The world from my window

'And they're off!' the race commentator announces, as eight assorted terriers tear up the field after a stuffed thing on a piece of string. Junior wins by default, as Mullet, Holly, Rascal and Rivet get two feet past the starting line and decide to have a fight. We're at the terrier races, an event that's been going for 37 years and just up from the road where I was born.  Now I've completed my OU studies, I have time on my hands so I suggest to Mr Grigg we head for the hills to find out what it's all about. Amazingly, this is the one event not to be featured in any Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall programme. And in amongst the plate smashing, the hoopla and tombola, and a commentator who is wearing a red jacket, top hat and a new pair of teeth for the occasion, I see glimpses of my past. People who were at school with me stroll around with cobweb tattoos on their elbows, baseball caps at jaunty angles and gobble up fat hot dogs washed down with a ...

We are back from our travels, despite Mr Grigg’s best efforts. When we reached the airport, he realised we had left our passports and tickets in a bar on Corfu Town’s sunny Liston. ‘I’ll go back and get them,’ he said. ‘You go on ahead.’ But I couldn’t go on ahead because I didn’t have a ticket or a passport. So I sat, like Paddington Bear, with my luggage waiting for my man to return. Times are hard but ordinary Greeks are an honest bunch, even if their politicians aren’t. The document wallet was safe and well. So Mr Grigg was able to roar back across town, drop the hire car off and still do the Easyjet Strut and be first on the plane. Back in Blighty and driving from the airport to home, I had a strange feeling in my stomach which had nothing to do with the tube of Pringles and Sprite I'd had for my supper. ‘Have you got the front door key?’ I asked Mr Grigg. ‘No, I thought you had it.’ Much searching later, we pulled into a Travelodge twenty minutes from home, not ...

This morning we scrabble around for the electric kettle after turning off the Aga. This might not seem a very exciting first sentence to a blog post but there is a point to it, believe me. Mr Grigg finds the lead, sprays me with water as he attempts to fill the kettle up at the sink while I'm peeling potatoes and then goes off in a huff to see his dear old mum with an orchid after I tell him off for whistling tunelessly to the theme from Gladiator . Peace at last. I contemplate a pottering kind of morning, preparing a family buffet while listening to music as loud and tuneful as I like. Today it is the stirring tunes of Hans Zimmer. It is Mothering Sunday, it is my day and I get to choose the music. 'My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.' I put the ...

With the threat of the debtor's prison lifted, life seems a little more rosy these days. The wall has come down and the room that was once my office will soon reverberate to the sound of a crackling log fire and Film Four. True, little things like replastering, decorating and a new carpet have all to be sorted out and paid for. But it will happen. Of that I am sure. We rounded off the weekend with the most superb piece of venison I have ever tasted. The haunch was supplied by one of my colleagues from the Death Star and not only was it beautiful to eat, it was also very cheap. Which always helps. I cooked it in the Aga atop roasted root vegetables and with a lemon and rosemary marinade, mingled with beef stock. The meat was so succulent, I may never watch the film Bambi again without thinking about it. Had I known when I first watched that film how good venison tasted, I probably wouldn't have cried when Bambi's mother got shot. The nymph could do with a bit more clothing. ...

The new girl is settling in at last. But the council offices still feel like the Death Star. I expect to see Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader having a fight over the central staircase at any minute. I keep having these visions of black-suited corporate types turning into stormtroopers. Two things made me smile: One, a male colleague went to the loo and saw a chap rather ungainly drying the crotch of his trousers with the hand drier. A quick explanation apparently followed, but the suspicion is perhaps this is how this man gets his kicks. Two, an illicit mobile phone conversation going on in the loo cubicle next to me. The lady was trying to be all lovey-dovey. And then I pulled the flush and her secret location was revealed. Toilet humour, you can't beat it. Meanwhile, back in the rural idyll, the Aga has gone out again - blown out by the wind - and Mr Grigg has been asked to read a lesson at the carol service. He is highly honoured, although I got in first last year. It all went ...