Texas’ weather is as unpredictable as England’s. This summer was no exception. Remembering 2011 – – our sons were living alone at Collins while we were in London for a year and experienced a record breaking hot and dry summer – -this year we had no significant rain from the first week in June until…

I love to hang out my washing. The sheets and pillow cases, the t-shirts and shorts, the pj’s and frocks, that dance and cavort on the line until dry. Folded while crisp and smelling of the outdoors, then packed away into drawers, the linen cupboard or on hangers in the closet. I grew up with…

I once heard a photographer say, “You’re trying to draw the viewer’s attention to what you’re seeing.” The same with words; the writer or speaker is painting a picture for her audience exclusively drawn from her perspective, enticing mental images to arise that jog a memory, raise a question, or break a heart. I love…

To be honest I really wasn’t surprised by what I found when I entered my uncle’s house that first day. It had not been renovated and as I’ve said before, I suspect the wallpaper was original since it was peeling in the corners.  I could be wrong, fifty-six years is a long time, he may…

At the beginning of 2020 Hubs and I travelled to England for a cultural break. It was January, no-one goes to England in the winter for the weather, and since London is my hometown and we’re used to carrying on regardless we spent the month visiting museums and art galleries, attending West End Shows and seeing friends…

Once I graduated from college and left England to live in Texas my relationship with my Uncle was relegated to regular as clockwork cards on birthdays, Christmas and Easter. All simply signed, ‘from Uncle Tony’. Nothing else; no little snippets of news or personal sentiments. I would send him cards too with long letters enclosed…

I had a God moment when I walked into a classroom at McKinney Christian Academy one morning and saw a graphing exercise the students had put together on the white board. Close up it looked like a load of neatly coloured light and dark brown, cream, white and black boxes that corresponded to the equations they…

One of our first stops when we returned from London was to go and visit our grand-daughters who live on a bird facility, owned by their parents, called Window to the Wild Theirs is a charmed and magical life; they are surrounded by chickens and goats, a gentle guardian dog, a slow tortoise, as well…

Below freezing days mean coats for the horses. Even the ones who spend all their time outside and are hardy. Especially the ones who are older and more susceptible to chilly weather. Ben is an older horse who has a hard time regulating his body temperature, consequently during the most recent ice storm his owner put…

Years ago in back and forth communications with friends I’d close my emails or cards with, “Firmly in His Grip.” I have no idea where it came from but I know it stemmed from a desire to proclaim my faith, to identify myself as a Christian woman, to put myself figuratively under the wing of…