The world from my window

As the clocks went back, so did we. A wild old ferry crossing was predicted as we headed across the English Channel back to my beloved Dorset after twelve, adventure-filled months in Corfu. I felt like Odysseus. Would our friends in Lush Places be held captive by new 'suitors' eating them out of house and home? Would Mr Grigg lash himself to the mast as he listened to the Sirens' song? Would we have to go through various tasks before being accepted as the rightful heirs to our home? No Scylla or Charybdis crossed our paths on the journey home from Corfu. No cyclops outwitted us, no witches turned those close to us into pigs, although on Calypso's Isle we were tempted to stay for more than just a year. This time, it was an interesting, but, thankfully, uneventful trip home. We stopped in Italy outside Faenza...     In the Italian Alps...   In France...   At an old school friend's...   And not far from the ferry...  ...

After the mother ship's arrival on the quayside, I am sitting on a Superfast ferry, ploughing through the Adriatic towards Ancona, Italy. It might be superfast but it will still take seventeen hours to get there. Luckily, Mr Grigg upgrades us from aircraft seats to a proper cabin. Nice one. Our big fat Greek gap year has come to an end, our last day spent in the village watching the world and his wife go by. Our ox-strong neighbour is chopping wood, Canadian George stops for a chat with a scrumped bag of mandarins. And the Albanian handyman gives us a salute as he strolls by with his strimmer. The purple school bus 'Michalis 1' disgorges its secondary school passengers as a new stray dog trots off to sit near some English people who are eating at a taverna table. We tuck into village sausage, moussaka and Greek salad at Elizabeth's as the  accountant comes home from work in his big four by four, the errand boy shuffles past in bright green trainers and t...

So we joined a convoy of cars, hooting and tooting down from the village, out along the main road to Corfu. We passed the hospital, honked the car horn loud enough for great aunt to hear and wound through the narrow lanes, tooting as we passed joggers and receiving waves and shouts from people in their gardens. We were part of a wedding - a real, big fat Greek wedding - and it was the experience of our year. We've been lucky enough to have been 'adopted' by a wonderful family in our Corfiot village and for this we'll be forever grateful.   During these past twelve months on this grown-up gap year, we've missed two big weddings of friends back home in the UK in Lush Places. But we made up for it at the weekend. First, there was the traditional party on Thursday, where the newlyweds' bed was strewn with rice, rose petals and, more importantly money, to the sound of gunfire outside. And then we danced. And then on Saturday we put on our...

I can't believe how quickly the year has gone. This time twelve months ago we were stuck in the mist in Jura, France , waiting for a spare part to arrive to mend a broken-down car. I argued with my insurance company which claimed I had no breakdown cover and I argued with my husband. I felt like I was on the road to nowhere. I hated my car, I hated my husband and, most of all, I hated myself for ever thinking a grown-up gap year abroad could ever work. I was homesick as anything from day three and I hadn't even gone through the Mont Blanc Tunnel. Still, after a few glasses of local wine, a nice meal and a good soak in a hot bath, I was ready for anything, particularly when VW Heritage came through with a new dynamo and the insurance company admitted it was in the wrong. Since then, Mr Grigg and I have continued to argue with each other, patched things up and struggled with our lack of Greek. We've made friends and no enemies, we've laughed, cried, swum...

Coming home soon. That's about it. Love Maddie x

Over the years we've lived in West Dorset, we've very often come home from a day out to find a pheasant or two hanging from the front door knob or a couple of freshly gutted rabbits lying on the step. Bags of beans, courgettes, apples, plants, jars of produce - what goes around comes around. A case of share and share alike. In our Greek village it's no different, even though we're still new here and the economic crisis is biting hard. We're given bags of produce, eggs, fruit, grapevines and cactus plants. We've been treated like royalty at the panygyri, with food and wine brought to us on plate after plate. A fight's almost broken out in the plateia over who's going to be the first to buy us an ouzo. The generosity of our neighbours at home and abroad never ceases to amaze me. That's the way of village life, although there are those who insist you reap what you sow. It's about leading a simple life and doing as you would be done by. ...