The world from my window

They call Corfu The Garden Isle. It is lush and green, even at this time of year when the sun is baking hot and visitors and locals dive into the sea to cool off. Gerald Durrell described it as The Garden of the Gods. You could imagine them strolling around, plucking an apricot from a tree and cavorting with nymphs through the olive groves, a Hellenistic pastoral romance, where everything in the garden is lovely. Of course, it's Greece and everything in the garden isn't lovely. Times are hard, politicians are 'dirty' and ordinary people struggle to keep their heads above water. And it's in the cities where they feel it most. Here on the island, there are people we know who are pleased to have a job even though they're getting way below the minimum wage. In the villages, people cultivate their patches of land and live a life more simple. The ground is fertile here and fruit and vegetables grow in abundance. Our own plot of land is yielding aubergin...

When we moved into this house on Corfu, the first thing I wanted to know more about was the bookshelf. The house we are renting belongs to the family of a successful author, you see, and I was curious about what books would be in her Corfiot library. Especially when I discovered that, years ago, she lived in the next village to mine in Dorset. Maybe it was an omen. If I sat in her chair on a daily basis between eight thirty and one o'clock in front of my laptop, her writing prowess would rub off. Having said that, when I went up to Mount Olympus last month, armed with pen and notepad with a view to reaching The Plateau of the Muses and the height of inspiration, I was thwarted by bad weather. Mr Grigg and I had to turn back within earshot of the Muses playing snowballs with the gods. Huh, I thought. Another sign. So close and yet so far. However, who can fail to be visited by the muse in this environment? The birds are trilling, the sun is shining, the primary school ...

When the young Gerald Durrell and his family moved to Corfu in 1935, it didn’t take him long to get to grips with the local wildlife. It absorbed him so much, the boy grew up to make a career of it. Not only did he write My Family and Other Animals , he also founded Jersey Zoo and became a champion of the underdog. Two months into our Big Fat Greek Gap Year, and I have also become very close to the local wildlife of this beautiful island. I’ve been stabbed by a palm spike, bleeding like a stuck-pig and stung by a jellyfish. To top it all, a noisy family of edible dormice has moved into the attic. Bless them, they’re nocturnal so think nothing of starting a game of acorn billiards just as Mr Grigg and I are about to nod off. We’ve witnessed the conception of a litter of puppies while trying to eat a stifado outside one of the village tavernas, been woken by the sound of dogs, geese and turkeys every morning and been adopted by a ginger cat who thanks us for a cha...