Light-Bulb Moment

I lost my balance recently. Few of us care to admit having problems with mobility until it becomes obvious. I started falling over a lot. Luckily I’m expert at falling without hurting myself (I used to do ‘pratfalls’ as my [...]

By |2023-12-29T12:56:35+00:0030th June 2023|Life, Personal|

Vive la Difference

Big cities or small villages - I’ve lived in both - and I know which I prefer.  In my twenties and thirties I lived in Dublin, Bangkok, London and Bath, but I’ve remained for longer in villages - both in [...]

By |2023-03-16T17:51:52+00:0025th October 2022|Life|

Readership v Royalties

Readers are vital to writers, who are in the business of communication.  So writers should be wise enough, when writing their books, to keep the potential readers in mind, and to tell good stories that arouse their curiosity to keep [...]

By |2022-07-11T21:18:43+01:007th July 2022|Books, Promotion|

A Day of Words

On 29th March, I was giving a talk about my book, Dear Magpies, at the Blandford Literary Festival's Day of Words.  It took place in the Woodhouse Gardens Pavilion.  My talk was entitled: From Dorset with Love, because the novel [...]

By |2022-07-11T21:20:32+01:0014th April 2022|Events|

Over a Barrel

"We're out of gas - again!" The exasperation in my husband's voice yesterday was evident.  Like many people, we live in an area with no piped gas, and all our heating and hot water is provided by boilers that run on LPG (liquified petroleum gas) provided by [...]

By |2022-07-11T21:21:59+01:0028th February 2022|Life|

Unintelligible

Intelligence, until the advent of artificial intelligence, has always been an attribute describing a human being, or a living creature. In recent years I have observed that adjective ‘intelligent’ has been applied to a number of inanimate objects.  For example, [...]

By |2022-07-11T21:22:45+01:0013th December 2021|Life|

Welcome to the Next Stage of Life

A few days ago, I retired from work - my final occupation, my last job.   I had orchestrated my exit, set everything in order and handed responsibility over - it all felt quite satisfying.  I received a few cards and [...]

By |2022-02-17T18:32:23+00:007th October 2021|Life, Poetry|

Spooky Big Ben

For some years I have been a member of a small painting group in Dorset and each summer we hold an annual Summer Exhibition in Milton Abbas.  Last year in 2020 it was cancelled owing to the pandemic, but this year [...]

By |2022-07-11T21:23:32+01:0016th July 2021|Events|

Don’t Quote Me

I wonder who is responsible for putting together online all the quotations on hundreds of different words and topics, and how accurate the attributions are. Recently I came across a whole slew of them on the subject of Change.  Some [...]

By |2022-02-16T12:19:25+00:0022nd June 2021|Life|

A Fairy Story

Spring is here and we are all wishing that the pandemic would just go away.  We keep being told that it will, but somehow it still goes on and people are still suffering and dying.  So sad. Sometimes we just [...]

By |2022-07-11T21:24:25+01:001st April 2021|Life|
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