For many months now, I have seen the cutest little mouse come through from my neighbour's fence, scurry from one side of my patio to the other, where it nibbles on seeds dropped from the birdfeeder which hangs on my lilac tree. It is a tiny little thing and very cleverly hides behind plant tubs until it thinks it can safely negotiate the big open space it needs to traverse to get to the seeds. I have shown it to many a visitor to my house and we have all agreed how cute it is. Sometimes I have fancied I have seen two mice as as soon as one scurries next door, another appears almost instantly a ..read more

There's less than three months to Kay and her fiance's wedding.  A year ago it seemed - well a year away - but too far away to panic. Rough hazy plans were made, deposits paid and it seemed way into the future. Suddenly with less than three months to go, it's panic stations as things start to get finalised, concrete decisions made on food, lighting, flowers, clothes, invitations etc. Suddenly it seems more real and VERY CLOSE!!!! Kay's dress has been made and we have been having last-minute fittings and alterations. I too have been dress-hunting. As mother-of-the bride, I have to look the ..read more

It is fourteen years since Greg died. In some ways, it doesn't seem that long. I can still remember vividly the weeks leading up to that, the last week in Intensive Care at the local hospital and the last hours of his life, as his blood pressure sank and his heartbeat flatlined on the monitors. I can vividly recall the conversation with the doctors afterwards and the journey home as the reality sank in. In other ways, it seems an eternity. Days, turning into months, turning into years of coping without him, solitary confinement, climbing the stairs to bed each night and turning out the lights ..read more

I do have Facebook as one of the apps on both my phone and laptop and have found it useful for many things. When Kay was younger and away at university, it was a way of keeping up with (or stalking) what she was up to, as she and her friends posted a lot on there. It was also a way of keeping up with what MY friends were doing or letting them know what I was up to. Often unrequested random things would pop up such as a recipe or craft pattern that interested me or a cute video of animals or people doing hilarious things.  I also decided at some point to join the local Facebook group for m ..read more

I sometimes think modern technology, such as computers and the internet can be a double-edged sword. I am all for progress, after all, without it, we'd all still be wearing sabre-tooth tiger cloaks and be killing woolly mammoths for our supper. But I guess through every generation of progress there have been pros and cons. Take the industrial revolution. It took production output to the next level for factory and mill owners, but at the cost of exploiting their workers. I feel today with the internet we face advantages and disadvantages of different kinds. Computers, mobile phones and the inte ..read more

It's been a funny old Christmas this year. To kick off with, I went down with a virus - the second year running - and I reckon I have a choir concert on 13 December to blame. A soprano directly in front of me was coughing her head off, despite us all being told not to turn up to rehearsals or concerts if we have colds or covid. Lo and behold, three days later I went down at first with a sore throat, then several days later I completely lost my voice and ended up over Christmas with a tickly cough which was worse when I lay down in bed. Last year at the same concert I picked up covid (probably ..read more

Our train journey from Berlin to Hamburg took us through the former East Germany or the Russian sector. My first train journey the other way from Hamburg to Berlin back in 1972, had involved stopping at the border between East and West Germany where East German guards boarded the train with ferocious looking German Shepherd dogs to examine our passports and look under the trains with mirrors to ensure there were no stowaways. There was none of that this time and our train left Berlin main station dead on time and sped through the countryside towards Hamburg. Apart from an occasional farm and h ..read more

I've just come back from the most amazing foreign holiday - one that I have wanted to do for a long while. It's to a place I went to over 46 years ago in one case and over 51 years ago in another. It was a return to my old haunts in Germany. As a young girl, I had studied German and German literature at university. My father was German, although he never spoke it at home, as he and his family had been forced to flee Germany for their lives in early 1939 and it was a part of his painful past that he wanted to forget, so it made me more curious to get to know the language and converse with ..read more

A ..read more

A ..read more