Dorset – Maddie Grigg

The Red Dress Project

Kirsty Macleod and The Red Dress when it was completed in 2023.
Picture by Mark Pickthall

I’m thrilled to be involved in a local heritage project bringing the magnificent Red Dress to Bridport, Dorset, next summer.

It doesn’t happen until 31 July – 15 August 2027 but it’s such a coup to have secured it.

The town won’t know what’s hit it – believe me, the place will be absolutely buzzing with people coming to see this extraordinary creation which tells the stories of ordinary women – often vulnerable or living in poverty- through embroidery.

The Red Dress Project was conceived by British artist Kirstie Macleod as a collaborative artwork showcasing the creativity of women globally.

Since its inception, women from all walks of life—craftswomen, textile artists, volunteers, and community members—have contributed their skills, creating a dress that tells countless personal and cultural stories through embroidery, patchwork, and textile art.

I was contacted about it by an old friend, for whom I used to model at vintage fashion shows (the 1950s was my favourite era), who wondered if I could help with the publicity.

She didn’t have to ask me twice. It’s such an incredible project – a beautiful piece of art with the most amazing back story and stories, bringing disparate groups of women together from all over the world to create something truly stunning and inspirational.

I’ve written about the project for this month’s Marshwood Vale Magazine – you can read the article here.

Here’s to blue sky thinking

We arrived in France on Thursday, just as the weather changed.

By Good Friday, in the south west of the country, the sun was out, the sky was blue and we were thanked for bringing the weather with us.

As if.

Just like the UK, it has been a cold and wet winter here in France. So to see – and feel – that shining orb looking down warmly – well, it’s been a welcome visitor with a smiley face and absolutely no baggage.

Today, our part of Dorset is similarly clad in warmth. Spirits soar and everything in the garden is lovely, if you forget world events and personal traumas and focus instead on the trees ditching their winter wardrobe and grabbing their spring and summer clothes from nature’s rail.

Lush Places gets back to normal tomorrow, with temperatures plummeting and roadworks all over the place as super-superfast broadband is installed by a roving crew, leading to faster internet speeds and frazzled drivers.

Here, we’re set fair until Sunday when temperatures, too, will plummet along with (if there was any justice in the world) fuel prices. But we all know justice is in short supply these days so I’m not going down that particular route for fearing of reaching a dead end or one great big pothole.

Gather ye rosebuds while you may and make hay while the sun shines and all that.

Be kind, hope for the best but expect the worst and you will never be disappointed.

Speak soon.

Maddie x

February book reviews

I’ve not done very well with books this month. This is a shame because the weather outside is frightful and there’s nothing better than curling up with a good book when the rain is lashing against the windows.

There were two novels I abandoned after a couple of chapters and then a three-star which was all right, but not that enjoyable.

However, there is one stand-out book for me and I’m still reading it. It’s A Private Man by Stephanie Sy-Quia, due to be published in April. I didn’t expect it to be my thing at all, but it’s captivating. I’ll reveal more in next month’s reviews.

Being a reviewer for NetGalley is a real privilege. Especially when I go into a book shop and see all these titles I’ve already read, such as The Wardrobe Department *** by Elaine Garvey, Three Days in June **** by Anne Tyler, The Boy From The Sea **** by Garrett Carr and The Book of Doors **** by Gareth Brown.

One of my next reads will be the new novel by Elizabeth Strout, the author of Olive Kitteridge. But I have a few more to get through first, including my first purchase in a long time, Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, published in 1939 and set around these parts, yet I’ve never read it.

In 1976, it was made into a television film starring Peter O’Toole.

And there has been talk that British actor Benedict Cumberbatch has his eye on the lead role in another film adaptation, although it’s all been a bit quiet of late.

Anyway, here’s my one and only book review for February.

Where The Truth Lies by Katherine Greene ***

Publication date: 24 March 2026

A murder rocks a small community in southern USA and threatents to blow apart the impending marraige of Rhett and Lucinda and their future happiness together. We think we know who did it and what and why it happened, but do we?

There are twists and turns galore in this thriller/whodunnit/domestic drama and I did not see the end coming. The story is told from various viewpoints, including the voice of the murdered woman, a device I always find difficult to take on board because how can she tell a story in the first person, past tense, when she’s dead?

I also didn’t much like any of the characters through which the tale unfolded.

Anyway, that aside, this was a tense and generally fast-paced novel which would be an ideal basis for a Netflix adaptation in the Harlan Coben mould.

Nice weather for ducks

Oh, what weather we’re having here in Lush Places.

Rain, rain and more rain. And when it’s not raining, it’s grey skies.

Dull, dull, dull.

It can be foggy here at the best of times. When other places nearby are bathed in sunshine we sit under the misty radar.

There’s a kind of microclimate at work, but not in a good way.

No-one tells you that before you move here, you find out only after it’s too late.

Currently, the village is in a grey state of doom, as are many places in the country ever since the new year began.

There are parts of South Wales and South West England where it’s rained every day since the door opened to let in 2026.

This weather saps the soul and, coupled with the worldwide fall of humanity on the depravity scale, it’s enough to make you want to curl up and come out in May, along with the bluebells and tulips.

My headphones are drowning out my sorrows and tinnitus, with wall-to-wall Stevie Wonder, an old friend’s Sunshine Pop playlist on Spotify and out-of-this-world ethereal music by We Are All Astronauts.

Still, if it wasn’t for the weather, we wouldn’t have anything to talk about.

There were blue skies on Wednesday and the snowdrops in my sister’s garden were chattering away like nobody’s business. Small joys to cheer up a dreary time.

On that note, have a great weekend.

Love, Maddie x

Spring is in the air

After a grey, grim old day yesterday, we have blue skies and signs of spring here in West Dorset.

There’s mud everywhere and it’s squelchy underfoot but the many puddles are reflecting the changing of the seasons.

We’re not there yet but it won’t be long.

On my morning walk, I glanced up when I heard the corvid call of rooks building nests in the tall trees in the copse.

And then a deer scuttled through the undergrowth.

‘The longer days are coming,’ said my farmer friend as he came down the hill from the community shop with his newspaper under his arm.

“But I fancy the daffodils are a bit early.”

I met a man in the lane who I thanked for his expertise in the community pub the other night when our very own Celebrity Farmer and his sidekick regaled the gathered throng with tales from their escapades on the Channel 4 show, Hunted.

(They should have done Bake Off.)

The man in the lane had provided his sound and vision expertise for the talk, which was just as well because the place was packed and none of us would have been able to hear it otherwise.

He told me he’s going to be at the village hall next weekend to help when I put on an archive film show as part of a project recording the memories of older people born and bred here in Lush Places.

It’s people like him who quietly get on with helping others who are the unsung heroes among us.

The international stage is a frightening place and there are personal situations all around where people are suffering.

But to be dragged down by all of that means the extinguishing of hope. We have to celebrate the small big things that make a difference.

I thought about all the volunteers in our pub who are keeping it going while we interview for a new manager. I thought about the volunteers in the shop who man the till.

The people who run the village hall, the people who keep our lovely church up and running, the people who lock and unlock the gate everyday on the multi-use games pitch, the people who listen to children reading at school and those who give up their time to look after our communal open spaces.

So many people, in small and big ways, doing their bit and keeping the community from coming unstuck.

To steal a well-known slogan, every little helps. And it really does.