When you were younger but already adult, your parents most likely helped you in every way they could. Not everyone has such help, but a huge number of us do. And perhaps your grandparents did the same. Maybe it was financial help. They gave you a down payment for a…
As winter slowly turns into spring, most people turn their thoughts to warmer weather, flowers in the park and, probably, the birds and the bees. These are all good things to welcome, in my view. But what I really like in the late spring, right up to the summer solstice…
By the time you are in your mid-70s and there has been no major health crisis, you know you have been lucky. If you have a spouse (or partner) and ‘you’ means both of you, you know you have been doubly lucky. Now aged 79 and my husband aged 80,…
Years ago, I coined the term ‘cheap luxury’ in my household, but I think it is a good time to spread it around. See if you think it has meaning for you. The term first arose, if I am not mistaken, over a jar of mustard. We were in a…
I cannot keep my secret quiet any longer. I have suffered in silence for years. Only my closest friends know the situation and they tend to sympathise. It’s not really my fault, BUT I really hate shopping. I always have. The problem Let’s try to ‘unpack’ this little problem. Perhaps…
It is a common practice to divide the world into two types of people. Extroverts and introverts. Meat eaters and vegetarians. In England, Marmite lovers and haters. My distinction for today is between those who love to laze around and do nothing and those who are happiest when they…
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…
