Solstice
You know when you float on your back in the lake, when your ears submerge and the noisy world is still there but all watery and subdued and far away? I sometimes get this sort of feeling around midsummer (and without necessarily going in the lake either). Everything slows down and the world is somehow … Continue reading
Par Avion take flight
I have to come clean. I’ve been harbouring a secret. And in the world of full-frontal bloggery, that’s tantamount to sin. I mean, what is a blog if not a license to read and judge a total stranger’s faceless life? So I’ll start at the beginning. * A million years ago, I resolved to do … Continue reading
Night of the Dead
Th older I get the more seasonal my life becomes. The perfect Florida orange in January, the first frosty morning requiring wool socks — it’s these transitions and moments that measure out my years. Witnessing the changing patterns of the planet and the movement of the light mark time in ways more profound than clocks … Continue reading
Thirty: My decade of being late.
So I’ve been pretty terrible at the whole Thirty Things malarkey. I’m not super fussed, mostly because it’s got me blogging again and brough lots of other adventures and stories my way. [Plus, I am secretly rather gleeful that I am shedding my hyper-retentive OCD list abiding ways. It was exhuasting.] And I haven’t done … Continue reading
In the arena, I’m still young at heart
Between the ages of 9 and 14 I spent an inordinate amount of time following the American Women’s Gymnastics team. I would buy magazines with babysitting money, purely because they featured some “day-in-the-life” story of one of the Olympic hopefuls of my youth. I quietly obsessed about those girls the way other kids knew famous … Continue reading
I Capture the Castle
This is one of those books I’ve always meant to read. Working in a children’s bookshop once upon a time, it was a go-to favourite for many of my colleagues. In the world of British kids lit it’s legendary, and I believe it is the sort of coming-of-age novel that’s as valuable and valid at … Continue reading
The Book of Awesome
Do you ever have these people who are on the fringes of your life – acquaintances, maybe, or folk in your work network – who you think are just totally awesome? The sort of people who light up rooms and change the world and smile with their eyes. You’re not really close, but everything you … Continue reading
A Minty May Treat
May is one of the very, very best months. There is sunshine and there are flowers and barbeques and a bounty of good, juicy wild foods for foraging. One of the first welcome friends I find in the hedgerow (after the prolific wild garlic) is mint, in all her varieties. Foraging is not a skill … Continue reading
Platters of wholesome goodness
It is a bright, stormy day and my head is full of heavy things. And while I want to believe being all grown-up, facing these things head on, and standing up for what I believe in will always turn out for the best, I need a mini-hiatus. The kind made of toasted crumpets and fuzzy … Continue reading
Oxford
We spent the last four days (and Ollie‘s first 1069 miles) driving to and then around Oxfordshire. It was very beautiful, which I expected. And quite posh and snobby, which I also expected. But after a couple of days I also found lots of other, quirkier things that make me think I might really like … Continue reading
Que Sera Sara? 