The world from my window

A Happy New Year to you all! Here's hoping that 2020 is peaceful, healthy, everything you hope for and full of blue sky bunting. After twelve happy years, I've decided to give up this blog. I wanted to say a big thanks for all your support. The World from my Window has opened many doors (and indeed windows) for me during that time, including an appearance on Channel 5's  The Gadget Show , and a weekly writing slot on the world's oldest weekly magazine for women, The People's Friend . I love sharing my stories with readers of my Maddie's World column and the People's Friend team are a joy to work with. Long may that continue! Through this blog, I've had a loyal host of followers from all over the globe, including particular champions in those dozen years. It's a huge boost and very humbling. Thank you. Since I was a young child, writing has been my thing. I started this blog during a creative writing course with The Open University in 2...

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...

150th souvenir issue, 12 January 2019 It's the 150th birthday of the longest-running woman's weekly magazine in the world. Take a bow, The People's Friend . I have the joy of writing the Maddie's World column each week from deep in rural Dorset. It's lovely to be able to share the goings on in my very special part of the world with 400,000 'Friend' readers all over the globe.  W hen the 'Friend' was looking for a new columnist  four years ago and found me through this blog, I had to re-read the editor’s out-of-the-blue email to me at least three times.  'For some time now, we've been mulling over the idea of introducing a weekly columnist, but we haven't been able to settle on the right person,' she said.  'However, having looked at your blog, I think you might just be the writer we've been looking for! I like your ability to write with humour about the minutiae of daily life, but with a touch of emotional de...

Please forgive me. I haven't blogged in over a month and it's all my fault. I can't see the wood for the trees. I've reached a bit of a crossroads with The World from my Window and I'm not sure which direction to take. I'm back from Corfu now, having been in Dorset for a few weeks and hurtling headlong into work and Lush Places life. I have to go up to the village hall in a minute to warm up some pizzas for the cast of The Ballad of Martha Brown   before going up again later on to take the money on the door. I'm way behind on updating the village website, I've got a TEFL course to finish before the end of February and I'm looking for a publisher for Good Morning Corfu: A Year on a Greek Island . I also need to think about completing my Masters' dissertation next year. Stupidly, I've registered for NaNoWriMo again this year, about which I'll be writing on The Lady Shed  website next week. So, what with that and the day job, ...

Once upon a time I had a dream. I was seven years old and wanted to be a zookeeper.  It was Johnny Morris's fault. I loved Animal Magic . By the age of eight, I had a guinea pig. I soon learned that mucking it out was a real labour of love. And I didn't love it very much. I did love writing, though. I wrote a mini-novel with illustrations. Like most children of that age and of that era, I was very animal-centric, particularly as I was born and raised on a farm. My book was about a cat called Tom and a dog called Blackie and how the pair of them foiled a kidnapping plot. I've still got it somewhere. When I find it, I'll show you. So in my ninth year, I decided if I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, the best thing I could do was become a journalist. I'd seen a film on television and loved the fast pace and the wisecracks. I loved this remake, too, of The Front Page . My journalistic career wasn't quite like the movies, apart fr...

I've been rather tardy of late and haven't blogged for several weeks. My apologies - things have been pretty busy in Maddie's World, with a new weekly column of that name just about to be launched in The People's Friend magazine (hoorah!), which I'll be posting regularly on this blog once it's published, and other close encounters of the writing kind. I'll be bringing you updates from Lush Places and the wider world as soon as I can.  In the meantime, here's a link to The Lady Shed , a writing project I'm working on with two friends. Each week, one of us writes about a subject which grabs us. Every four weeks we all write about the same thing. The latest posts are all about the National Health Service. This Friday, I'll be in the shed on my own, talking about sibling rivalry, as it's my brother's birthday tomorrow - Lady Day, ha, ha. The only boy in a family of girls, he is known as Golden Balls by Mr Grigg. I've never quite g...

We've just had a photo session, Mr Grigg and me, here in the kitchen. It's usually me behind the camera - I've never been much of a one for inflicting my fisog on the world. Invariably, pictures of me on the web are of tea cups, tiki masks and Fra Newbery's painting The Spirit of Bridport . I also use this one a lot.  I like it. I took it. But I'm not in it.  'Smile girls,' I yelled from afar. 'Jump up and down a bit.' So they did.  It's one of my favourite pictures. But, over the last few months, it's me who's had to be the subject of the photographs.  'Can you send me a nice photo of you by the sea?' the feature writer at Good Housekeeping said to me last summer. 'Do you really need it?' I said. 'Can't you use a picture of the Greek village we lived in, or a back view of me?' 'Well, not really,' she said. 'It's a two page feature and it's all about y...