The world from my window

This weekend I changed my Blogger profile picture: (I'll explain later).   Now if I'd been wearing it at last night's Mr Scruff gig, no-one would have batted an eyelid. Girls in bear hats, boys in crocheted hats, pork pie hats and baseball caps, an old man in shades with a wispy Salvador Dail-style moustache and goatee, Mr Grigg in a Wobble Control tee-shirt and a white bearded steward who looked like he could quite easily have done the James Robertson Justice voiceover in the surreal track, Fish . Trout are freshwater fish and have underwater weapons  Trout are very valuable and immensely powerful  Keep away from the trout Mr Scruff himself, with headphones atop his smooth head like a Roman emperor wearing a crown of laurel leaves. His adoring public whooped and hollered to pulsating beats and Latin rhythms. And still the Electric Palace clock said five past nine. My blog characters, all bar Pelly and Anakin Sheepwash, decided to give...

It's only part-way through my birthday weekend and I've been completely spoiled and I'm thoroughly knackered. First, the Melplash Show. My favourite day of the year. So good of them to organise it for my birthday. And so good of Celebrity Farmer to almost spill the beans about my birthday surprise. 'I've been told you've booked a room at The Riverside,' he said to me and Mr Grigg, who promptly stood rather heavily on the toe of his wellington boot. 'Um, but then you decided to go somewhere else,' Celebrity Farmer said, in rather too much of a hurry. The hole just got bigger and bigger until even I wished I could jump in it with him After the show, instead of going home, we ended up at West Bay, my favourite seaside place. 'That's the one with the gurt hole in the middle,' my father usually says, referring to the harbour. You can just make out the pink house here, the old home of my mentor, the late David Martin . A...

Um, happy birthday to me. As the big five-oh arrives, there is a huge call to arms from a load of people about the village shop and the pub. 'WE NEED TO KEEP THEM BOTH OPEN!' Um, I'm not sure I can do that on my own but I know of some people who can. That's about it. But, by the way, never seen the pub more busy than after a crisis meeting We should do this more often... That's about it. Love Maddie x

Every now and then on the internet, you come across a gem you just want to share. So let me take you on a journey, on what I think is a fascinating journey, to West Bay, the seaside port for My Kind of Town and the place where Mr Grigg and I will soon be having a boat. If you have a little time to spare, watch the archive film. It's great. And then listen to the modern-day locals on the audio, telling you what makes West Bay so special.   The website is called Close Encounters and I know about it because I was involved in putting some of the material together. I think you'll like it. That's about it. Love Maddie

  My ears are still ringing. The gig of the year, my Weymouth friend says. I wouldn't argue with that. 'Not a bit poptastic, then?' asks Pelly 'I-grew-up-with-prog-rock' Sheepwash this morning. 'No, slaptastic,' I say, beaming. I went back twenty-odd years last night to see Level 42 and, do you know? They're better now than they were then. Mind you, I was only a few months away from giving birth to Number One Son and spent all night standing on a cold, concrete floor in the Showering Pavilion at Shepton Mallet. Now that I'm nearly fifty, the comfy seats of Weymouth Pavilion came in handy. But the pounding bass of Mark King and those lovely harmonising vocals of keyboard player Mike Lindup got me out of my seat. Music to my ageing ears. No wonder I've got tinnitus. A misspent youth of disco music, punk rock, jazz funk and chillout. And a bit of folk interspersed. And what's more, even Mr Grigg enjoyed the gig, despite thinking...

Oh, calamity and woe. Not only has our shopkeeper had another change of heart and is shutting up the store on September 1, our pub is due to close when the landlords leave in October. The brewery is looking for a new publican, but how seriously, no-one can tell. Cripes. After a village square full of activity, I fear there will be only a village square full of nothing. It's as if the ley lines beneath our feet have shorted out. There are people working hard behind the scenes to sort this out. As I write, Mr Grigg and Mr Putter are in deep conversation...in the pub. I am half temped to say 'I'll do it!' But having run a pub for Palmers Brewery for three years, I can safely say it's not the easiest of tasks. (If you go to the link and have to take a step back from the screen, I apologise. Someone should tell them black is not a good background for a website). We increased the trade, but at some cost to our personal lives. Number One Son's second cousin ...

Oh my. Dorset is going to be bathed in swathes of light. The spotlight is literally turning on Hardy's Dorset, rural Dorset, that bucolic bubble of beauty, my enchanted village and villages everywhere. Those nice people at Dorset County Council are going to improve our street lighting. Rural Dorset, embrace your inner urban child. The street lights roadshow is coming to town...and villages and hamlets to a street, lane or cul-de-sac near you. Here's a leaflet about it: Is that Canary Wharf I see in the distance? Or is it Hong Kong? It isn't Lush Places, that's for sure. Our dear Lush Places, with its village pump, the green, the red phone box and historic buildings all around. But it could be soon, believe me it. It could be lots of lovely places all over this hidden gem of a county. Those quiet, secret corners of Dorset suddenly exposed for all to see. Because the county council has entered into a private finance initiative (PFI) pact - not with the de...