The world from my window

Forty years ago (I can't believe it's forty years ago), I entered with great trepidation the Portakabin of Life as part of the Mirror Group Newspapers training scheme in Plymouth. I was eighteen and rather nervous. I didn't really feel like I belonged there, alongside clever graduates from Oxford and similarly lofty establishments. I was a comprehensive school girl from Somerset. But English was the only subject I was ever any good at. And since the age of about nine or ten, I'd wanted to be a journalist. I put that down to having watched the wisecracking Rosalind Russell in the 1940s film His Girl Friday . I wanted to be like her - smart, sassy, witty, independent. I also wanted to wear those suits. And maybe catch the heart of Cary Grant. The school's careers adviser said journalism was a competitive business and I'd be better off in retail management or train to be a librarian. I can't sell anything for toffee and I'm not particula...

They say you should never go back. But I did at the weekend, going back to where my grandfather was born in 1891 and where, in 1979, I began my training as a journalist. Gramp was an adventurer and a spinner of yarns. I imagine him as a small boy gazing out across Plymouth Sound and wondering what lay beyond it. He ended up in Australia where he was a sheep drover and tamer of horses before becoming an ANZAC, fighting at Gallipoli and the Somme. Plymouth's not everyone's cup of tea but I like it very much. Five years ago, my old trainee colleagues had a thirty year reunion, which I wrote about here . There's even a picture of me on that blog post at my New Romantic best. There were fewer of us this time round, with various people bottling out and giving excuses, but it didn't matter, I enjoyed every minute of it, starting with the train journey to Pymouth. And then a feeling of euphoria as I alighted from the train. I checked into the hote...

It's a big weekend, with two major events coming up. A reunion with people I trained with as a journalist three decades ago and the village highlight of the year. When I was asked if I wanted to join the 1979 gang on Friday night as well as the Saturday, I could hear guffaws and giggles through cyberspace when I replied: 'I'm sorry, but it's the village harvest supper and I'm part of the entertainment.' I never was going to amount to very much, I can hear them thinking, even in 1979. But I only ever wanted to be a big fish in a small pond, never a tiddler in a wide open ocean. I'd wanted to be a local newspaper journalist from the age of about nine, after quickly abandoning my first choice of being a zoo keeper on Animal Magic . However, my careers adviser at big school suggested I should try being a librarian. 'Journalism is far too competitive, dear,' she said. But I was determined, even when a major calamity hit in my fifth year at comprehensive. ...

I'm thinking of calling it a blogging day. I was planning to tell you about all the vinegary and fruity smells coming from the cottages as the vast majority of villagers knuckle down to chutney and jam making. I was planning to tell you about the talent show rehearsals for our harvest supper, where Celebrity Farmer is topping the bill. I was planning to show you the wedding photos that have still not materialised. I was planning to tell you about a fungus foray, a girls' night out and the reunion Curious Girl and I are organising with our fellow Mirror Group trainees from 30 years ago. But I am tired, unsure of my direction as I juggle so many balls in the air. And I am not too happy about writing to please the local populace rather than myself. So forgive me if I wind down a little bit. And besides, I have a level 3 Open University exam in three weeks' time and haven't a clue what the course was about. That's about it Love Maddie x