Stories for when you're not where you thought you'd be

It wasn’t her fault. How could she have known? I sat in the cool September sunlight, listening to the crunch of gravel beneath slow...

On the cusp of a sandspit, where land peters out like an unfinished sentence, we stopped for three days. Three days of sharply clear...

(Five days in San Francisco) We sat in the morning mists of the Golden Gate Park gazing at smudged outlines of statues and buildings: the...

It happened when my daughter was three, maybe four.  A friend had organised tickets for an ‘Angelina Ballerina’ meet-the-author session. ...

Extraordinary. Extraordinary how quickly it happens. The guilt. How it catches us out. Creeps up on us sideways and jabs us in the ribs,...

(or what my dying alliums taught me about doing too much) Our alliums are struggling this year, floundering a little. I remember the...

Venice Beach, California We left our packed suitcases just inside the door of our holiday home and drove a few blocks over, beyond the...

I write at the speed of knots. But this is how I read: infuriatingly… Sl... Slo... Slow... Slowly   taking my time to savour every word....

I began this before Christmas. Things were different there then. For ages, I’d been meaning to start some map-making again. For me it’s a...

‘I would NEVER do that!’ I was milling around at a winter’s birthday party. The fire was roaring in my friend’s cosy lounge and there...

It all started here. A small square kitchen, patterned wallpaper that I’m pretty sure had something to do with chickens, and a flap-fold...

On the day of my father’s funeral, I walked the dog in the morning moonlight - a weak leftover circle of white that glimmered beyond the...

It was a simple comment, overheard as friends chatted while I quietly tidied up some music things at church. One had walked the Camino a...

Sometimes it feels like you’re speeding straight into a rock face, full steam ahead. Oh wait, in this case, it’s because we actually...

Some years back, when I was at an all-time low in my career (feeling like I was slowly disappearing in a job I had once loved but which...

A week ago, I finally made it down to the sea for a swim. I still have the scars to prove it. It had been so long and I had longed for...

I love this little look out platform, hidden within the scrubby trees just off Patterson’s Walk in Ferring. The sea view is predictable...

If our hours were salt water flowing over a shoreline then our to-do lists and interruptions would be the force of the waves, the tides...

One of the first labyrinths I ever walked was marked in duct tape on the floor of Chichester Cathedral. It just so happened I had found...

They are so tall. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen groynes so tall. Further up the beach, at Bracklesham Bay - where we had eaten steak...