You can ring my bell. Or perhaps not.

Here in the UK, we're having a bit of bother with our doorbell.

It's decided not to come out to play.

'Your doorbell doesn't work,' said our neighbour, Mr Champagne-Charlie.

'We know,' we said.

'You'd better get it fixed,' said Mrs Bancroft.

So we fixed it. And then it stopped working again.

So we went into B&Q to see if we could get a replacement. For forty pounds, we could have a wireless one that played everything from Vivaldi to the Colonel Bogey March. I quite fancied the idea of the latter blaring out and giving it large when Mr Champagne-Charlie next pressed the doorbell.

And then I read some of the reviews and decided it was probably not worth having a new doorbell at all. There's something to be said for being unavailable.

On Sunday night, Mr Grigg sat in the dark splendour of our hallway next to the wood burner, waiting for our neighbours to call for us.

'It's no good ringing the doorbell,' Mr Champagne-Charlie said to his wife and Mrs Bancroft outside. 'It doesn't work. Anyway, they can't be in, because the lights are off.'

So they left and didn't bother to knock.

A few minutes later and there was a persistent hammering on the door. Mr Loggins and his wife, Darling. We half expected a cry of 'bring out your dead'. They don't take no for an answer.

So we opened the door to a howling gale and a wind chill factor of about minus ninety. Oh to be back under blue Corfu skies again, how ever cold the locals think it is there.

Anyway, Mr Grigg has since taken the bell apart, cleaned off a dirty contact and now it's working again. A simple ding dong, said in a dignified manner rather than Leslie Phillips style.

But the bad thing is we can no longer pretend we haven't heard it.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x