The world from my window

I've just had the most delightful morning at Cricket St Thomas , speaking about Maddie's World to People's Friend readers who were on a five-day break at the Warner's leisure hotel in Somerset. Maddie's World is the one I inhabit in Lush Places and which I share news from each week in my column for the magazine. I was hoping to take Mr Grigg with me but he's busy in France, although currently tucking into a rather nice pizza in the bar just down the road. Pelly Sheepwash was otherwise engaged so I took The Angel of the North along for the ride as well as moral support. I introduced her several times as I got into my stride, telling my audience about myself and my family and pets, why I wanted to be a journalist (it was the film His Girl Friday and the character of Hildy Johnson played by Rosalind Russell. Who could resist her sense of style and wit?) and, then, what they really wanted to hear, all about Lush Places. The burning question was where exactl...

I'm back in my old haunts, up on the hill, dog walking when I make an interesting discovery. I haven't been up here for months but  I vow to thee my country that I'll get back to my old routine and do this early morning walk at least three times every week. At 28 kilos, Arty certainly needs the exercise. And me, at ahem I prefer not to mention but said quickly in imperial measures is at least a stone too heavy, well, I need to exercise too. It's late summer and the children are still on holiday but ready to go back to school soon, with new uniforms, shoes backpacks, sandwich boxes and pencil cases all to shop for this week.  (It always irritated me immensely that high street stores insisted on 'Back to School' displays as soon as the children broke up for the summer. How dare these commercial types spoil the magic of holiday time. Talk about pressure.) This morning, it's quiet on the hill until the rain starts dropping in ever increasingly large spl...

As the clocks went back, so did we. A wild old ferry crossing was predicted as we headed across the English Channel back to my beloved Dorset after twelve, adventure-filled months in Corfu. I felt like Odysseus. Would our friends in Lush Places be held captive by new 'suitors' eating them out of house and home? Would Mr Grigg lash himself to the mast as he listened to the Sirens' song? Would we have to go through various tasks before being accepted as the rightful heirs to our home? No Scylla or Charybdis crossed our paths on the journey home from Corfu. No cyclops outwitted us, no witches turned those close to us into pigs, although on Calypso's Isle we were tempted to stay for more than just a year. This time, it was an interesting, but, thankfully, uneventful trip home. We stopped in Italy outside Faenza...     In the Italian Alps...   In France...   At an old school friend's...   And not far from the ferry...  ...

With less than two months before our Big Fat Greek Gap Year comes to an end, we begin to think about all the packing up that needs to be done and the journey home. We also think about ways we can make these twelve months away turn into another year, but without the homesickness. Ideally, I would like the best of both worlds. A foot in Agios Magikades here in Corfu and a foot in Lush Places back in Dorset. But it's a long stretch and I've never tried doing the splits. I'm working on it, though, believe me. This village has everything. Beauty, friendly people, warmth in heat and warmth in spirit.   And we've seen it through autumn, winter, spring and now summer. What an experience. It's been incredible. You couldn't get a better and more conveniently situated village on the whole of the island. Twenty five minutes on a good road into town and five minutes by car to the sea. Three good tavernas which are open all year round and the most e...

There is a place near my Dorset home of Lush Places where the fairies live. I've blogged about it before but I am not going to say where it is because these things are enjoyed best when they are exclusive and magical and not advertised to the world and his wife. This is not Disney, it's Dorset. It is a lovely spot, with dozens of fairy doors to be found at the foot of sturdy trees. And when you open a door, there are often things left behind for the little people. This sprang to my mind last week when I was introduced to the world of Geocaching . According to the website this is a treasure hunting game where you use a smartphone or GPS to hide and seek containers. The containers can be all shapes and sizes and concealed behind rocks, on posts or ingeniously inserted into hollowed-out pine cones. Once you find the geocache, you can sign the logbook and see if the last person to find the hidden container  has left anything behind. If you take it, you need to leave some...