Nail varnish. An extremely important part of my life. My mother had beautiful hands with perfectly painted fingernails. Always. One of my earliest memories is reaching for her hand and trying to find (unsuccessfully at first) the one without a cigarette in it. I took it, and held it and admired the shiny red. She […]Read Post ›
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 ›
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 ›
For A and B Sharon was an inspiration. I know this is a cliché but this time it’s really true. She could make me and, I believe, anyone else, do things I never thought I could. I made my acting debut – and my swan song, it has to be said – at the age […]Read Post ›
I’m on my way to the Tate Modern at the moment and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m on the train to Paddington and just thinking about all the exhibitions I have really wanted to see and actually made the effort to go to the gallery, yet did not manage to see them. Many years […]Read Post ›
“Good morning, good yawning” – a memorable quotation from one of the very few books that we used to have when the children were small Yesterday Kasia asked me about some books that we used to read together when she was a small child. We didn’t have a lot of money then so I actually […]Read Post ›
For HH Pam Dudley I have been doing a lot of de-cluttering lately in my classroom. A job long overdue as my school moved from Hammersmith to White City two years ago, and then it was a case of getting rid of as much as possible, but still taking with me all that I thought […]Read Post ›
For JH Serendipity was the name of a very new and exciting shop in Notting Hill Gate in the sixties. I never actually went inside because I had no money, but I would press my nose to the window and look longingly at the mixture of colourful home furnishings and useless but pretty […]Read Post ›
