The world from my window

It's not the winning, it's the taking part that counts. Yeah, right. Yet again, my NaNoWriMo has fallen by the wayside. And you can read why here . That's about it. Love Maddie x

The Stylistics were never my favourite band, although I liked them. They were just there, always there. Part of a soundtrack to a life. Who can forget this? They seemed to be on top of that skyscraper roof for weeks in the summer of 1975. I was coming up to fourteen and probably blackcurrant picking at the time, the sun on my back and fingers weary and stained purple, just to earn thirty five pence a bucket. There was a radio playing in the next row of bushes and Rod Stewart's Sailing  was poised to take over the top spot in the Top Ten with Roger Whittaker and The Last Farewell not far behind. The high seas were a popular subject back then, with The Onedin Line a weekly treat on the telly. I can't say I was struck with either of those songs. There was a load of rubbish in the charts, including The Bay City Rollers. I shudder at the thought of how I made my mother sew tartan inserts into my half-mast trousers. Still, there were some corkers in the UK top ten of 24 A...

With November comes the fog and Lush Places becomes Slush Places once more. It's muddy underfoot and the dog has a field day gobbling up all the sheep's poo and getting filthy on harvested ground. But that's the way I like it. Halloween is the day of days; bright, cheerful and sunny. Yet my portal into another world - the mirror in the village square where the ley lines cross - foretells of darker days ahead: red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning. October, a rare month for boys . And for girls, too, Mr Bradbury. “Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it. Why speak of time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action? How men envy and often hate these warm clocks, these wives, who know they will live forever.” Imbibed with the power of the sisterhood and  Sa...

They've brought in the maize harvest now, the contractors working into the evening darkness to reveal a stubby, brown field by morning. What was once tall and serene and crying out to be photographed has now disappeared before I even had a chance to get out my camera. There'll be a Hunter's Moon in the sky tonight and it's full of foreboding. It means that my dog, Artemis, will go a little bit crazy for a while, as befits her name, which was the one the ancient Greeks gave to the goddess of hunting. Artemis was Apollo's twin sister and also a goddess of the moon.   The moon seems to have an effect on my Arty, for sure. She'll be particularly disobedient for a day or two, resisting all calls to 'come back here' after a week of being a good girl. This morning, she tears off into the copse and comes back five minutes later with a sheep's skull in her mouth. She, rather kindly, drops it at my feet. A full moon is long thought to have had an e...

Like Laurie Lee, I was the baby in a big family, living on the land in a rural village. It was an idyllic upbringing and I have much to be thankful for. I was the youngest of five, brought up on dairy farm down a country lane edged with campions and gypsy lace, on the edge of a golden-stoned village in Somerset. I've been writing about family life over on The Lady Shed website. I'd love to hear your stories. That's about it. Love Maddie x

Please forgive me. I haven't blogged in over a month and it's all my fault. I can't see the wood for the trees. I've reached a bit of a crossroads with The World from my Window and I'm not sure which direction to take. I'm back from Corfu now, having been in Dorset for a few weeks and hurtling headlong into work and Lush Places life. I have to go up to the village hall in a minute to warm up some pizzas for the cast of The Ballad of Martha Brown   before going up again later on to take the money on the door. I'm way behind on updating the village website, I've got a TEFL course to finish before the end of February and I'm looking for a publisher for Good Morning Corfu: A Year on a Greek Island . I also need to think about completing my Masters' dissertation next year. Stupidly, I've registered for NaNoWriMo again this year, about which I'll be writing on The Lady Shed  website next week. So, what with that and the day job, ...

It’s breakfast time in Fiskardo, Kefalonia. There’s been a massive thunder storm in the night and now it’s pouring with rain. And Alexis Tsipras has just been re-elected, with Syriza taking just over 35 per cent of the vote and its coalition partners, New Democracy, not far behind with 28 per cent. Nikos the waiter doesn’t think much of the result. But, then, it was a poor turnout for what, looking through European eyes, seemed a pretty crucial election. Only 56.5 per cent bothered to vote, the highest abstention rate in the history of Greek parliamentary elections following the fall of the dictatorship in 1974. According to greekreporter.com : Voting in Greece is mandatory by law, however, it is rarely enforced. This year’s low turnout rate potentially reflects that Greeks did not believe that their vote would make a difference, since any government would have to enact the policies of the new Greek bailout agreement that was singed in late August. In addition, this is the th...