This semi-autobiographical short novel, from 1979,, is a fascinating expose of attitudes to life in an emerging post colonial Senegal. Written in the form of a letter from a recent widow to her friend who now lives in America, she looks back on her life as a teacher, mother of twelve, wife and widow of […]Read Post ›
For AA December 2017. Jacek and I decided on a whim to go to Munich just after Christmas and just before new year’s eve. We had some sort of hope I seem to remember that the Christmas market would still be on – after all the twelve days of the Christmas season start on the […]Read Post ›
One of my greatest regrets is the demise of the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. Do you remember it? It was part of the Victoria and Albert Museum and a lovely place to pop into with children or without. Sometimes they would have exhibitions based on current or recent productions – at other times they […]Read Post ›
PRESENT TENSE Last Monday I decided to venture into town. Camden Town to be precise. I had recently come across the artist Andrzej Maria Borkowski and bought one of his pictures for my husband for his namesday and was intrigued when I discovered he was exhibiting his sculptures in a small gallery in North London. […]Read Post ›
Going backwards from today. This is to help me remember. The rain it raineth everyday. I don’t particularly need to remember that, but diarists always seem to mention the weather. I’m never particularly interested in the weather. I don’t like being too cold or too hot or too wet any more than the next person, […]Read Post ›
January 8th would have been my grandmother’s 124th birthday. Ive decided to send up for her birth certificate to the archives in Bratislava to see if I can find out any more about her background. It was so exciting to receive certificates about my maternal grandmother from the state archives in Lwow that I want […]Read Post ›
I don’t really know how I managed to forget to write about this place when I was writing about our four day trip to Kraków. We had gone to Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of Kraków, not to do anything as exciting as sightseeing but to change my battery in my phone, which had been […]Read Post ›
Friday 3rd January. Having recovered from the excitement of the night before, I waited in forthe dishwasher man to arrive to mend my machine. A burly young Romanian, he could hardly fit into our kitchen – but he managed. He spent over an hour fixing the machine, keeping up a good line of chat and […]Read Post ›
I forgot to write about the most beautiful church, St. Francis’ Basilica, that we saw. It was generally too cold to do much wandering about, but after we had been to Mass we managed to buy Jacek a hat. During the Mass, much to our surprise, we had been invited to renew our vows. That […]Read Post ›
Last week I did something I never thought I would be able to do – mainly because I thought I would never have the opportunity, but also because I did not know if I would have the confidence or the knowledge. So when I saw the poster above my heart was in my mouth, but […]Read Post ›
