The world from my window

It's New Year's Eve, and this year I'm spending it in Lush Places. Not for me a pomegranate smashed near the door to spread the seeds of good luck on New Year's Day. I don't think they stock them in our village shop. In any case, last year, back in Corfu, it took us ages to get the stain out. Tonight, we'll be hanging out in Lush Places, where the Dorset villagers will be dressed in 70s and 80s for a vinyls night in the local pub and we'll be noshing on a bring-something-to-the-table get-together for thirteen, or, as I'd rather call it, twelve and one for luck. Superstitious? Me? Of course I am. And then we'll all get together for a few drinks in the pub before spilling out into the Square for Old Lang Syne, random kissing and a game of Let's Stop The Traffic . Before that, I need to decide what hat to wear tonight after rashly sending out an email saying our theme should be Get Your Head In Gear For The New Year (as mine most certa...

Back home and the pub is full. We just about manage to squeeze on to a table for two after booking by phone on our way back from the airport earlier in the day. We've quickly learned that if we want to eat in our pub, we need to book beforehand. The Pub Landlord makes a face through the window of the kitchen door and I retaliate  from the safety of a bar stool  by drawing a 'heart' sign in the air to embarrass him. I once had an onion ring with my steak which I swear was shaped like a heart. I haven't stopped going on about it since. (In Greece,  my garlic mash arranged was deliberately arranged in a heart shape. Oh those romantic Mediterraneans...) 'He's told me to wind you up,' says the barmaid. 'Something about chicken fajitas being really complicated. But I couldn't do that, it wouldn't be fair.' And then when the Pub Landlady clears away, she says: 'The Pub Landlord wanted me to tell you he was really cross with you about you...

The lambs are nice and fat now. Nearly ready for eating. They stand on their hind legs, nibbling in the hedgerows while their mothers are forlorn and shorn. The old girls look embarrassed, like women who have suddenly realised they are not as attractive as they once were in short skirts and crop tops while the years advance and the children get bigger and more demanding. It's the lambs we want on our plates, not mutton. Up on the hill, the slopes are nicely manicured, ploughed with rows made by a giant's comb. The ground is saturated and hosepipe bans are lifted. The sky is full of water from an overloaded paint brush and it's smudging at the edges. Posters on telegraph poles advertising our parish plan are unreadable because we've had so much rain. And in the Grigg front hall are boxes and boxes of wine for an evening later this week when the future of our village shop is finally unveiled. And then a woman stops me and says:' Are you the one who writes...

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

A young man in a suit supervises the children in their pretty dresses and best trousers. They screech around the village green, jumping on and off swings, rattling through the play fort and whizzing down the slide. The bells ring out across the square and the sun beats down as people go to the shop for their papers and lottery tickets while guests in their glad rags get out from their cars to go to church. A village wedding, and everyone has a spring in their step. Super Mario paints the outside of the shop, where the 'for sale' sign still hangs ominously on the corner. Mr Grigg and Mr Loggins drive by with Nobby Odd-Job's trailer, fetching bits of wood from the Love Shack demolition site. At the village pump, the long-lost figure of Larry the Landlord, now in exile in Sherborne, gossips with Ding Dong Daddy, he of the Imagined Village fame. Ding Dong's arms flail around wildly as if he is an orchestra conductor. In the evening, a safari supper around six houses, a gas...