The world from my window

I've just been out for a morning walk with the dog. This landscape always fills me with such hope and promise. Especially when you look down or at eye level to see the smaller picture. I've blogged about it here for  A Dorset Year . At the weekend I spied a dragonfly washing its face. As someone said after seeing this, if I'd had a more powerful microphone, you might have heard it singing I'm So Pretty . That's about it. Love Maddie x

The village square is on its knees. Tumbleweed drifts slowly by the old village stores, where the blinds have been pulled for a couple of years now. Across the road, the shop last used a few months ago by the church on Saturday mornings, as a gathering place for coffees and a natter, has its windows whitened out. The jackdaws gather. Ominously. And not a drop of water comes out of the old pump under the signpost. In a new development, the downstairs windows of the pub were boarded up on Monday. Six workmen waited outside for an hour until they could get in and seal off our hostelry from the outside world. In the last sixteen years, I've never seen that happen in between landlords (and we've had nine of them in that time). Let's hope it signals a refurbishment and not closure. We need our pub. In the meantime, the community spirit that is so endemic in this village is alive and well and living in the village hall. There's all sorts of stuff going on here...

Over on A Dorset Year , I'm enjoying the beauty in nature in a world gone mad. As my famous ancestor, Ernest Hemingway , would have noted, the sun also rises.  To read more, please visit A Dorset Year . That's about it. Love Maddie x

Over on A Dorset Year , I'm talking fly-tipping, longed-for snow and a big old moon. That's about it. Love, Maddie x

On the first day of the New Year, brave souls in fancy dress head for the sea at Lyme Regis in the now traditional ‘Lyme Lunge’, organised by the local Rotary Club, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. ‘Dip into the balmy waters of Lyme Bay,’ the promotional material states. You can almost hear the  Cadbury’s Caramel bunny doing the voiceover . But it’s cold in that there ocean. My brother swims about six strokes and then he’s out, like a flying fish. Rather him than me. Go to A Dorset Year for more. That's about it. Love Maddie x

I've been a little bit preoccupied of late so, until I write another post, here's a word from a friend of mine about A Dorset Year , which tells seasonal tales about the countryside in this neck of the woods. I'm really grateful to Nathalie for her lovely pictures. I look forward to the next nine months working with her in charting the story of this special part of England. That's about it. Love Maddie x

I've been busy blogging for A Dorset Year these past few weeks. The plan is to record the seasons in this part of Thomas Hardy Country over the next twelve months, with my French friend Natamagat , who takes the most delightful photographs. Although I was quite pleased with this one snapped on my phone. That's about it. Love Maddie x

Ancient folklore features in my latest posts for the website  A Dorset Year . For the first one, in which we ponder the fate of the 2,000 year old yew tree  in Lush Places, I'm joined by my new neighbour, the lovely Natamagat, who is helping me with photographs. You can tell which ones are hers. They're much better than mine, but then she is a photographer. In the second post, I'm surrounded by rooks and a solitary raven . Nevermore. That's about it. Love Maddie x

Take a trip across to A Dorset Year to see what's been happening today in Lush Places. That's about it. Love Maddie x

Hop on over to A Dorset Year for the latest news in Lush Places: recycling, Storm Frank and the pothole repair man. The excitement is just too much. That's about it. Love Maddie x