I own this very old dictionary named Cassell’s Concise English Dictionary which is still very much loved and used by me. It’s nowhere near as large as my Oxford Concise English Dictionary but I still like to look words up in it because it has so many beautiful archaic words in it. Anyway… so its […]
When I was about fifteen or sixteen, I had to write a kind of list poem for my English studies. I think I called it something like ‘Nervousness’ and it was a whole list of things that made me feel ‘nervousness’. My teacher corrected me, writing that ‘anxiety’ was a better word to use. She
Of course I love to look upwards and gaze at the beauty of the stars. Looking at the constellations is a potent reminder of just how small I am; of how insignificant human life is. My troubles are as nothing to the vastness of the sky and the magnitude of the universe… How wonderful that
A week ago yesterday school broke up. On that last day of term I took my eldest (youngest in tow, as usual) to school, and the mood in the playground was celebratory. Children, and parents alike, were glad that the holidays were almost here. Yet there were tears too. On the way to school I
Last weekend we didn’t really need to be anywhere, so we decided to catch up with the gardening. While the two little ones harvested strawberries and raspberries, waved bamboo canes around and dug holes in the soil I weeded, pruned and then thinned the carrots. This task – the thinning of the carrots — is a
But I did, and guess what? My children had grown; they were older and not so dependent on me. Months had gone by, possibly years, and somehow it had happened in the blink of an eye. A woman in well-worn clothes, hair unkempt, stared back at me from the mirror. When, exactly, did her
Various fairy tales, the Brambly Hedge stories by Jill Barklem, The Three Musketeers by Dumas, Core Maths by Bostock and Chandler, Organic Chemistry by MacMurray, The Professor by Charlotte Bronte, Possession by AS Byatt, The Birth Book by Sears, The Baby Book by Sears, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by La Leche League International, the
Currently Reading: Quiet Read More »
I was standing on a shore, watching the boats leave and take to the waves. The sailors were focussed and busy with their seafaring activities. I wanted to go with them, to experience the feeling of sea-flight, and yet I was grounded, my boat in pieces in front of me. I could swim, at least
All the Possibilities Read More »