My barista and dancer will always be a child in my heart although we are trying to move away from that…I will always be her mother, she my lovely daughter. A few months ago, on one of her visits home, perhaps it was round about Easter, she bought with her a packet of seeds in…

I snapped these pictures between Sainsbury’s and home on our patriotic High Street in Beckenham. This is an up market optician and high fashion glasses shop, and across the road is the nail place, and then another little privately owned shop, and a passport photo studio. Here’s one of the many banks wishing us several…

Last night our little group gathered Bronte style in the Lady Chapel of St. George’s. It was cool and dim, the urns with the ashes were on the altar. Behind the scenes hubs had removed the memorial stone revealing the prepared ground beneath. Our priest led us in prayer as he commended our precious remains…

My father died a little more than two years before my mother. His ashes were carried from Broadstairs to London by hubs, when he moved my mother into her flat, and took up residence in my brother’s garage to gather dust. When my mother died I made arrangements for the funeral home to collect her…

A small portion of my sojourn here in England has been taken up with the reverent disposal of my parents’ ashes. I say, ‘a small portion,’ because physically I’ve not done much but in essence I have had their ashes on my mind for the whole year,  somewhere hovering in the background, enlivened each time…

My elderly uncle, brother of my late father, was visiting. We talked about family, naturally, he is the oldest living relative on my father’s side and I wanted to be certain all my questions were answered. I was asking about one of his Aunts, the one with the hunchback, all he knew was his mother…

Our trip this week involved my daughter. She was officially on half-term but unofficially rehearsing so we couldn’t whisk her away to a sunny island to cement her berry brown tan she had been working on between clouds and classes. The day was lovely and forecast to be the last in the week of delicious…

I found a beautiful bush with delicate flowers blooming along our road.  I could not resist them I had to stop and stare and marvel and smile at their ethereal loveliness. I didn’t have my camera with me so unthinkingly I picked some and carefully carried them home. On the way, a less than five…

Eccentric literature professor David approaches Laura for a counter-cultural, rule-filled relationship filled with poetry, flowers and bottom-less cups of tea. Falling For Your Madness is not just a romantic comedy, it also asks the question, who has the most power in a relationship? The lady? Or the gentleman?      

Some of the things I love about England.
The rockery. It harbours heathers, lavender and other hardy everygreens, shrubs that seem to tolerate hose pipe bans and droughts, often found in front of wood timbered houses but not always…And lastly, my favourite thing, sharing this Gap Year, on these fair shores, with my Southern Gentleman!