The world from my window

So, bathing in the success of our Diamond Jubilee weekend, I start daydreaming about the Lush Places Concert: The Enchanted Village Festival. It is a daydream I have often, rather along the lines of Wayne's World 2:  'If you book them, they will come.' We can source a 45ft trailer and a community field to put it in. All we need now is the bands. The headline act would, of course, be our very own Imagined Village . Then we could have my nieces' old school friends, The Staves . They'd surely play, wouldn't they? After all, they were at the same childminder's. And then Stornoway . I've just found out that the parents of one of the founder members live in the village. A winning combination, I think, don't you? That's about it. Love Maddie x

And the big farm machinery rumbles through The Enchanted Village, big fat trailer tyres squishing over the kerbs as they march on to make more silage. The fields are white and fuzzy where pussy willow down has wafted across and trapped itself in a carpet of green grass. Dandelion clocks have been sliced through by council contractors cutting the verges and the air is full of wispy seeds drifting to who knows where.For the first time in months, we have had very hot sunshine and it has taken us all by surprise. It arrived not long after the Olympic Torch, which is making its way around the country. If you are at all interested, you can see it here, courtesy of the BBC. I am disappointed the torch is put into a vehicle on the quieter stretches of its long route. It feels to me like cheating, especially as Mr Grigg was not chosen as a torch bearer. It's like doing a marathon and taking time out for lunch. However, I digress. In the warmth about to hit us (as I write this, ...

It’s not all sweetness and light here. Oh no, not at all. Here’s me, describing this utopia, this wonderful place where neighbour gets on with neighbour and where everything is wrapped in a rosy glow of peace and harmony, love and understanding. The Enchanted Village: where sheep outnumber the local population Except sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way. Something jars the energy in the ley lines that cross beneath the centre of The Enchanted Village and there’s a fall out, or someone's ill or someone's down in the dumps. But tomorrow night, we will forget all our troubles, forget all our cares and go down town, to My Kind of Town, to see Ding Dong Daddy's band, The Imagined Village, performing live at The Electric Palace. Every man and his dog from The Enchanted Village will be there. Delegates from Compost Corner where the pub regulars stare into their glasses and rule the world, members of the short-arsed bowling club will be out in force, the ladies from t...

                      It is the May Day bank holiday weekend here in The Enchanted Village. And, appropriately for Labour Day, there is lots of work going on. The pub is bursting at the seams, with  people even from My Kind of Town   venturing out for good pub grub and a cheery welcome from our new landlady. In the kitchen, The Pub Landlord is slaving away and will reward himself at the end of the evening with a nice sit down on a tiny stool behind the bar, with only the top of his head on view to the punters. Next door, the Champagne-Charlies are out in force, hoeing and raking the garden prior to an official visit by the outlaws. Bubbles is trimming a bush with an electric bush trimmer she got from the Innovations catalogue. Across the road, Mrs Bancroft is entertaining old friends, one of whom has a head like a stone on the morning after the night before. And in the Sheepwash abode, there is lots of eati...

There's a bishop's mitre in the hallway, a Greek urn on the bed. There's a pair of Gladiator sandals on the cushion and an old sheet about to be transformed into a gown for an Athenian goddess. The Lidl bags are full of cider, little beers and dozens of fruit shots. And there's a handful of kids' colouring books from the pound shop, ready for unwrapping to be used as prizes on the wheel spinner. In Champagne-Charlie's garden next door, a frame hangs like a crucifix waiting to be dressed. In the Grigg household, there are a few props and an idea ready to explode if only I had the inclination to feel creative. Across the way at the Bancrofts, they haven't even started to think about what they're going to make. And as the village fete, parade of banners and scarecrow festival gets nearer by the hour, there are curses from garages as chicken wire is stuffed into trousers, straw into old checked shirts. A limb here, a limb there, a headless torso, a head with...

This is a first for me, a video of the place I love, captured by a friend of mine, who, on the blog, is known as Ding Dong Daddy. It's through the eyes of his springer spaniel, Spice, who very nearly became Mrs Spice-Grigg after a meeting on Bluebell Hill with my springer spaniel some while ago. Thankfully for Spice, it did not happen. I could not be held responsible for the dodgy hips the puppies might have had. The music is original, and so is the landscape. This is the world from my window. If you've ever wondered why I wax lyrical about this place, click the video and you'll see. That's about it. Love Maddie x

One of our village luminaries, Ding Dong Daddy, has just been interviewed by Channel 4 News. It was a pretty terrifying experience, he says, but sometimes passionate people just have to do these things. Bizarrely, he was sitting in front of a cake shop, the sun's rays bouncing off his head, and a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. He was talking about Folk Against Fascism, a very visible and vocal campaign to kick into touch that political party of hate, the BNP. Because, even more bizarrely, the BNP is claiming folk music as its own. BNP leader Nick Griffin claims to be a Kate Rusby fan and last year the party used a song called Roots as a soundtrack to a video on their website. It was written by Steve Knightley, who used to be a school teacher in Beaminster and is now one half of the folk duo Show of Hands. He was not amused. Neither is another West Dorset-based musician, Billy Bragg, whose home town of Barking is being hijacked by the BNP. So now, with the General Electio...

A young man in a suit supervises the children in their pretty dresses and best trousers. They screech around the village green, jumping on and off swings, rattling through the play fort and whizzing down the slide. The bells ring out across the square and the sun beats down as people go to the shop for their papers and lottery tickets while guests in their glad rags get out from their cars to go to church. A village wedding, and everyone has a spring in their step. Super Mario paints the outside of the shop, where the 'for sale' sign still hangs ominously on the corner. Mr Grigg and Mr Loggins drive by with Nobby Odd-Job's trailer, fetching bits of wood from the Love Shack demolition site. At the village pump, the long-lost figure of Larry the Landlord, now in exile in Sherborne, gossips with Ding Dong Daddy, he of the Imagined Village fame. Ding Dong's arms flail around wildly as if he is an orchestra conductor. In the evening, a safari supper around six houses, a gas...

Now back in Blighty, I am thinking twice about reviving my blog. The village has new publicans which means all the previously banned people are back, Ding Dong Daddy has recorded The Imagined Village 's latest album here, Mr St John is on the look-out out for a Porsche for Celebrity Farmer, MDF Man became Superman when Celeb's water bed sprung a leak, the demolition of the Loggins' love shack is well underway and there has been an unconfirmed sighting of local 'doggers' whose identity everyone is keen to discover. Can I turn my back on this and let it go unreported? My teeming brain and restless fingers say no. I cannot keep my pen behind my ear for much longer. As we return home, from adventures, sunshine, beauty, history, with the taste of travel still sweet in the air, we are jolted back to life by a National Express coach driver with sloping shoulders whose customer service skills are non-existent. We miss two trains home because of an unexplained delay with the...