We’re all a bit scared right now. Indeed, if we aren’t, we should be. The tentacles of Covid-19 are everywhere and getting worse. And we are warned that health systems are under serious strain. In England, where the new, more contagious strain has begun to predominate, the problems are doubtless…
With Covid-19, we are drowning in statistics. Every day, I see the number of new cases, the number of hospitalisations, the number of deaths. For my country and the rest of the world. They are overwhelming, and it is hard to take them all in. At the same time, there…
Almost everybody has friends. It is part of life to have them. Some of us have loads and some have very few, but we all feel that they are important in our lives. And we all know who our friends are. They are people who are not our family, not…
A well-known saying floated into my head recently: “The past is another country.” Interesting, I thought, and wondered who said it first. It turned out to be J. P. Hartley, the novelist, and it is the first line, slightly wrongly remembered, of his novel (later a movie), The Go Between: “The…
They say that the older you get, the more difficulties you have sleeping. This may be true, but I have always had trouble sleeping, so for me it is nothing new. I have read all the advice about how to avoid – or, at least, minimise – sleeping problems. No coffee…
Death. It is all around us these days. Indeed, you can’t get away from it. Turn on the television and you learn how many people have died from Covid-19 in your country. In the US, it is now nearly 250,000; in the UK, it is over 50,000 – and so…
When those of us who are over-sixty were young, there were very few ways of communicating with people who didn’t live nearby. There were handwritten letters (remember them?), there was the house phone, and, in an emergency, there was a telegram. Getting one of those was an event – often…
Do you experience enormous aggravation when things don’t work properly – and, more disturbingly, break down? I don’t mean important things like your medication or even local transport. No, I mean the computers and numerous appliances on which we all increasingly rely. At one point or another, they tend to…
Until we all went into lockdown – the ‘before’ period that feels like another time altogether – I used to love to eat out. Although I am a moderately good cook (and my husband a willing sous-chef), there is so much to be said for it. Making an Occasion First,…
I heard an expression the other day that stopped me in my tracks. It had the ring of a famous saying, although that turned out not to be the case. But more importantly, it had some real profundity. It said, simply, “Life ends in the middle of a sentence.” Getting…
