The world from my window

Bless me father, for I haven't blogged. There's been so much going on in my life, I don't know if I'm coming or going. I fully expect to charge round the corner and meet myself coming the other way. The cats have been safely despatched, but not in a bad sense. They're now living with my sister, spending a week indoors before being allowed out to explore. It will also give them the chance to big up a bit, considering they have gone to The Birthplace of Powered Fight, where the streets are paved with broken glass. But they are happy. The girl cat actually kissed her brother, which is unheard of. He was last seen behind my sister's sofa, quaking in his seven league boots. Toughen up, little one. You could be mistaken for the  Lion of Somerset . Well, perhaps not. Meanwhile, the hunt for new homes for the dogs goes on apace. Will we be sorted by the time we leave the country for Corfu in a few weeks' time? I hope so. Because I'm looking forwar...

Well, there's lots to sort out and lots to do before Mr Grigg and I head off for our Big Fat Greek Gap Year. One of my sisters is having the cats, my brother is having the car but I've still got to find a home for the two dogs. Meanwhile, one of my colleagues is so dismayed at me leaving ( so she says ) she's found a job in the middle of a war zone. I kid you not. I think an exchange of emails from our locations - me with a G&T by the pool and she with her tin hat on - could be the basis of an interesting book. I know where I'd rather be. Back at home, the bunting is still up, but not for much longer. We've had the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the Olympics and now the Paralympics. It's all going to look very bare when the flags come down. But we do have the thermometer, which shows us at the level the village shop fund has now reached. It's at £20,000 and only £10,000 to go before opening time in October, when we will be long gone. This weeken...

It's a sunny evening, down at the Bay. There are boats pootling around the calm waters and fishing tourists are out in force with rods and lines on the piers. Out at sea, the mackerel aren't biting. And the fish and chip kiosks have run out of fish (oh, I wish they'd tell you that before you start queuing). The next day, the slipway is closed. It's too rough to launch. And the white horses gallop across the water. The dive boat comes back and a female passenger says: 'Never again.' Today, the fresh fish supplier drives up and down the kiosks, to see if they want more cod. The kiosk owners are biting. They don't want another evening where they run out of fish. (Oh, I wish they'd tell you that before you start queuing). A gull dive-bombs the harbour as the sprats do a pepper-pot dance just beneath the surface. It pulls out a mackerel and is jumped by five other gangster gulls wearing holsters and knuckle dusters. It gulps down the mackerel ...

As our plans to move abroad for a year progress, there are complaints in certain quarters. 'What about Book Club?' says the Fragrant Mrs Putter. 'Discussion by Skype?' I suggest. 'Who's going to be village hall chairman?' Mr Loggins wails. 'Somebody else?' Mr Grigg says. 'You can't go, you'll miss the harvest supper. We want Mr Grigg and his crew to do their YMCA routine as a finale,' says the parson's daughter. Celebrity Farmer's mother says: 'You've got come back to organise the fun day next year.' Well, we won't. And village life will go on. 'No it won't,' says someone else. 'It won't be the same without you.' It's flattering, all of this, but the village will still exist, things will still happen. Other people will step up to the plate and become catalysts.Lots of exciting things are on the horizon. It's just that we won't be there for some of them. Li...

This village gets weirder by the minute.  Not content with scaring the granddaughter by letting her watch the witch scene from Snow White just before bedtime and then act surprised when she has a nightmare, Mr Grigg takes me on an afternoon stroll up to Bluebell Hill.  I gaze out over the gate at the lush views beyond. I look out across the maize, which is shining in the sun. And then I turn around again.  I'm in the film Donnie Darko. Don't ask. The only consolation is that little grandchildren legs could never have climbed this far. I won't sleep for weeks. That's about it. Love Maddie x

So who will be lighting up the torch tonight? The union jack bunting is rather tattered now, as it flips and flaps against the drainpipes and fascia boards of The Enchanted Village. We've kept it up for the Olympics, which start officially this evening. Whether you like sport or not, you can't escape it. Not even here in Lush Places, where the Olympic bells are ringing at twelve minutes past eight this morning. (My feature writing friend on the Dorset Echo is trying to work the word 'bongtastic' into her colour piece.) Just down the road, the people of Weymouth and Portland are gearing up to go bananas tonight as the Olympic sailing events get underway. And our own Mrs Bancroft, my sweet neighbour who is as dear to me as a big sister, is working flat out over the next fortnight in her 'meet and greet' gear as a volunteer in the Olympic park. Thank God she managed to get into the trousers again after the final fitting a few weeks ago. There is much s...

So there we were, Mrs Bubbles Champagne-Charlie, Mrs Bancroft and me, sitting at the bar, swinging our legs from the stools while the men talked about the Olympics. As their chatter got on to the women's volleyball team (yawn), I decided to pep up the ladies' conversation by asking their thoughts on  Fifty Shades of Grey . Not that it's on The Enchanted Village's book club list but we've all read it anyway. Champagne-Charlie's ears pricked up immediately. ' Fifty Shades ...that's not the mucky book Bubbles has been reading?' he said. Mr Grigg snorted. 'Maddie said she'd read me extracts of that on holiday but she never did. I was most disappointed.' 'That's because it was rubbish,' I said, having read Erica Jong's Fear of Flying at an impressionable age. ( Fifty Shades hurt my feminist bone. And not in a good way). 'Rubbish?' said Mrs Bancroft. 'It was like a sexed-up Mills and Boon.' ...