The world from my window

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...