The world from my window

We fell in love with the Villa Oleander as soon as we walked through the front door. It belongs to a writer's family and I hoped some of her success might rub off on me. Mr Grigg, meanwhile, saw it as a place to wind down into retirement. 'We're going to live here,' we said, when we saw the house back in June last year. 'We'll let our cottage in Dorset and have a gap year in Corfu.' 'Why?' asked our family and friends. 'Why not?' was the stock response. I could spend the time writing and Mr Grigg, newly-retired, could do a bit of work around the house. Part of the deal was to tidy the garden and spruce up the inside in exchange for a cheaper rent in the winter. It needed a bit of love, this place, a bit of love and a bit of life. The owners haven't been here for a while and it showed. The first week we spent cleaning right through, wiping down mouldy window frames and chasing away the dust. And then the garden. Ah, the gar...

It was a super moon and it was in Virgo, my star sign. And as I drove around the country lanes in search of my school reunion venue, I wondered what this big pizza pie of a moon had to do with me. A cosmic awakening, a reconnection with the earth, a breakthrough? It grinned down on me, and I thought of all the things that had happened to me today. A mass decorating session at our village hall, eight hours of painting with a roller and brush amid a sea of magnolia. Sitting down to lunch with twenty others and literally watching paint dry. Then a quick scoot around the field with the spaniels before every man and his dog descended on us for the England v Ireland rugby match. The doorbell kept ringing, and still they came, until thirteen bodies crammed into the Grigg hovel to watch the game. The sedate ladies were in the kitchen, chatting about this and that while I sliced the potatoes. The fragrant Mrs Putter, Pelly Sheepwash, Mrs Champagne-Charlie and the lovely Mrs Bancroft wit...