The world from my window

The wedding of the year has been and gone. And all is well. This was despite dropping the plug from the iron on my big toe as I was pressing the lapel on my linen coat, finding live nits in the flaxen curls of the four-year-old bridesmaid (Number One Grand-daughter), the dressmaker leaving a stitch where she shouldn't have in the wedding dress (discovered with minutes to spare) , Number One Daughter whipping the wrong wedding speech from her cleavage and then having to ad lib her way out of it and the Best Man joking that 'nothing sucks like an Electrolux, apart from the bride'. It was the only time I've been glad my elderly mother is hard of hearing. Number One Son looked the part as he led his big sister up the aisle, preceded by the fairy grand-daughter. I was proud of them but managed not to cry. Composure is my middle name. I got through the bit in my speech when I thanked the two substitute fathers in my daughter's life but welled up when I turned the spotligh...

The wedding is getting nearer. Number One Daughter is behaving like Bridezilla, stressed up to the eyeballs, thinking she's talking about people behind their backs but actually saying it to their faces, wittering about table plans, spray tans and eyelash tints and praying for good weather. The wedding coincides with Number One Grand-Daughter starting school (at only four years and two months) and the bridegroom going into business, on his own, in a recession. 'You can back out you know,' Mr Grigg, the snake, whispers to Number One Daughter's intended. Like a shot, Number One Daughter, with the ears of a bat, retorts: 'I keep telling him that.' Future son-in-law rather wisely keeps his mouth shut. My old school friend is paying me another visit tonight. The one whose partner is top-notch fashion designer Jacques Azagury . (Just look at the Diana pages on his website). I thought my plea from earlier in the year about having a little something from the cutting-r...

It has been more than a week since my last blog. When someone dies unexpectedly and leaves very sad and confused people behind, blogging - or my kind of blogging - just seems so very trite. But community life here in England's rural underbelly goes on. As I open the bedroom windows just before nine this morning, Celebrity Farmer's dad rolls up in his Landrover Defender, eases himself out of the driver's seat and shouts: 'Tis time you got up, Maddie.' I have, in fact, been up for a while but obviously not as long as Celeb's dad. He is a farmer, after all. Nobby Odd-Job, carrying a lavatory flush for no apparent reason, walks by and stops for a chat with MDF Man. A two-trailer cattle lorry jacknifes in the Square and there is pandemonium. My stint at the council Death Star finally came to an end yesterday. I bought a load of sweets, cakes and biscuits to say goodbye. The Stormtroopers turned out to be a nice bunch but public sector bureaucracy does my head in. I ...