The world from my window

Back in Blighty after a bit of a staggered journey - a stopover in Athens and then again in Watford - and the arrival of Number One Daughter's Number Three Daughter in Dorset. We were delayed by fog in Corfu and then worried about snow grinding everything to a halt in the UK. But we made it. We got here just in time to welcome Baby Ella (Number Three) and do the school run for Number One and then engage in battle with Number Two, whose favourite word is 'no', said very loudly. Nothing, said one of my friends, stops a mother on a mission. And by Zeus, was I on a mission. To be here and to be helpful. And, for once, I was. Since then, we've been stuck on snow in the dark on the A35 at the aptly-named Three Sisters, west of Dorchester, as we headed back after a hospital visit. And then, a few days later, we battled flood water and faced three diversions in the space of thirty minutes. And bloody Champagne-Charlie, our Lush Places friend and neighbour with whom ...

There was a storm on Tuesday night that threatened to turn our solidly-built house completely inside out. I was huddled up so tightly, I expected at any minute to see the jacaranda tree walk hand-in-hand through the front door with the oleander in a kind of Arthur-Rackham-meets-Edward-Lear-type moment. 'Give us shelter,' they would plead, as I fought off an inexplicable urge to tidy up the house before letting them in. Well, I wouldn't want them gossiping to the palm tree. I wouldn't trust him an inch. Rain poured through the end windows, drip-plop-torrent. The wind roared and whistled down the chimney in such a terrifying way that, for a split second, I turned to see the shadow of Mr Grigg and thought it was the convict Abel Magwitch from Great Expectations . I shuddered. And then the thunder cracked, splitting the sky in two after a great flash of light like an Olympian paparazzi ready to pounce on the world's greatest scoop. It rained and rained an...

 The church clings to its rock like a limpet mine on a ship's hull. There is a sense of danger up here in the clouds. Any minute now you could topple right over the edge. Nausea overwhelms you as you peep out over the sheer drop to the valley floor below. In the distance you can see Paleokastritsa harbour, the monastery and not Homer's wine dark sea but your own. And that speck on the beach, it's probably just a pile of debris washed up by the storms. But maybe, just maybe, it could be the ghost of Odysseus waiting to be discovered by Nausikaa . It doesn't pay to look too closely. There's many a slip... To the south is the village of Liapades marching up the hill and to the left the fertile plains of the Ropa Valley, with its gypsies and market gardens. Out across the olives and cypress trees there is Corfu Town, the old fort, the islands of Lazaretto and Vidos sitting in the water and, across the channel, the snow-capped mountains of the mainland and ...

The shadows are long now in Agios Magikades and it is chilly out of the sun. The men wear bobble hats to fight off the cold air while the women find thicker headscarves to keep their ears warm. Up on Mount Pantocrator , the summit is shrouded in mist. Out in the olive groves, the people are gathering up the olives that have already fallen in the nets laid out so neatly on the ground. They will take them to one of the olive presses in Vistonas where these black fruits of wonder will be converted into oil. Down at the school gates, the children are quieter on these winter days. They make for the classrooms as soon as they are dropped off, no stopping for fun and games in the playground before lessons begin. It is too cold for that. And still the geese honk, the dogs bark and an emasculated cockerel fails to reach the high notes. There are turkeys burbling, cats stalking through the long grass and the amplified voices of men selling potatoes and gypsies looking for scra...