Bella – a purrfect girl
Bella, small and beautiful Bella, a reminder of two weeks in Italy I had a photo of you and your brother, in my wallet during that holiday, and you came to live with me upon my return. You were always…
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Bella, small and beautiful Bella, a reminder of two weeks in Italy I had a photo of you and your brother, in my wallet during that holiday, and you came to live with me upon my return. You were always…
Continue readingYesterday I spent the day in Oxford. I arrived early, the train delivering me right in the centre of the city, still beautifully quiet at half past nine even on a Saturday (compared to the frenetic hustle and bustle that…
Continue readingNellie Jefferys glamour puss. Nellie Jefferys and your two and three-quarter legs you made our then five and three-quarter total of cats, complete. With your two and three-quarter legs. Free climbing was your thing (and you were good at it)…
Continue readingThere are countless quotes about books and reading. George R. R. Martin famously said: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” Whilst Lemony Snicket took the approach that: “Never trust…
Continue readingI’ve reached the point in my novel where the story is reaching it’s conclusion, and the Fairy Queen must be reborn and thus I must dovetail my writing with revision of the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas The Rhymer – the major…
Continue readingLast year, I pledged to journal more in these pages – to document my life in a more substantive way than on the various forms of social media that I make use of. For a while, it worked and I enjoyed it… And…
Continue readingWhat did I always want to be when I grew up? Well, aside from wanting to live like Peter Pan and never grow up – I founded CAGU, the Campaign for the Abolition of Growing Up – I wanted to…
Continue readingFirst Sense of the Season Misty mornings of August days. Curled leaves lie in the gutter With fallen conkers, shells split Bunches of elderberries, squashed a cushed, fermented smell that lingers in the still, fresh, air. A day of muted…
Continue readingSo Wimbledon has been and gone, which is always a blessing and a disguise. I always feel that I haven’t made the most of it, and watched enough tennis. That said, it does mean that I might finally get back…
Continue readingBarney and Emily run, shrieking through the woodland. Plimsoled feet through the dry, leafy floor. Carol sits with her Sony Walkman under the tree with the initials and dates carved into its stretched sides. Hugo talks maths puzzles with the…
Continue readingWeep not for the mighty oak brought down by wind and rain, and the weathering of a long, full life now ended. The soul of the mighty oak though, lives on New trees grow from the rotting stump, and fauna…
Continue readingToday sees the start of World Autism Awareness Week. Autism and aspergers are hidden conditions. At their most pronounced autism is a condition that can isolate people from the world and make it hard for them to cope, but even…
Continue readingI had he bi-monthly Oxford ALLi meeting this evening and so I stayed at work a bit longer, and then enjoyed the freedom of the bicycle to nip up to Headington to go to Waitrose. I only wanted one thing,…
Continue readingI’ve never been homeless and I do not pretend to know what that must feel and be like. Each morning though, on the way to work, as I walk across the city from one bus to the next, I see…
Continue readingChristmas is a time for the confort and traditions. Some of these traditions are whole family traditions, and some are more personal and come and go. I was thinking about this today, because I’m making huge progress through Alan Bennett’s…
Continue readingDoing NaNoWriMo this year was an experiment – an experiment in sustained productivity. I am a bit of a slow writer. Maybe not a slow writer of Alan Garner proportions, but slow nonetheless. I’m not following full NaNoWriMO rules. I’m…
Continue readingSo, it’s NaNoWriMO Day 2, and I am incredibly ahead of my (albeit reduced) wordcount target. I have no idea if it is a record year for NaNoWriMo participants but it certainly seems to be judging by my friends list…
Continue readingMy current wip is about halfway done, and it’s been that way for too long. Not that it’s been stalled through writers’ block or anything like that, but just through lack of time and too much other life going on….
Continue readingAfter a weekend in which Emma and I completed another 12 mile training walk I’ve used up a couple of last days of annual leave to make a nice 4 day weekend, and some genuine me time to get back…
Continue readingBack in the earlier days of the internet, in the years that came before the juggernaut that is Facebook (other social networks are available), The Internet felt more like a community than it does now. What? I hear you cry….
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