The world from my window

Down in the depths, Boris and his sirens have slunk into the shadows. 'There is no plan,' they say in unison, sniggering behind jagged and yellowed teeth. 'Now you're down here, you just have to be bottom feeders along with the rest of us.' There's something nasty on the seabed. It's pulling at my ankle and I'm out of here. Millions more rise in a mass of bubbles towards the light and up to the surface to await rescue. But no-one comes so we band together to make a human raft. It is what it is and we have to jettison hate and anger and reach dry land, by paddling together. On the morning the referendum results came through, I was attached to a heart monitor in A&E. The hospital was full of it, the staff had been listening to the news all night. As I was wheeled up to the coronary care unit, the nurse in charge was upbeat. 'I voted for out,' she told all the patients, as if we should be thanking her personally for taking us to t...

I'm delighted to discover that Good Morning, Corfu: A Year on a Greek Island ,  is at number two in this month's FeedARead Top Ten . FeedARead is a leading independent publisher, programmed with Arts Council funding.  My initial reaction to being in second place was deep joy (the last time this happened, I went to Peru ),  swiftly followed by,  'Why isn't it Number One?'. I consoled myself with the fact that the current Top of the Pops has been there for months on end. Actually, when you cut through the German description, it  sounds fascinating . And I'm not being sarcastic, either. The reviews Good Morning, Corfu have been getting on Kindle have been brilliant, too. (Thanks so much, Mum). I love you all. So all in all, Reasons to be Cheerful (a record that reached  only Number Three in the UK singles chart, which is pretty outrageous in my book). Now for Part II. That's about it - although if you are at a loose end tomorrow evening, ...

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 ...