Summer. Even the word has a softness about it – the sibilance of the ‘s’ then the two syllables of the word itself. Spring sounds like it is – it’s almost onomatopoeic. The word for the season of spring in Greek is the same as the word for ‘open’ – how appropriate and logical is that! And people constantly tell me that Greek, however difficult, is a logical language. Which takes me both to my ongoing struggle to learn to speak it as well as this particular summer when I have already spent six weeks – and am still counting...
0608/2021August 6, 2021
HEATWAVES – LITERAL AND LITERARY!
The thermometer in the shade on the balcony is displaying just under 40 degrees – yes, we are in the midst of a heatwave in Crete! In all the time I have spent on this magical island over the course of many years and seasons, I have never known such consistent high temperatures. It is promising to ease. By next week we will be down to the more normal low 30s by day and mid 20s by night. At the moment, night time temperatures are only a few snippets down from the day. So it’s got me thinking of heatwaves...
2107/2021July 21, 2021
From MILLER STREET TO MY MOTHER – and the PSPA
In the summer edition of the PSPA* magazine, the driving force behind the creation of one of the characters in my recent novel is featured in an article I wrote for them. Here you can read my article in its entirety. *Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Association
0907/2021July 9, 2021
SUMMER READING
WHAT TO READ THIS SUMMER …? So that’s it – at last the final lesson has been taught and timetables discarded for the forseeable future and it is time to prepare for a couple of months of freedom – and as we claw back a lot of our sorely lost freedoms this summer it seems even more precious to plan for the weeks ahead. For as long as I can remember – and probably for as long as I have been able to read – planning which books to pack into suitcases has been a treasured activity. And since I...
0107/2021July 2, 2021
COMPETITION NEWS!
July 1st and some exiting competition news to announce – I have just heard that I have been longlisted for REFLEX FICTION’S international summer 2021 flash fiction competition. Out of 521 entries, 48 have been longlisted and all will be published on REFLEX FICTION’S website – one every day between 23rd August and 30th September – and included in a print anthology to be published next summer. The requirements for this particular flash fiction story was to write on any theme or subject at a length of between 180 and 360 words. My story – which takes advantage of the...
1106/2021June 11, 2021
BLOG TOUR!
Next week sees the beginning of a blog tour for MILLER STREET SW22. My novel will be featured and reviewed by different book bloggers over a couple of weeks and their reviews and views shared on blogs and no doubt social media over this time span. This is a new venture for me and I love the posters and art work that had been produced specifically for the event. And street parties are suddenly in the news again! With the prospect of marking the Queen’s 70 year reign next summer by everyone encouraged to take to neighbourhood streets to celebrate...
0506/2021July 2, 2021
ANCESTORS & ANTECEDENTS – real & imagined
Recent lockdowns have led many people to turn against the present to find relief in the past. Our personal pasts, that is. Knowledge of grandparents is usually sound, but trawling back further can be fascinating – for acquiring a bit of family history as well as learning a little about domestic and social history. What kinds of houses did people live in? What jobs were common? What were the conditions that governed their lives? Even before the greater expanse of time that dreaded lockdowns supposedly offered us, I’ve done a bit of trawling back into family history although have not...
2205/2021June 2, 2021
Novel Memories and Moments
I am taking you back to the month of May 1991. No doubt unless you experienced something significant in that month 30 years ago you won’t have a particularly strong memory of it. But I have. And do you know what? The weather in May 1991 was terrible. Cold, wet, unseasonal. (which is a foolish word if you live in the UK for seasons really are a seriously slippery commodity)And living in my Edwardian maisonette in SW14, I came to the conclusion that enough was enough. I had to get away. We had to get away. Coming home from school...
0805/2021May 8, 2021
Let’s Hear it for 1974 …
The other day, sorting out my study and endeavouring to relieve it of unnecessary papers and files and random photographs cluttering drawers, shelves and boxes, I came across a yellowing few pages of a broadsheet newspaper – The Daily Express – for Monday February 25th 1974. Eagerly, I turned the enormous pages (how did people ever read such a cumbersome thing on crowded commuter trains?) expecting that this edition had been kept for some significance, the report of an extraordinary event – but could find nothing. Quite why these few pages had escaped being thrown out years, decades, in the...
2504/2021April 25, 2021
LONG LIVE BOOKSHOPS!
Online book buying has become so second nature to many people that no doubt they never consider actually making a purchase in a real live shop. Just as high street shopping now has to compete with online retail, so bookshops lose customers seeking not only the convenience of buying from home, but also the satisfaction of getting that book at, possibly, a reduced price by an online purchase. But if three lockdowns in the space of some nine months have taught us anything, surely it’s the delight and experience of physically walking into shops and browsing. And bookshops in particular...