I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to learn a language using the ‘Michel Thomas Method’ – I’ve found it very useful – and one interesting comment he makes is that by learning another language you often learn more about your own. That also applies to teaching your own language. I’ve had the pleasure of teaching several Spanish and Latin American students English online for a few years now and it’s taught me things about my native language that I’d never considered – or been taught – before. A few aspects of the language have always puzzled me, however. Even from a relatively young age it ..read more

                                                      It is June 2024.The wallpaper table has been slid from under the sofa and set up on its spindly legs along the hall. A tall bar stool, tucked in below, strengthens the weak hinges. I have to tell you that this frail table has never indicated that decorating is taking place. It is a signal that a serious sorting-out task is underway in the house ..read more

I can’t get into Dickens. The Russian tomes are endless. John Le Carre never uses two words when five will completely confuse the issue. And the fact that Graham Greene called some of his books ‘entertainments’ has always puzzled me. If I’m going to be stranded on a desert island, please airlift me a box containing the collected works of Joe Lansdale, Ross Thomas, Kate Saunders, Louis Sachar, Victoria Wood, Alan Bennett and The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry.  I won’t need a football ..read more

  All Ember wants is to fly with the golden flamebirds who stop every year at Bright Beacon before heading west across the seas to their mysterious home. Their fiery arrival is also the signal for the waiting Flame Chasers in theharbour below to get ready to follow the birds, whose glowing tail feathers grant the finder a wish. But when Pa tells Ember he is chasing without her, she is devastated. Can she find a ship and captain to help her find her father, and the flamebirds secret home? I have been eagerly awaiting the publication of Julie Pike's second book, being a big fan of her deb ..read more

 This is a post I wrote some years ago for The History Girls. Children's books as they used to be! I'm indebted to a friend of mine for this month's post. She was having a clear-out, and decided that a pile of books which had belonged to her grandfather finally had to go. Most of them went to Glastonbury Rural Life Museum - but I managed to divert a few of them my way. Here's one of them. You should just about be able to say that the inscription inside the book is dated 1905, and says:  Rowland Edgar Weston From his Mother on his sixth Birthday. The publishers are EP Dutton &a ..read more

                    This is a clever, accessible, little chapter book story about feelings and relationships.                    Teenager Abby has a problem, and it isn’t the kind of problem that gets much sympathy at first, especially from herself.  It’s been just her and Dad for as long as Abby can remember, but now Jen has moved in, in step-mother role, and Jen is just too nice! Too full of compliments that Abby doesn’t believe, too muc ..read more

 Tomorrow I am going to my second session of Pilates, and after feeling intimidated about the idea of it for years, after doing my first session last week, I am really looking forward to going back. It takes place in a church hall above a church, and is run by a retired ballerina, and the person running the class, and the other people in the group are so lovely. The main reason I am looking forward to going back is that I can feel the difference after  just that one hour. Like many writers the more I work the worse my posture has got, and I knew I needed help. The week before last I ..read more

(Watty62 wiki commons) As one project comes to an end, it's time to start gently simmering thoughts of the next one. And as a fan of recycling, I've done a little browsing in my files (and yes, that goes back a long way) of ideas I was excited about once upon a time. Hoping that in amongst all the unfinished bits and bobs there might be something I could really get my teeth into. Why not? I loved them once. Why not again? (And think of how much of the work would already be done!) And in the way of these things, in an idle moment, I came across David Van de Kamp (a Serbian knitter/designer I ..read more

Last month I wrote about the origins of five famous children’s books.  I was fascinated to discover what inspired the writers to come up with such long-lived classics, and I hope some of you were equally interested. Anyway, as promised, today I want to go on with five more famous children’s books and/or series. The first of these is Mary Poppins, by P L Travers, published in 1934. P L Travers’ creation, unlike her screen portrayal, is a “fierce, witchy heroine who imparts the deeper meaning of life to her charges.”  Travers moved among mystics and magicians, such as AE Russell (a w ..read more

This is a weird thing to link to writing, but bear with me. Over the years, I've become like a vicar who can make any apparently random subject relate to Jesus in a sermon. Only in my case, it's writing not Jesus.  Exactly a year ago I stopped dyeing my hair. That might sound trivial, but I agonised about it for years. My natural hair colour was very dark brown, and the grey hairs came through early, probably in my twenties. It did not occur to me for one moment that I could leave them be and they would gradually do their own thing, and that that would be OK. My granny's hair was jet ..read more