The world from my window

Well, Good Morning, Corfu: A Year on a Greek Island is going really well, with interest from national magazines and newspapers. Read about it here, on The Bridport Press website . And if you're an agent or publisher who'd like to work with me, please get in touch. In the wake of The Durrells , I can feel a new Corfu Trilogy coming on. That's about it. Love Maddie x

Well, the book's arrived and the launch at Waterstones, Bridport , has been announced. It will be this Saturday, 7 May, from 10am until 2pm. If you pop in after noon, you can have a taste of Thiasos wine, courtesy of Wessex Wines and made by one of the pioneers of the modern Greek wine revolution, Yiannis Paraskevopoulos, from vineyards in Nemea in the northeastern area of the Peloponnese peninsula. There's red and there's white . I'd planned to launch Good Morning, Corfu: A Year on a Greek Island  this Monday in my little village near Paleokastritsa. But I lost my dear dad a few days before so there was no way I was going to get on a plane and leave the family behind, especially after losing one of my lovely sisters suddenly in March. So the launch in the plateia will just have to wait and I will keep my Corfu friends posted. It's available as an ebook on Kindle, as a paperback or to order from bookshops. In the meantime, here's a taster ... ...

Easter in Corfu is the most incredible thing. In our eleven years of visiting this island, it is something we have been told about many times. 'You must come to Corfu at Easter,' our friend Jiannis told us. 'You will not believe it. The Greeks are famous for Easter but in Corfu, it is the best.' And how right he was. Words cannot describe the spectacle. Photos do not do it justice. You really have to be here to understand. A strange mixture of ritual, devotion, celebration, tradition, noise, ceremony, moving music, lots of eating and lots of fireworks combine to create a heady experience on a massive scale, with some poignant moments of detail in between. This is the place and time to come for an unforgettable long weekend break. All week, Corfu's famous bands have been at the forefront, along with the island's mummified patron, Saint Spiridon, who is paraded through the streets on Easter Saturday on one of his four outings a year. In the ...

Easter in Corfu. Moving and bonkers. Here's the bonkers bit:     And then a mad scramble to pick up the broken pieces after the  Easter Saturday pot smashing in Corfu  Town is all over. We took ours home and put them on the mantelpiece as an offering to Hestia, the goddess of the hearth and home before a siesta and the evening festivities to come. That's about it. Love Maddie x *First published 4 May 2013

* First published 2 May 2013 The sense of anticipation is mounting here in Corfu for Holy Week. Church bells ring twice a day as the devout and those who do not want to risk eternal damnation make their preparations for Easter and pile into the church. In the evening, the village plateia is alive with people as the congregation mingles with the card players and coffee drinkers, beer imbibers and children, now on school holidays and tearing around on bicycles. There are swallows and swallowtails, hooting owls, croaking frogs, waking cicadas and a host of magical fireflies flitting around the lanes and gardens. The air is heavy with the scent of jasmine and mock orange blossom. Yesterday was Labour Day, a May Day celebration which saw garlands on doors and small posies of wild flowers under car windscreen wipers. At first, I thought Turkey Spiros (so called because he breeds turkeys) had a female admirer when I noticed a bunch of marigolds on his bonnet. An hour later, Mr Grigg had ...

This week, in the build-up to Greek Easter and the release of my new book, Good Morning, Corfu: A Year on a Greek Island , I will be republishing some posts written during the twelve months that I lived in a rural village in North West Corfu. The book is now available to order as an ebook on Kindle and also as a paperback . I'll be doing a signing in Corfu on Greek Easter Monday and also in Bridport in May. Here's the blurb: Good Morning, Corfu: A Year on a Greek Island charts the spell woven by this Greek island on an English couple for whom the past is in danger of being more exciting than the future. In an honest, affectionate and warm account of a grown-up gap year, UK magazine columnist Maddie Grigg introduces the reader to a cast of real-life characters and the rich history of Corfu’s traditions, and reveals what happens when the holidaymakers have gone home. Who wouldn't want to throw in the day-job and head off to the sun for a year? Just like the Durrells, M...

So, what do you think of it so far? The Durrells , I mean. If you live in the UK, Sunday evenings on the telly have just got a whole lot gentler. The always-watchable Keeley Hawes heads the cast in a series based on Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy. And it's pretty sublime. The warmth and light of Corfu shines through in this very enjoyable series. It's a bit like The Darling Buds of May  only set in Greece. Just the thing for a Sunday evening. It's got me hankering after Corfu, where I lived for a year in 2012-2013. I do pop back there from time to time and I know how lucky I am to have a foot in beautiful West Dorset and another in the jewel of the Ionian (although I have to be careful not to do the splits). Corfu Dorset Just like the Durrells, we left rainy Dorset, pretty much on a whim, for life on a Greek island. Who wouldn't want to up sticks and escape the drudgery of the day job? Especially to Greece. Dorset Corfu But my grown-up g...