Instructions for a Heatwave – Maggie O’Farrell – Tinder Press – ISBN: 978-0-7553-5879-3 Since I began to write myself, every now and then I have come across a writer who embodies all that I aspire to. Maggie O’Farrell is definitely one such individual. Her ability to tell a story, to give a sense of a specific time and place, but most of all, her character-writing is enviable. You not only know…

Like many others, I am sure, I watched Paul McCartney’s set at this year’s Glastonbury Festival with a mixture of awe and nostalgia. He’s eighty years old! I was already in bed when he went out on stage… In all honesty, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love The Beatles. They rose to fame in my early childhood, and as they were of a similar age to my own brothers, I suppose I have always…

The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry –  Serpent’s Tail – ISBN: 978- 1781255452 I freely admit that the primary reason I purchased and read this book was because my favourite actor was cast and can be seen in the Apple TV adaptation (I have only watched Ep.1 and I am already furious at the many changes – why change the name of the damn pub, FFS???). That said, any novel of quality set in or near what…

The Lick of Love – How Dogs Changed My Life by Julian Clary I have been a fan of this particular Renowned Homosexual (as Julian likes to style himself) ever since he first appeared on TV in the early 1980s. The fact that his sarcastic, risqué humour was accompanied by his canine companion,  a beautiful little whippet-cross known as Fanny the Wonder Dog, only made me love him more. She seemed to…

I’m not one to judge a book by its cover, but I have been known on occasion to be intrigued by a title. In this case, it wasn’t in fact me, but my daughter, who, a year ago, spotted and sent me The Manningtree Witches by AK Blakemore as a Mother’s Day gift. Before we came here to very rural north-west France, we lived for thirty years in a village in Suffolk, just across the river Stour from…

Stanley Tucci is one of those actors who is in a great many films I have enjoyed, and while he is rarely the ‘star’, his performances are always memorable. I have always rather liked him; he exudes a warmth and charm that is hard to resist, especially if, like me, you are attracted by intelligence and self-deprecating wit. So you can imagine my delight this past December when I opened one of my…

“Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather…”John Keats I am writing this surrounded by books. My books, my partner Geoff’s books, our parents’ books… This has always been the condition of my life. I grew up in a home stuffed with all kinds of books, every room filled with them. I read from a precociously early age (it helped having a primary teacher for a Dad) and I am told I tended to…

The author & her elder daughter, Martha c.1986-7 I’ve been thinking a lot about memory lately. About how it works, how it changes, what it means in the shape of our lives and how we see ourselves. I’ve always spent a lot of time in my own distant past. I say ‘always’, but it probably only dates from when my mother died, so from when I was fourteen. Because of that, I have memories from before…

“Travelling is the ruin of all happiness!” Fanny Burney Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com Last week, I started writing a blog entry on the subject of my love-hate relationship with travel. I’m sure this it’s common among sufferers of anxiety; I love to visit different, new places, but generally I find the process of preparation and getting there a trial. I doubt many anxious people do…

I haven’t been around for a while, I know. Sorry about that. The weather had been nice, so the SO and I decided to grab the opportunity to get away for a few days to the Brittany coast. Only about 90 minutes from here, but it was a nice change of scene for us and the dogs. We have some lovely friends who have a gîte, as well as a big daft dog who loves one of ours to bits, so it was a bit of…

This is a weird time of year for me. I love the spring; blossom is everywhere, the swallows are here, we heard a cuckoo the other day – not to mention nightingales! But at the same time, I always dread the arrival of the end of April. The beginning of May has been a difficult time for many years; it has two special birthdays, my Mum’s and my late brother John’s, and as if that wasn’t enough, it…

Photo by Mike on Pexels.com One often hears it said that death is the last taboo. While this isn’t generally true in all cultures, it probably is in mine (I am British – even now, we don’t much like to talk about our feelings). But it wasn’t always this way. In Victorian Britain, much was made of death, probably because then it was a more familiar concept. Child mortality rates were high, even…

“She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with It as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.” ~ George Eliot About two years ago, I started writing a fanfiction story about grief. Funnily enough, it was the conclusion of the tale of the first character I ever wrote about, because to date, it remains my last fanfiction. I hope to do more, but as yet I…

I’ve had a bad couple of weeks, mental health-wise. The weather’s been changeable, I’ve had migraines (which may or may not be connected to the meteorological conditions, after 50 years I’ve given up trying to work out the causes), upsetting events in the news, I had my first COVID-19 vaccination which gave me a few side-effects… some of this may have contributed. But I have learned that my…

My dear friend Chantal over in Chicago recently posted a picture of one of her mother’s recipes and that reminded me that I have none of Mum’s. I regret that bitterly, because she was a wonderful cook, was Constance Ernestine Sally East-Goodwin, and I would love to try to reproduce some of her dishes, and pass them on to the next generation. I know nearly everyone says that about their own…