Spread across the village green is the remains of a fearsome picnic: pigeon feathers. It was probably a fox. My thoughts fly to Ethelreda and her partner Ethelred. Whose feathers lie ravaged on the grass? Are the eggs safe in my garden under their canopy of spent...
Sitting writing in my hammock I look up to see a pigeon watching me from among the roses on the pergola. It would be a safe place to nest as the thorny sprays keep the cats away, if only the daft bird could build a decent nest. Unfortunately for some years the nest...
Our good friend Colin was a true eccentric, a collector of all sorts of things, predominantly tools and an incorrigible hoarder. He could be frustrating but also very kind; he was both highly intelligent and sometimes totally without common sense! For instance, he...
There is a faint rattle as something moves inside the little wooden apple if you shake it. It is scarcely taller than an inch, shiny red with a yellow patch and a tiny wooden stalk that is pressed into a hole on the indented top. I really can remember my sense of...
I don’t know what to do with this frail and rather tatty silk kimono: I wish I did. For a while I hung it from a hanger against the wall where I could admire it, like a picture, until the dust began to settle and accumulate. The kimono is green silk and embroidered...
This small, upright metal strainer stands in its own little saucer, eminently practical. It has flat, decorative lug handles with an interlocking geometric design of straight lines and curves which makes me think of Chinese patterns. The sides are very fine mesh and...
