We have a newspaper delivered every day. I know, how quaint! I love getting the paper, but I have only limited interest in the news. Nearly all of it is bad and I find politics boring and too slow-moving to hold my attention for long. Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister, is credited with the…
Misleading my readers
I know it’s hard to believe, but I have, in the past, been accused of inaccuracy. I prefer to think of it as artistic licence, but there has even been mention of suing me under the Trade Descriptions Act. I think it was a joke. I am forced to admit, however, that you would find…
Is gratitude the answer to everything?
Sometimes I feel like I’m reading the same article over and over again. I’m sure you know the one – it’s written by an expert and gives advice on how to solve one of the many health problems we all face. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s guidance on how to live longer, protect…
The impossible dream
I don’t know if you’ve seen the video of the tap-dancing physiotherapist and his elderly patient, but it’s rather lovely. The young man, who is helping his patient recover from a hip operation, learned that she had always been a dancer and decided to incorporate tap dancing into her rehabilitation. She has taught him a…
Journey round my bookshelves
Travellers’ tales are giving me the travel fix I need right now. Six months ago, when there seemed little hope of venturing much further than our own front doorsteps, I couldn’t bear to think about the wider world, so wonderful and yet seemingly crushed by the pandemic. Although many countries are still struggling to contain…
That’s not really what I had in mind
In my imagination I was going to be like Saint Francis of Assisi (minus the beard and shapeless tunic). I bought some bird seed, convinced that all I needed to do was scatter a few handfuls outside every morning to attract a variety of grateful birds into the garden. Eventually they’d come to know and…
Such a perfect day
Recently I have been thinking about how much time I spend lounging on the sofa watching TV. Just by writing that sentence I have outed myself as a person with too much time on her hands. I loved Call My Agent! – that addictive French series about a talent agency in Paris – but I…
The wonder of Italian Nonnas and English Nannas
Italian Nonnas seem to be getting a lot of attention at the moment, in theory for their cooking skills, but I suspect largely for their charm. The Pasta Grannies Instagram account has more than half a million followers and many thousands watch the weekly YouTube videos of these women making pasta the way they’ve always…
The lockdown clear-out that knows no bounds
If I’m not released from my house soon there will be nothing left in it. Everything has been tidied, organised, pared down, rationalised and streamlined to such an extent that I could probably fit the entire contents into a small trunk. I have even caught myself idly wondering if I could put the cat on…
No, I have no plans
Freedom is in the air. People are busy making plans. They’re reserving tables in restaurants, arranging museum visits, reserving hotel rooms and even booking flights. At any other time there would be nothing remarkable about this, but now we live in a different time and there is. I don’t seem to have the will to…