for GD Holidays seem to be a bit of a non-starter these days so we must take our pleasures wherever we can. Little did I know when I set off to Paddington from Cookham fairly early on Monday morning that I would have one of the loveliest days ever. I was going to meet my […]Read Post ›
Today I found a notebook my daughter had given me a few years ago and which I used for writing about momentous occasions. Here is my original entry. We had gone to Zimbabwe Botswana and Namibia for my husband’s 65th birthday. These photos are from the day before. We were leaving Hwange Nationsl Park to […]Read Post ›
I am not a natural camper. I can count the number of times I have attempted this activity on the fingers of one hand. (I’m not counting the outrageously luxurious glamming I have enjoyed in Uganda and Tanzania.) just the times I have agreed to sleep in a tent. Or even in a car. The […]Read Post ›
This little table was already old when I got it when I was a little girl. My mother used to take in the occasional lodger or paying guest, and I used to love them all as they were a very welcome break from my rather solitary not to say lonely existence. I was very shy […]Read Post ›
For a long time, I couldn’t find this piece of remarkable jewellery. So I was very pleased when last week it turned up well hidden and well protected in my chest of drawers. It was a great surprise many years ago, when my mother came round for our customary Sunday lunch and handed me a […]Read Post ›
or: The asexual reproduction of plants. Miss Power was probably the least well-named teacher we ever had. Beige in dress, including the long bloomers she used to wear under her skirt (we could see whenever she sat at the desk on the dais, legs comfortably, yet still modestly, apart) and somewhat beige in personality. Certainly […]Read Post ›
This is not a picture of Mother Mary Gabriel or Reverend Mother as she was known, because I could not easily find one of her today. It is however a painting of her predecessor, the founder of the Convent, sister Mary Tredway. The habit is similar but there the resemblance ends, as M M Gabriel […]Read Post ›
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 To S I’ve been sorting through a lot of things recently, boxes of photos and old papers mainly and I’ve been having a wonderful time. Yesterday I hit a certain jackpot, because I found a box of very special papers, mainly from my first year at university, 1972/3. I arrived in Sheffield in October […]Read Post ›
Thank you KK This has been one of the most challenging books I have ever read – the subject matter is war – and normally I avoid this, because I want to relax, be entertained, and enjoy myself. This is quite hard to do when confronted with the horrors and passions and enormities of war. […]Read Post ›
