The world from my window

Back in the Shire, the verdant green foliage and hedgerows waved hello as we drew into Dorset. We arrived in Lush Places to find for sale and to let signs plastered all across the front of our house. I think our friends and neighbours were trying to tell us something. A week and two days on and it's like we've never been away. There was Mr Grigg barking orders in the village hall kitchen as a team beavered away to serve up one hundred and twenty breakfasts at the start of the Lush Places fun weekend. There were scarecrows on show all around the village (naturally, we chose Odysseus tied to the mast), cream teas in the old people's home, a barn dance that took me back to the days of learning country dancing at primary school, a church service for Pentecost in which the vicar used a bottle of bubble mixture as a prop (I can't imagine our priest in Agios Magikades doing that ) and then the annual parade of shields bearing the names of village organisations, l...

Scarecrow made, although it's in bits. Victoria sponge for the village competition done and dusted and bigger than Mr Grigg's. Prams done for the pram race, Big Breakfast all set for tomorrow, village Jubilee poem written, laminated and ready to post in the empty shop window after I read it live from a 45ft trailer stage at our street party on Monday. Coronation chicken done (recipe from parish magazine), jelly made for grandchildren tomorrow. Grand playlist sorted. Session on the decks with Ding Dong Daddy and Number One Son on Sunday. Family descending in Sheepwash, Bancroft, Odd-Job, Putter, Champagne-Charlie, Grigg household and everyone else's over the next few days. There's even talk of a live webcam in the village square. Phew, shattered already. And the Jubilee Weekend has not yet begun. That's about it. Love Maddie x

In the hot, early summer sun, the union flags and multi-coloured bunting welcome visitors to our enchanted village. The nymph is still in heavy grey coat, waiting to emerge from her winter chrysalis in a riot of red, white and blue in time for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Up on the allotments, Mr Grigg, Mr Sheepwash and Mr Loggins, armed with Nobby Odd-Job's chainsaw, are cutting an old telegraph pole down to size ready for the jubilee beacon. Mrs Bancroft is roaring off somewhere or another in her frog-eye Sprite and my pride-and-joy Beetle is outside the house gearing up for those lazy, hazy days of summer. Bubbles, from next door, sneaks a sprig of my rosemary for a barbecue later this afternoon. Next door, Mr Champage-Charlie is mowing the grass again, getting the level perfectly right for a nice game of croquet. The fragrant Mrs Putter and her husband, Putt, amble down the road for a chilled glass of rose. The union flag flaps above the pub door as thirs...

I am feeling uninspired about village life at the moment, what with the rain falling down in sheets and my jaw aching from sinusitis. So I am going to bore you a bit more about Flat Stanley , who is currently waving at me as I type. I created him for our village scarecrow competition and he is based on the title character of a 1964 children's book by Jeff Brown. Stanley Lambchop's adventures begin when a big board hanging on his bedroom wall flattens him in his sleep. But he survives and soon he is sliding under locked doors and letting his younger brother use him as a kite. Stanley even helps catch some art thieves by pretenting to be a painting on the wall. He visits his friends by being posted in an envelope. Eventually his little brother, jealous of all the attention Stanley is getting, reverts him to his proper shape by blowing him up with an air pump. During my research for the scarecrow, I came across the Flat Stanley Project , which was started in 1995 by a teacher in ...