October 25, 2020
Over a game of “Bananagrams” at the dining room table shoehorned in before dinner, my daughter says, “We have to keep a reflective journal but I don’t know what to write in mine.” She places down letters to make the word “conundrum”, an irony I ignore because she’ll already be ahead of me. “I’ll show […]
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October 18, 2020
Over the road, the man at number three has been working in his front garden for the past two weekends. First, he dug out all the earth and now he is laying concrete. As I walk past him with the dog she sniffs at a pile of leaves while I watch him crouch seriously, wielding […]
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October 11, 2020
Walking home past the big house at the bottom of the road I notice a huge pile of stuff sprawling across the gate and onto the pavement. There is a note taped to the wheelie bin. “Dear dustmen, sorry for all the rubbish but I’m going through a divorce and there’s a lot to get […]
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October 4, 2020
Sitting with my family around the increasingly wobbly antique dining table that still reminds me of childhood family Christmases, I am passing around bowls of pasta with two types of tomato sauce. “Do you want the one with olives, Beth?” “Is it the olives that taste like fish?” “They don’t taste like fish, but yes […]
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September 27, 2020
In the film “Manhattan” there is a scene near the end where Isaac is listing for himself all the things that make life worth living. Groucho Marx, Willie Mays, the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony, Louis Armstrong’s recording of “Potato Head Blues”, Swedish movies, “Sentimental Education” by Flaubert, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, the “Apples […]
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