The world from my window

Looking around the house, the tree is up, the lights are twinkling and the cards are on display. We've come off one friend's Christmas card list, and not because they're saving paper. It's a bid sad, really, but if it's a small victory to them and makes them feel better, than I'm okay with that. I love Christmas cards and I love bumping into people in Lush Places dashing all over the village as they deliver their festive messages. Despite rancour and division, this is a time for goodwill to all. It's a time for kindness, happiness and being thankful for all we have. It's also a time to think - and do something about - those less fortunate than ourselves, whether it's in a hands-on way or something as simple as donating to Crisis at Christmas or giving your winter fuel allowance over to Dorset Community Foundation who will find someone who really needs it. The lights are on the trees outside, it'll be Midnight Mass this evening and, af...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Lush Places. The trees are up above our doors and the lights are due to go on officially this coming Saturday, although I've thrown caution to the wind and switched mine on already.  The lights are warm white, more's the pity. You see, I have once again bottled out of following my non-conformist heart and gone for coloured ones. My lights may be warm white but in an act of quiet rebellion I've already got them on, several days before they are supposed to be. On Saturday evening, the vicar will throw the switch of the giant tree on the village green and then all of us will sing  We Wish You a Merry Christmas  before scuttling out of the cold and into the pub for mince pies, mulled wine and Christmas carols. Meanwhile, my little tree, with its wispy tail of lights across the front of my house, will be saying triumphantly to the rest of the spruce bunch, 'well, I beat you to it. I've had a whole week to shin...

The Christmas lights are on in the Lush Places Square and, so far, there have been no complaints over the garishness or otherwise of the strings of illuminations up on the trees above our doors. In previous years, there have been mutterings over flashing lights or ones now quite fitting the 'warm white' brief. Four years ago, the pub put up a tree which looked a bit like something else when lit up at night. I won't say what, you'll just have to jump to this link from way back when and see for yourself. This year, the pub is looking very festive, with Betty and Bob, the two gnomes that stand in the front windows, dressed in full Santa gear, looking rather like yuletide Yodas either side of the door. Up on the village green, the fir tree and its pretty lights sway in the wind, an advent beacon for the darkest time of year. On Saturday night, out in the cold, DJ Landlord from the pub did the honours and counted down for the big switch-on, and the other trees arou...

It's a squishy kind of day here in The Enchanted Village. The rain wafts in sheets across the fields. And the trees on faraway Bluebell Hill roar as if their branch-lungs might burst. Cow tracks become rivulets, with water charging down the hill to meet the stream far, far in the distance, each droplet declaring the last one there is a sissy. Wellington boots are a must. And this is not the time of year to discover you're got a leak. Wellies just ain't what they used to be. Rainy mist covers the village where the workmen's vans jostle for space as the days of their owners are spent building, renovating, plumbing and scaffolding. Yesterday, the cattle moved through the Lush Places village square to pastures new. It was a fair old feat, this, the farming family providing an escort at the front, back and sides of this skittish procession. "What you doing up there? shouted the patriarch from his 4x4 as I struggled to open the upstairs window to ...

In the fields, the skeletal trees march along the hedge to tell us winter is here in Dorset. There are children snaking their way up, two by two, to the village hall for their last rehearsal before their Christmas play tomorrow. Cars, vans and lorries have to stop, just for a moment, to let the embodiment of our collective future walk across the road to the steps up to the village green. It's a lovely sight - the children, I mean, not just the halted traffic. In the hall, the festive decorations have already been put up. And around the village, there are spruce trees above front doors, ready for the big switch-on at the weekend when the honours will be done by the vicar to a live soundtrack of Christmas carols before everyone packs into the pub for mulled wine and mince pies. Choir practice is taking place for the church carol concert in a few weeks' time and the shop has had its Christmas shopping event. There's been a supermoon hanging low in the night sky...

Back from Colombia, weary, jet lagged and minus a suitcase, we pay a fleeting visit to North India, courtesy of a Bollywood Night at  Bridport Electric Palace with the mighty Dhol Foundation . It's the launch of the town's first-ever Winter Solstice Festival, which I've helped to organise. Tonight, it's Billy Bragg with Grace Petrie and Whatever Happened to the Protest Song?  It's sold out, so I hope I can get in. The loud and joyous music of The Dhol Foundation is a tonic to the ears and tired bones. There is nothing to do but smile and dance and show off a henna tattoo I had done on my hand by a very beautiful and gracious young lady in the foyer. I'm fifty-five and have never had a tattoo, henna or otherwise, in my life. I like it. Mr Grigg and I must visit India next. And get tattoos. It's been a busy old year, travel-wise, with trips to Budapest, Madeira, Iceland, Dublin, Corfu, Sicily and Colombia. Phew. In hindsight, it was too much rea...

It's morning and the town square is buzzing. Not as much as it was last night, mind you, when there were stalls, music and plenty of rain. Today, there is a large cockerel crowing in the ramshackle garden next to my hotel. A caged bird sings five notes, over and over again, and not necessarily in the right order. The smell of coffee wakens visitors from their slumber. A new day begins. Here in Salento, Colombia, the town is making the most of Advent. At night, this little place west of Bogota, on the verdant coffee growing slopes of the Andes, literally lights up. There are candles in the most inspired cardboard holders in front of shops, bars and houses. Strings of white lights delineate doors and window and a decorated palm tree stands in the middle of the square. In the church where I light a candle for family I have lost, the nativity scene is resplendent with sparking lights, a little town of Jerusalem covered in tinsel. Christmas is coming. Out in the hinte...

The smell from the hallway has disappeared. But there is an even worse one in the loo. I had to ask Mr Grigg if he'd had a poo this morning. He had, but nothing he's eaten lately could smell that bad. It's like a dead rat. Under the floor. I keep spraying air freshener around and pray to God no-one visits us in the next 24 hours. Because we only have the one loo and I can hardly say, 'sorry, if your name's not on the list you're not coming in'. Last year we were up to our navels in Christmas party invitations. This year, nothing. It's either the credit crunch or nobody likes us. So we are throwing ourselves into organising a traditional old English Christmas with the local mummers' group and a folk band put together by a local record producer. It could be interesting - tickets are selling fast. It's the most exciting thing that's happening over Christmas. I don't even feel festive yet. And I know for sure that when we put the lights on th...