Dorset – Maddie Grigg

Book launch – save the date!

I’m delighted to announce I’ll be launching Plashy Fen on Saturday 10 October at Washingpool Farm Shop, Bridport, from 11am-12 noon.

It’s a particularly appropriate venue because one of the key locations in my new novel is a village farm shop, run by Derek and Maggie Galpin.

Like the Holland family who run Washingpool, my fictional couple started the business years ago, way before farm shops were a ‘thing’ and farm-to-plate food became fashionable.

Derek and Maggie were far ahead of the curve and worked as hard as a pair of oxen to get where they are now.

Things happen at the farm shop in Plashy Fen, an imagined Dorset village overlooking the sea.

A jar of olives get spilt on the parish council welcome pack that has been put on the counter. And a couple of hoity-toity incomers’ children scrump the apples on display, much to the annoyance of Derek’s sister, Lindy, who works there part-time.

Lindy is the glue that holds the disparate yet desperately connected village together.

She works at the farm shop part time, in between looking after grandchildren and studying for a back-to-nursing course.

The Holland family started their business in 1971, when Lindy would have been still at primary school.

When I first arrived in Bridport as a young reporter back in the early 80s, I remember the Washingpool market stall and shop in West Street.

The business has grown dramatically. Now, it’s an award-winning farm shop on the outskirts of town, with a restaurant, two holiday cottages and a caravan and motorhome site, set on a 80-acre working farm produging its own Devon Ruby Red beef, eggs and an array of fruit, vegetables, flowers and potatoes.

I’m looking forward to seeing you if you can make it on 10 October. If you’ve already bought a book (it comes out on 29 September), I’ll be happy to sign it but I will have copies available.

And just a thought, if you were thinking of coming along, you could book in for lunch…

All the best.

Maddie x

Rabbiting on

One from the archives, this.

A few years ago, in a field above Lush Places, I stumbled across this.

It scared the bejeezus out of me. I thought I’d ventured on to the set of Donnie Darko (which I’d never seen because I was too frightened) or Harvey, which was actually one of my favourite old films from childhood.

This weird gatekeeper was like some fearful love child of Watership Down and a Roald Dahl book.

One of the things I love about Dorset is that you can go for a completely ordinary walk and then you’re stopped in your tracks by the unexpected.

If my memory serves me correctly, I checked around to see if anyone else was about and then ran up to it and yelled ‘Hazel-ra!’ before hot-footing it up the hill.

The dogs went bananas.

I didn’t fancy the journey down much either.

That’s about it.

Love, Maddie x

Why Plashy Fen?

The title of my new novel, Plashy Fen, came to me in the middle of the night a few years ago.

I wasn’t happy with the working title I’d given it, as who the hell did I think I was, calling it Dylan’s Wake, in a nod to the author of the wonderful Under Milk Wood, which is one of my favourite books.

And anyway, early beta readers told me they thought it was going to be about the funeral party of someone called Dylan.

I’ve been writing a column for The People’s Friend for over a decade now, after the then editor emailed me out of the blue telling me she’d seen my blog, The World From My Window, and would I like to write for the magazine?

She said (and it’s etched in my mind): ‘I think you might just be the writer we’ve been looking for! I like your ability to write with humour about the minutiae of daily life, but with a touch of emotional depth, too.’

So I introduced my village to Friend readers as Lush Places, named after the fictional newspaper column by the hapless and fictional nature writer William Boot, who, through a case of mistaken identity, becomes a war correspondent for The Daily Beast.

Boot is the main character in Scoop by Evelyn Waugh, which was published in 1938. It’s dated now and very politically incorrect but I loved the juxtaposition of a naïve, gentle writer in the cut-and-thrust world of horrid Fleet Street hacks out to make a name for themselves in a forgotten corner of the world.

I was redrafting my latest novel about Lush Places’s seaside sibling when the new village’s name – and book title – came to me during the early hours of the morning.

There is a line in one of Boot’s nature columns – ‘feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole’ – which has come to signify an affected style when it comes to nature writing.

I guess the the term plashy fen must have stuck with me. It’s become a bit of a personal joke and serves the purpose of making me check my prose style every now to make sure I’m not coming across as a complete jerk.

So that’s the story of how Plashy Fen got its name.

But the characters, well, they’re a different story…

Taking a break

Just to let you know, the blog is taking a back seat for a while.

I’ve had lots of things going on and I’m currently knee-deep in work around the publication of new novel by an indie press. It’s due out in the autumn – more news to follow.

Have a lovely summer, and maybe catch up with you through posts on my Instagram and Facebook pages, although these will also be a bit sporadic over the coming months.

Love, Maddie x

Come into the garden, Maud…

Apologies for the dearth of posts this past week or so.

We’ve done a bit of travelling and are now heavily involved in a village event coming up at the end of May.

The weather here in Dorset is absolutely splendid and it’s wonderful to get out in the garden and soak up the sights and sounds. Flowers are bursting forth from lush green foliage, bees are buzzing and blackbirds are singing their dear little hearts out.

I made the mistake of watching some of the Chelsea Flower Show programmes on the BBC this week.

One was probably enough, to be honest.

I mean, I love seeing the incredible gardens and plants on display but there is only so much I can take of grinning presenters we are clearly meant to know (their names only appear in the credits at the end) and celebrities I have never heard of.

Grayson Perry described Chelsea along the lines of being Middle England’s ‘Glastonbury for people who wear linen’, and he’s not wrong.

There is no way I could cope with all those crowds. I get slight agoraphobia just by watching it on the telly.

So this spring bank holiday weekend, I’m looking forward to spending time in my own glorious garden -small but on the way to being perfectly formed – as the sun beats down from a clear blue sky.

Enjoy the weekend, where ever you are.