The world from my window

Back from Colombia, weary, jet lagged and minus a suitcase, we pay a fleeting visit to North India, courtesy of a Bollywood Night at  Bridport Electric Palace with the mighty Dhol Foundation . It's the launch of the town's first-ever Winter Solstice Festival, which I've helped to organise. Tonight, it's Billy Bragg with Grace Petrie and Whatever Happened to the Protest Song?  It's sold out, so I hope I can get in. The loud and joyous music of The Dhol Foundation is a tonic to the ears and tired bones. There is nothing to do but smile and dance and show off a henna tattoo I had done on my hand by a very beautiful and gracious young lady in the foyer. I'm fifty-five and have never had a tattoo, henna or otherwise, in my life. I like it. Mr Grigg and I must visit India next. And get tattoos. It's been a busy old year, travel-wise, with trips to Budapest, Madeira, Iceland, Dublin, Corfu, Sicily and Colombia. Phew. In hindsight, it was too much rea...

'And they're off!' the race commentator announces, as eight assorted terriers tear up the field after a stuffed thing on a piece of string. Junior wins by default, as Mullet, Holly, Rascal and Rivet get two feet past the starting line and decide to have a fight. We're at the terrier races, an event that's been going for 37 years and just up from the road where I was born.  Now I've completed my OU studies, I have time on my hands so I suggest to Mr Grigg we head for the hills to find out what it's all about. Amazingly, this is the one event not to be featured in any Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall programme. And in amongst the plate smashing, the hoopla and tombola, and a commentator who is wearing a red jacket, top hat and a new pair of teeth for the occasion, I see glimpses of my past. People who were at school with me stroll around with cobweb tattoos on their elbows, baseball caps at jaunty angles and gobble up fat hot dogs washed down with a ...

I would like to make one thing very clear. I am not a swinger. And neither is Mr Grigg. Nor, for that matter, are the Sheepwashes. I say this because we have just returned from a weekend together on snowy Exmoor. And as it was Valentine's weekend, Number One daughter and several others have been sniggering quite openly at what the four of us might be getting up to. I can assure you it was walking. And more walking. Lots and lots of walking. My calf muscles are aching just thinking about it. Although I did worry when a couple of weeks ago, as the four of us were driving to the cinema, Pelly turned to me from the front seat and said, sort of conspiratorially, 'now that we know one another better...' My heart sank. God, what on earth was coming next? I needn't have worried. She continued:'...maybe we should do the washing up when we come round to each other's houses?' The relief was etched like ley lines across my face. Anyway, we have had a lovely weeken...

Introducing the world from my window… Hi, I’m Maddie Grigg and the world from my window is ever-changing. Living in a village square, you see all sorts of things – from morris dancers performing outside the pub on a balmy summer’s evening to huntsmen gathering for the stirrup cup next door before setting off for their first hunt of the year. We have Palm Sunday processions down to the church with a donkey brought in for the occasion, drivers parking like French people – anywhere – to nip into the shop for a paper and cows being herded to fresh pastures on the other side of the village. It’s hardly the most exciting of places, but you never quite know what’s going to happen next. This week, a ginger wig blew past the window up Church Path. This morning I see the paperboy going about his round in his usual sleepy state, nearly getting knocked over by Scooter Boy who zooms by at 7.30am on the bike-with-no-silencer, followed ten minutes later by Glidoh-Girl, whose moped s...