Status Quo – a micro fiction
Three years after their wedding Ella’s husband Andrei ran away to sea. He was a Romanian bricklayer who had always had a dream to sail the oceans. It came as no surprise - he had always been so impetuous and [...]
Three years after their wedding Ella’s husband Andrei ran away to sea. He was a Romanian bricklayer who had always had a dream to sail the oceans. It came as no surprise - he had always been so impetuous and [...]
The times in which we live can seriously impact the type of books we choose to read. When an economy is booming, unemployment low and the national feeling is upbeat, we often indulge ourselves with reading books about war, natural [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
"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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]