My dad climbed a ladder armed with some string and a pencil and marked out a three-stripe border that swirled around the kitchen ceiling of our new home. It was the 1970s and the sale of our modest London home enabled my parents to buy a much bigger house and garden...
It’s just us in the twilight field: the white dog and me. There is a pinkness at the edge of the sky and the oaks are in silhouette. The field is a stage and we are in the middle. No one is about but it is not quiet. There are no visible stars but the sky is so busy,...
I listen to the sound of the sea in the high and windy trees, my soul stretched up like a kite on a string where the buzzard mews . The trees sough, leaves transmit and in my mind’s eye I see waves breaking on the beach. I am wrapped in sea memories, rocked by sea...
Once upon the sale of the business premises, I acquired a large and rather grandiose carved cupboard with four bevelled glass doors. It stands around 6ft 7” high by 7ft 3”. I call it “the Nautical Bookcase” as the carving shows a central galleon in full sail which...
It turns out there was just one pigeon’s egg and it has hatched. I have seen Etheldreda feeding a scrawny, downy squab; the tiny bird stretched up a long neck and food was passed beak to beak. Once fed, the squab was tucked up out of sight again. Now I can worry about...
Spread across the village green is the remains of a fearsome picnic: pigeon feathers. It was probably a fox. My thoughts fly to Etheldreda and her partner Ethelred. Whose feathers lie ravaged on the grass? Are the eggs safe in my garden under their canopy of spent...
