Clik here to view.
The kannabis trail
I’m sitting on my cream sofa as I write on my little lap-top. It doesn’t need recovering, though I had these loose covers made twenty years ago … they are, you could say in that time-honoured phrase –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The magic and mystery of cats
“I have lived with several Zen masters”, wrote master and mystic Eckhart Tolle, and went on to say they were all cats. Well, I have lived with one zen master, a small black witchy cat who entered my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Simple pleasures- they may not be what you think !
For some it’s a nice hot bath, for others it’s sitting in front of a roaring log fire – surely one of the most primeval pleasures – so what are your simple pleasures? One of mine is a hot croissant...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The gifts that keep on giving
I’m always slightly envious when people reminisce lovingly about their mothers, since mine disappeared when I was six, not to be found again until I was in my fifties when it was too late to rebuild...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who cares?
While other squires were out raping maidens and oppressing the poor, or so legend has it, John Scrimgeour, the lord of the manor who lived at Stedham Hall, occupied himself instead with spreading...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Eating for Easter
A beloved friend coping with laryngitis wrote to say she intended to cure herself by eating Easter eggs. An idea, which, as my delicious daughter would say, ‘had legs’, but which was not one which...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Words, words words…
William Shakespeare was ‘the onlie begetter’ of those words, which have been in my mind in this month of poetry. I’ve discovered that in the United States, very few children learn poetry by heart any...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Aliens, Narnia and our dog, Murphy
My latest devouring passion (perhaps passions keep you alive and hungry for the fascination and excitement of life!) is for films about aliens… I especially love the ones with encounters between...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Little happinesses and big happiness
I love Autumn… I loved it in England, those early morning mists burnt off by the morning sun… the scents of bonfires and blackberries, picking hazel-nuts from the hedgerows, finding silky, shining...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Old soldiers …”
Leafing through an old notebook looking for a blank page to pull out to write a shopping list, I found these words I’d forgotten I’d written. Timing isn’t always everything I decided, and though I’m...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gossip is good for us
I am an unashamed gossip. Gossip to me is the spice of life, a valuable tool of information, and the oil that greases human relations. Years ago I was shocked when an acquaintance said to me in reply...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The necessity of beauty
Pamela was my lodger. She was living in the third bedroom in my flat for the same reasons that Mr Micawber pronounced the immortal words:” Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Religion, relevance and Planet Earth
Bishop’s ring ( this is a bit of fun, with a serious twist at the end ) Religion doesn’t get a very good press these days… too often associated with bishops covering up the unsavoury misdemeanours of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The truth about Dunkirk
Dunkirk is a word that probably means something to some Britons these days, and very little to the rest of the world. But to people of my generation the word conjures up a tragic and magic moment in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Officially sanctioned ghosts
I learned about ghosts when I was a twenty-one- year old army officer stationed in Warwickshire. History seemed like the present in such a place – Banbury Cross was still there, Warwick and Warwick...
View ArticleClik here to view.
There are more things in heaven and earth…
We had moved to a little house up a valley, where we overlooked the glittering Firth up which Captain James Cook had sailed as he explored the new land he’d discovered, and where we also looked back...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Saving the West
Hastings We’ve been re-watching a favourite TV series on Youtube from some years back… Foyle’s War. Unlike real life, it’s one of those satisfying forms of entertainment in which the baddies always...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Earth’s greatest treasure
In this place, I look up to the stars at night and there is nothing apart from the clouds to hide them from my gaze… the Milky Way seems an infinite cloud of light, the Southern Cross pointing as it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chickens coming home to roost
Nobel prize-winner Malala Yousafzai I’ve wondered why I’ve been so fascinated by it. I normally never read the news, especially salacious negative or destructive items, but I’ve been rivetted to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A composer, a journalist and an activist
A composer, a journalist and an activist. One of the great boons of technology is the ability to find about people I’m curious about, have known in the past, or want to know about now!. I was...
View Article