The world from my window

This day is becoming quirkier by the minute. At breakfast, Mr Grigg tells me as an afterthought: 'You know that Census thingy? Well, I put you down as a Jedi.' And then this afternoon, Mr Scruff leaves a comment on my Oldest Swingers in (Camden) Town blogpost. How cool is that? That's about it. Love Maddie x

Mr Grigg and I emerge from our front door into the Square. Next door and across the road, other people are doing the same, like a mass version of one of those weather predictors where the little old man with the umbrella goes in and the little old lady with the parasol comes out. We are on our way on foot to Lady Friend's house, The Willows, where the blogroll guest list includes Nobby Odd-Job, Ted Moult and Jamie Lee, Tuppence (dear, sweet Tuppence), and an unaccompanied Mr Loggins, whose wife, Darling, is on the London march protesting against the cuts. 'Good for her,' I say, when the arch-Tory Mr Grigg complains. We amble up the road with the lovely Mrs Bancroft, Night Nurse and Mrs Champagne-Charlie, with her husband bringing up the rear because he has a bad case of wind. We are treated to a sumptuous help-yourself meal in equally sumptuous surroundings. We could be in an advert for Interiors magazine. The first surprise of the evening is the rare sight of M...

Twelve years ago, I was invited to a school reunion. It was a strange experience, catching up with people I hadn’t seen since I left the school of hard knocks in the birthplace of powered fight in 1979. It started in the working men’s club that had recently been ravaged by fire. The paintwork was charred and there was still a sort of burnt smell in the air. I was hugged by the school bully, chatted up by the boy who had rejected me when I was twelve for having no personality and then Dancing Queen blared out from the disco next door as the formerly closet gay came out in all his glory. We moved on to gatecrash a party at the rugby club and the boys and girls who went out with each other at the age of thirteen ended up smooching to Lionel Richie on the dance floor. As the lights came back on, we all decamped to a friend’s house where the school swot lit up a joint. Through it all, I was totally sober and well behaved (unlike when I was at school where my quiet, studious side...

It was a super moon and it was in Virgo, my star sign. And as I drove around the country lanes in search of my school reunion venue, I wondered what this big pizza pie of a moon had to do with me. A cosmic awakening, a reconnection with the earth, a breakthrough? It grinned down on me, and I thought of all the things that had happened to me today. A mass decorating session at our village hall, eight hours of painting with a roller and brush amid a sea of magnolia. Sitting down to lunch with twenty others and literally watching paint dry. Then a quick scoot around the field with the spaniels before every man and his dog descended on us for the England v Ireland rugby match. The doorbell kept ringing, and still they came, until thirteen bodies crammed into the Grigg hovel to watch the game. The sedate ladies were in the kitchen, chatting about this and that while I sliced the potatoes. The fragrant Mrs Putter, Pelly Sheepwash, Mrs Champagne-Charlie and the lovely Mrs Bancroft wit...

I get a phone call. 'Have you seen what's under the windscreen wiper of your car?' Pelly whispers. 'No,' I say, phone under chin as I walk out to the front of my house to have a look. 'Well, you might want to,' she says. It's only another empty wrapper of a bondage starter kit, devoid of its advertised contents of whip, nipple clamps and chain. I extract it, quickly, before anyone else sees it. I look around to make sure no-one is filming the scene. Until I find out who has placed it there, everyone is under suspicion. That's about it. Love Maddie x

So there we were, rocking all over The Enchanted Village Hall to five vicars singing I want to be break free by Queen. With a flick of a wrist, their dog collars were off, discarded for the evening as a collection of grey heads and people the wrong side of 50 whooped and hollered. Earlier my neighbour, Mrs Champagne-Charlie, muttered that it all seemed a bit like community singing at an old folks’ home and then guffawed when she saw my attire and prodded her husband with her elbow. ‘Oh,’ Mr Champagne-Charlie said, doing the mashed potato to I'm a believer. ‘Where on earth did you get those?’ ‘You can cut your sarcasm,’ I said. ‘You’re hardly in a position to mock, with your toff’s trousers the colour of calf scour. This, dear neighbour, is the rock chick look.’ Because Mrs Bancroft had arranged for Dogs Without Collars – five Dorset clergymen – to appear for one night only in aid of the three parish churches. And my job was to look after them. ‘Sorry,’ I said, when...

It's Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent. General Custer, he of the face carved out of Mount Rushmore and last seen loitering in the pub doorway smoking fag after fag, is reputedly in Rio enjoying Mardis Gras. We picture him on his back in the middle of the road, a smile on his face after too many Tequila Slammers and gazing gratefully upwards while scantily clad Brazilians dance all over him as they make their way ever onwards in the parade. Feels like heaven. Heaven, meanwhile, is a place on Earth for Mr Champagne-Charlie who goes for £8 worth of pick-and-mix before we pile into the Yeovil Cineworld for an early evening showing of True Grit . 'Fill your hand you sonofabitch,' he says, reaching for the licorice comfits. 'That's a hell of a statement for a one-eyed fatman,' I retort. Mr Champagne-Charlie is neither one-eyed nor fat, but it seems the right response. The two of us are Western fanatics. In the auditorium, he pours scorn on the shot fired by Rooster...

They descended like locusts on the remaining copies of Half of a Yellow Sun . I started a stampede at The Enchanted Village quilting group when I told the assembled ladies I had a few books to give away. Hands shot up and there were chants of 'mine, mine, mine.' I emerged from the ensuing scrum shaken, a bit tousled but none the worse for my ordeal. I handed them out at the village post office, to the girls from the book club, to some intellectual types from a PR agency and to work colleagues. I posted them to my four siblings and to my mother. It was a great feeling. That's about it. Love Maddie x .

It was the instruction: ‘bring a wheeled suitcase, a trolley or a strong friend’ that worried me. Here I was, chosen as a ‘giver’ for the inaugural World Book Night on Saturday, and illegally parked on a yellow line outside The Book Shop , Bridport, with my boot open for any old car jacker to jump into. I rushed in. ‘OK, I’m here, let’s go,’ I said, sounding like Bodie (or was it Doyle?) from The Professionals . As if by magic, the owlish bookshop proprietor, looking like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn but without the fez, peered over his spectacles and said: ‘Oh, it’s you.’ He pointed to two large boxes of books. ‘There you are. Half of a Yellow Sun wasn't it?’ ‘Mmmm, yes,’ I said, not sure whether I should be basking in the glory of what seemed an intellectually challenging book choice or admitting I was on the reserve list and was happy to have anything. Twenty thousand passionate book lovers are giving away a million books this weekend. I had been hoping for a thin tome, maybe Al...