Memoirs – She went to Shanghai

Three years later and I remembered!

Dear little lady beneath the window sill, I’ve missed your rendition of Twinkle Twinkle since my return to England; watching only the end of your bow peek above the window sill as you repeat, and again, then perfect. The fact that your grandma attempted to sing with you in a language evidently alien toContinue reading “Three years later and I remembered!”

A Trip to the Woods

Still, here was some drama; the sparse, beautiful yet harsh surroundings; the fact that the red light had just appeared beneath my petrol gauge; the intimidating realisation that I had to make a 360 degree turn in a mud sodden field in my tired little 207.

Dear Mr man in the Van #2 of 3.

You pay me no attention and I don’t blame you but I wish you good luck and want to remember your call. The lights have changed now, Mr ‘Bring out your dead’, you’ll be needing to unfold the legs you raised and rested on the ‘crossbar’, release the brake, ring your bell, call and leave.

Dear Mr Man at the Station

To the small group who stroll chatting, slapping various joints to increase circulation and to the lungers, striders, slipper shufflers and park dancers, you are…

Does boot camp mean no more pubs?

I am not a typical ‘boot camp’ kind of person. I do not respond well to being shouted at; I do not like to fail and my vacillating commitment level to exercise varies somewhere between stubborn refusal and fearful avoidance. Still, I knew no one would expect me to do it so this grim assumptionContinue reading “Does boot camp mean no more pubs?”

From her Poppy

It’s a very different ‘blog’ I write today. You see, I left Shanghai for summer in London and the jet lag barely subsided before we were called to the hospital: my nan had suffered a heart attack and was critically ill. Perhaps one day I will write about tubes, vigils and being lost but forContinue reading “From her Poppy”

Cataracts and Dirty Vests

21st May I didn’t sleep the night before last. Well, that’s a lie. I did actually sleep. For four hours. Now I don’t usually have trouble with sleeping; in an annoying explicitly counterproductive way, occasionally, when I’m stressed I’ll wake part way through the night and that’ll be it. It’s funny, sleep never eludesContinue reading “Cataracts and Dirty Vests”