No not the opera, not many Spanish girls of that name, but the best birthday present ever when I was 17, in 1970. My parents had friends who I now realise were doing their utmost to treat me as a grown up rather than the sweet little girl that my parents made me out to […]Read Post ›
The photographs here are all of statues and sculptures I liked for their sinuous forms. I just wanted to reach out and stroke and touch. Couldn’t of course. But it was pleasant just to linger and look.
Maybe that’s a bit of an abstruse connection, but yesterday one of my husband’s dreams came true. It was our 44th wedding anniversary and we decided to escape the Coronation and come to Soller so he could do a course in copper patination. A few years ago we were in Malaga and happened to wander […]Read Post ›
Clearing out. Two words I hate. Clearing out is so hard to do. But it has to be done. One thing at a time. Now I’m not going to write about every object consigned to the recycling bin. Most actually produce no memories. They are easily discarded. But The Woman in Black is a play […]Read Post ›
She died exactly twelve years ago. My favourite aunt. My only aunt but still my favourite. Vibrant, sassy, kind and extremely self contained. She was the original who never complained, never explained. She was born Alicja Łomnicka, in Lwów, Poland in 1936. She became Alice Ruffell when she married. The marriage didn’t last – whatever […]Read Post ›
I have always been fascinated by playing cards, not just by the possibilities of endless hours of fun, but by the artwork. Today I found a very old set ensconced in a leather travelling case, and was very excited when the first joker jumped out at me. I think the black cat is hilarious (note […]Read Post ›
May 5th 1979, I am at my mother’s flat in Elm Park Gardens, getting myself ready for my wedding. The flat is teeming with people. My mother, my stepfather, a friend who is sewing me into my headdress – we thought it would be so easy – my father who is wearing two vests very […]Read Post ›
Robert Edward Gordon; my godfather. Of course he wasn’t born Robert Edward Gordon 104 years ago today. He was born Zbigniew Szczepański, in Poznań, I believe, 6 days after Poland regained her independence after 123 years of partition. I imagine his mother must have been thrilled to give birth to her first and I believe […]Read Post ›
21st May 2022 A few weeks ago I received this invitation to attend a book launch and exhibition of ceramics, both by the artist Elizabeth Stanhope, as she is known in English speaking circles. I have written about her before, when I was writing a profile of her for the Polish Ball, to which she […]Read Post ›
When I was eighteen I went to Poland for six weeks. It was a great turning point in my life, as up till then I had been very shy, very nervous, lacking in confidence and with very few independent skills. I was clever and well read, but that was about it. I left school after […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 