry. The repair man came from Hoover Candy on Tuesday. He was very sweet, with a lovely Westcountry accent and one of those rotund bodies only a Wee

I am still smarting at today's visit by the washing machine repair man. When I get over my quiet rage, I shall be blogging and then naming the post The Candy Man Can't. In the meantime, please hop across to Manor from Heaven for pictures of Dorset gardens in early spring. That's about it Love Maddie x

A young man in a suit supervises the children in their pretty dresses and best trousers. They screech around the village green, jumping on and off swings, rattling through the play fort and whizzing down the slide. The bells ring out across the square and the sun beats down as people go to the shop for their papers and lottery tickets while guests in their glad rags get out from their cars to go to church. A village wedding, and everyone has a spring in their step. Super Mario paints the outside of the shop, where the 'for sale' sign still hangs ominously on the corner. Mr Grigg and Mr Loggins drive by with Nobby Odd-Job's trailer, fetching bits of wood from the Love Shack demolition site. At the village pump, the long-lost figure of Larry the Landlord, now in exile in Sherborne, gossips with Ding Dong Daddy, he of the Imagined Village fame. Ding Dong's arms flail around wildly as if he is an orchestra conductor. In the evening, a safari supper around six houses, a gas

Hop across to Manor from Heaven for the latest update on glorious Mapperton. And if you could find your way to being a follower, I'd be eternally grateful. It may even mean a pay rise. That's about it. Love Maddie x

The sun is beating down in Mu Mu Land, bathing The Enchanted Village in bright light and glorious heat. I drop off Number One Son at the railway station with a snowboard the length of the Panama Canal under his arm. Cruising home in the Freeloader, driving through country lanes to avoid the main road and its stationary cars, The Mamas and the Papas are singing 'It's gettin' bedder..' while I do accompanying yelling on harmonies. A large Landrover Discovery approaches but doesn't appear to be slowing down. The driver seems to be an upper class twit in a flat cap. We edge past each other in the narrowest part of the lane. We are just about to do synchronised growling through open windows when I realise it's Mr Champagne-Charlie. 'I didn't think you were going to stop,' he says. 'I didn't think you were either,' I say. 'I thought you were...' Mrs Champagne-Charlie's voice pipes up from the passenger seat: 'An ass in a hat?

Down in the woods, the rooks are flocking around penthouse nests high in the trees. The muddy ground is covered in sloppy bird droppings and the spaniel hares off after a pheasant in the undergrowth. Across the field, the sheep huddle in one spot with their lambs, the chiffchaff chiffchaffs merrily and there is a great pile of badger's poo next to a goalpost on the sports field. The weather is spring-like today, which is a lucky omen for my friend, neighbour and wise counsel Mrs Bancroft. She arrives home today after a five-month trip taking in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and America. The front of her home is alive with tulips, narcissi and violas. It could have been so much different. Mr Grigg was planning to put up a To Let sign outside the house while I constructed a requisition 'letter' from the Home Office to attach to Mrs Bancroft's front door. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and it certainly is down this street. We simply ran out of time

Last night, I went to the Marine Theatre at Lyme Regis to see Guy Masterson's show Under Milk Wood . It was a wonderful one-man encapsulation of the comedy, sadness and lyrical beauty of Dylan Thomas's radio play. The dreams and nightmares of ordinary people in a small town, wishes that will never come true and memories of the long-dead. It is a book I remember well from school, where we read it in class and I was always cast as Polly Garter, with her dress up over her head having babies. It has been in and out and around my brain for years: 'And before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its shoes.' My own Enchanted Village is a bit like Llareggub, with its own versions of Ocky Milkman, Dai Bread and his two wives, No Good Boyo, the Ogmore-Pritchards, Organ Morgan, Willy Nilly the postman (he knows the contents of all the letters he delivers) and the long-suffering Mr Pugh, who fantasises about murdering his dreadful wife. As I write this, Mr Grigg has just popped next