The world from my window

The village square is deathly quiet. The red pelargoniums around the village pump are fading now and the white nicotianas outside my house look like long, spidery tendrils and they've given up the ghost. The shop has been closed now for almost three weeks but still cars pull up, drivers get out, try the shop door, then look at their watches, shrug, get back in their cars and drive off again. I've just had an email from a local councillor, pointing me to a Lottery-funded scheme to set up local enterprises. 'I'm sending you this because I hear your Village has closed.' He's missed out a word, but it sure feels like it. And now it's raining. That's about it. Love Maddie x

And as I walk out across the fields at just after 6.30 this morning, I meet a neighbour carrying a giant yoghurt pot, full of slugs. ‘Been gardening?’ I say. She nods, looking like she might want to punch me after spotting me yesterday throwing the snails I found munching my nicotianas straight into the path of a passing car. Crunch. But I am bold, I am brave. I can cope. Things are looking up. After experiencing something of an epiphany when the village store didn’t sell at auction, our weary shopkeeper has decided to carry on. He’s not going to shut up shop after all, he’s going to ask the people of Lush Places what they’d like to see on the shelves and try to accommodate us. So for Champagne-Charlie that would be, erm, champagne, the fragrant Mrs Putter something by Chanel and a Che Guevara T-shirt for the revolutionary Pelly Sheepwash. Me? I’d be happy with some slug bait. That’s about it. Love Maddie x

We arrive home to a display of flowers at the front of the house far better than I could have tended these few hot weeks. Our dear neighbour Mrs Bancroft has been diligently watering and dead heading my nicotianas, nasturtiums, the tall spikes of yellow loosestrife, the passion flowers and snapdragons and tomatoes facing up to the bizzy-lizzies and red pelargoniums in the concrete pots next to the village pump on the other side of the Square. Pelly and Mr Sheepwash have wandered up to the patch of ground we borrow from a nearby farmer and watered the courgettes in Mr Grigg's polytunnel. And Mr Loggins was drafted in when all our little helpers found themselves (not together) in London for a hot weekend. Nobby Odd-Job spent almost the entire fortnight stuck inside our house. His duties were to water the plants in the back yard. But Mr Grigg gave him the duff key and Nobby locked himself in. After nearly an hour trying to devise his escape he hit upon the idea of ringing Mrs Bancroft...