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 [...]
Toast
I must have been feeling hungry the other morning while I was lying half asleep in bed, as I was dreaming about my home-made bread and eating a slice of toast with honey or butter (but not both – one [...]
The Colours of Lockdown
In many cultures rainbows are a symbol of hope. They appear sometimes as perfect arcs, often during a rainstorm, when the sun shines onto water droplets, shattering its white light into an array of brilliant colours. Everyone loves a rainbow. It produces that frisson of [...]
Say it Aloud
I am full of admiration for the fortitude of individuals who have been on their own this summer, confined to their homes and gardens. Solitude can be a blessing if it is a choice, but enforced isolation is not congenial [...]
CoronaSpring
Spring 2020. We are living in strange times. Coronavirus, more deadly than any terrorist, has attacked our world and is undermining hope. People feel threatened, frightened, challenged. Our physical horizons are dwindling but our mental horizons are expanding - people are more aware [...]
Grandmas Rule OK
In five weeks time, I’m going to be a grandmother for the third time. Its a role I love – and I’ve managed to get in plenty of training and practice with grandchildren numbers 1 and 2. It’s grand to [...]
Green is Good for You
May has been glorious. I love my garden at this time of the year - it's so green, so overgrown, so soothing. I am reminded of Andrew Marvell's wonderful poem: 'The Garden'. Here is my favourite stanza which echos my [...]
Teething Problems in Paradise
I have recently returned from a short holiday in 'Paradise' - or to be more accurate a tiny island in an isolated atoll in a wide ocean - or to be more precise: Fonimagoodhoo Island in Baa Atoll in the [...]
Good Riddance to January
January 2018 is memorable (or rather unmemorable) for having the longest number of sunless days and hours of any January since records began, so I'm told. It was a dark, dismal, dank month - and - to add adverbs (now [...]
25 Years on Borrowed Time
A quarter of a century has passed since my reprieve. I was lying on my back under a searingly bright light, alone. I had been dreaming of freedom and fervently hoping that I would outwit my enemy and come through [...]