It’s not often I give up on book, but I gave up on Hilaire Belloc’s Mr Petre. Actually, I was going to say I’m sorry to admit I didn’t finish this book, but then I thought why should I feel… Continue reading

Well, it’s September, and  gardens, hedgerows, fields and woods seem to be full of flowers, grasses, trees and bushes, all producing seeds to ensure the survival of the species, so for the this month’s Gardening Gaze I’ve been looking to… Continue reading

War Messages: Endpapers in Persephone’s Few Eggs and No Orangesare from a design called London Wall, printed from a fragment of rayon  headscard produced by Jacqmar Ltd c.1942. For those of us born after the Second World War it’s hard to imagine… Continue reading

Burrator Dam, at one end of Burrator Reservoir on Dartmoor.The road runs across it, so you can walk across and look downat the water , which is an awfully long down down! This week we have been to visit my… Continue reading

The Music Box, by Malachi Whitaker, reminded me of DH Lawrence – the setting, that is, not the style. Short story writer Malachi Whitaker. Here we have a sensitive woman and her timid young son living in a grim, bleak,… Continue reading