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

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...

New Year 2023 It seemed crazy. Impossible. The rain rattled against the windows and the more sensible family members did query our sanity...

I don’t recall exactly when I first stumbled upon this wonderful Theodore Roosevelt quote in an old library book. What I do remember is...

I flicked through the pages intrigued, a bemused smile of disbelief creeping across my face. Who WAS this girl? She worked convivially...

(Aka: Provence part one) I painted this picture many many years ago, sometime in the months after I first lived in southern France and,...