Driving
for AAK
Autobiography
Driving
For AAK My father passed his driving test when he was about 45 and immediately bought a car. Of course. An Austin A40: YMD 457 I think was the registration. Then he bought an Austin 1100 and we went to Poland in it. I have written bits about that journey. Six years later I was […]Read Post ›
The Feast of the Magi or Pride Comes before a Fall
It was a very cold morning. I’d been up half the night with my insomniac two year old son, and now was trying to get my act together in our tiny cottage in Grove Road. I think it was snowing outside and Kasia was full of beans wanting to go out. Jacek had gone to […]Read Post ›
Uvas de Suerte
Or Lucky Grapes Happy new year. Or szczęśliwego nowego roku. I am sitting in the tube at the moment and opposite me are a young couple who are having a lovely time. He is teaching her how to say happy new year in Polish. She is having difficulties but is gamely practising. I am inwardly […]Read Post ›
Moving
For MMoving home for many people is high on the list of traumatic experiences. I haven’t moved for over thirty years so cannot really remember the trauma, only the expectation of living in a better place, the excitement of something new. Having said that I realise it isn’t actually altogether true. I was on my […]Read Post ›
Roll top desk
for HJ nee P For years I used to dream about this desk. It belonged to my father’s doctor, and I used to love watching the top roll up and down, revealing and hiding all his papers, at will. This feeling of immense latent power came back to me some months ago when we were […]Read Post ›
Dachau
I am in Munich at the moment, on a brief holiday with my husband. It is snowing and we are resting after a fabulous morning exploring the Neue Pinakothek (mainly 19th century) and the Pinakothek der Moderne (mainly 20th and 21st century ) art and design. So different from the only other time I have […]Read Post ›
Playmobil
Thirty three years ago I was in Charing Cross Hospital waiting for my daughter to come out of the operating theatre. She was having her tonsils and adenoids out, which was a good thing as she had suffered dreadfully with throat and ear infections for about half her life hitherto. She was about three and […]Read Post ›
Extreme sports
As anyone who has ever met me knows I am not great fan of exercise. My preferred activity is reading a book, preferably while drinking coffee, or talking with friends, and if push comes to shove, and I really have to do something, then I quite like walking and dancing. For many years I was quite […]Read Post ›
39 years and counting
“Please will you give me a lift at lunchtime?” I asked my unsuspecting colleague, the only person I half knew well enough who had a car and might be amenable. Bill the geography teacher and I had been doing the crossword together every lunchtime for the last month or so, and occasionally we would go […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 