Category: General Blog

It has to say something about a nation’s priorities – observing what is first released out of lockdown. And I am sure that I am not the only read-aholic to notice that one of Italy’s first actions was to allow bookshops to open.  How wise and entirely appropriate! Switzerland has approved beauty salons and flower...

Admittedly, as a writer, I tend to be a bit fussy about words. Some people might even call me obsessive. Few things annoy me more, for example, than that constant misuse of the word ‘literally’ – as in my heart was literally in my mouth or I was literally knocked over with surprise.  So it’s no wonder...

Birthdays in lockdown – the latest of curious experiences in these most curious of times. And not my own. If I have to spend my birthday still in lockdown the world will be in a very grave situation since it’s not until that remotest of months, December. And if we have to be grateful for...

My microwave needs cleaning. My writing files are chaotic. My desk drawers are a mess. My enormous under stairs cupboard is possibly home to some rare creatures and cultures and curious hybrid beings since it’s impossible to penetrate the layers of coats and jackets and scarves that lie prostrate within it – let alone the...

When I was growing up, my least favourite days of the week were Wednesdays and Sundays. Most people of a certain age will recognise the features of a suburban Sunday in the 1960s and even into the 1970s. Shops were all closed, apart from the odd newsagent/sweet shop where you could go for sweets after...

Everyone knows those cliché phrases: live everyday like there is no tomorrow / live in the moment / live today and let tomorrow look after itself and other such pointless offerings that are entirely irrelevant to the way most people have to live their lives. Choose and want to live their lives. After all, tomorrow...

Here we are in week whatever – I have genuinely lost count as it feels as if it’s at least week 342, but possibly we are not quite there yet – and, in an effort to be upbeat, positive, proactive about this whole business, I thought I would share some of the discoveries I have...

Can it only be just over a week ago that I sat in a café and considered it a completely normal, pleasant, yet not entirely riveting event worthy of comment and celebration? Now, I find myself staring through the glass of such deserted places with nostalgia – like looking at a time hooked to one’s...

On International Women’s Day, I can’t resist the chance to mention just a few of my favourite female writers. I am not one of those women who only read books by women.  Nor am I someone who thinks that male writers can’t write as well about subjects that might be seen as preoccupying their female...

As a child, buses were an everyday feature of my life. At the age of 8 or 9, I went by bus to primary school – yes, in those days, it was quite normal for children of that age to take themselves on bus journeys unaccompanied by an adult.  In day time, at least.  And...