Ticket to Avignon
‘Avignon, aller-retour’ my friend pronounced clearly as we got on the bus. She took her ticket and moved on. My turn. ‘Le même, s’il vous...
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- Nov 11, 2020
- 3 min
Autumn Carnival Cakes
I have wanted to make Frittelle di Carnevale, or at least to eat them again, ever since a brisk bright February morning in Venice nearly...
- Oct 23, 2020
- 3 min
Foreign Kitchens: the life-changing potential of welcoming the outsider
When people ask me where my love of language came from I say it all began in foreign kitchens. One in particular. In a pretty white...
- Oct 14, 2020
- 3 min
Weaver and child
One of the first linocuts I ever made, dabbling in a college art course way back in my twenties, was this African weaver and her baby. I...
- Sep 2, 2020
- 2 min
Cup of tea?
If I had the chance again, I maybe would have said one more thing. Five years ago, I had mere days to write a eulogy, to summarise a...
- Aug 2, 2020
- 3 min
On ditching the Satnav
Fiesta at Els Àngels (2nd August 2015) It was the satnav - or rather our disdain for it - that took us to Els Àngels. Scoffing at its...
- Jul 14, 2020
- 2 min
Give up your dizzying potential
There are few things I love more than buying art and writing materials: vibrant inks, chunky cartridge paper, pencils, shiny new...
- Jun 22, 2020
- 3 min
La Mer - Charles or Bobby?
The sea was Mediterranean aqua this weekend, blatantly masquerading as somewhere far more exotic than the south coast of England. They...
- May 13, 2020
- 3 min
A six-year-old's lesson in hyphenation and grief
Mum and the roundabout Standing in the British Library bookshop, a year after my mother died, I had a nostalgia rush so strong I could...
- Apr 23, 2020
- 2 min
Quiet Garden
I’m sitting with a memory. A different time, a different season. It was one of those gifts of an empty calendar day that can sometimes...
- Nov 22, 2019
- 2 min
How to fail
They’ve put a spin on it. Made it sound like a good thing. You learn so much more from your failure than from your success. It’s what...
- Jul 17, 2019
- 2 min
swimming in the middle lane
Some years ago a friend wrote to me. Previously she had dropped her faith like a heavy coat in summer, finding it uncomfortable,...
- Dec 6, 2018
- 2 min
B-roads
It shouldn’t surprise me - but somehow it still does - how quickly you can fly to a place you normally drive to; the astounding speed...
- Jul 25, 2018
- 2 min
Tornado
It fascinates me, how much we speak from our own experience, how our vocabulary and quirky hand-me-down sayings are tied inextricably to...
- Jun 26, 2018
- 2 min
Frequent Flyer
“Will you be ok Mum? You know, flying without Dad?” I raise my eyebrows at my daughter’s comment before replying in mock indignance, “I...
- May 31, 2018
- 1 min
What kind of mist...?
Sitting in church one day, my eyes wandered from the passage being read and landed instead on James 4 v 14: “What is your life? You are a...
- Mar 29, 2018
- 2 min
making brioche
I had always wanted to make brioche. Since my student days, wandering the cobbled side streets of Aix-en-Provence, breathing in buttery...
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