for GD – thank you for a lovely day. Just look at those shoes! and the colour of the skirt! I am no art critic, being of the ilk of I know what I like, and I like what I know, though I am always open to new things and here is a case in […]Read Post ›
About 35 years ago I was teaching in a boys’ school in West London, which was an experience in itself. The school was very rundown and staffed mostly by supply teachers like me, with very few resources. I was working there because it was across the road from where I lived. I had two small […]Read Post ›
For C E I do not like misery literature and would never wittingly open a book whose bleakness, grimness and oppressiveness would be sure to depress me. Luckily I did not read anything about this book before I opened it. I received it for Christmas from a very dear friend and I trusted her that […]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 ›
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 ›
This lovely picture is of my grandmother, Helena Łomnicka and my aunt, Alicja, taken after they were freed from Siberia and had recovered a little in Teheran before they were sent to the Lebanon in about 1944 or 5 Today is the 10th anniversary of my aunt’s death – I have written about her before […]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 ›
I don’t usually use bad language and never write it but sometimes for artistic integrity you have to indicate what was said. A true story: A couple of weeks ago I decided to wait for a bus home as I had already walked about ten kilometres that day, and thought I could do with a […]Read Post ›
This is a story which my son discovered about some of his paternal ancestors. I have translated it from a newspaper article which I attach below. And a link to a a map. At the beginning of the nineteenth century in the centre of the present park stood a hunting lodge belonging to the Doschot […]Read Post ›
I bought this book because I could not find the one I actually wanted, “Future to Let,” which I started reading in a Polish translation in the Polish Weekly. “Future to Let” is being serialised, but I thought I couldn’t wait that long. Anyway, I prefer to read in English and it was originally written […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 