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Open the Box
Regular readers may have noticed that I went a bit quiet for a minute there. That’s because I’ve been away working in China, The Land That Internet Freedom Forgot [1]. This is a world where creepy men...
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Joining the dots
Recently, I was lucky enough to be asked to find (or, if that were not possible, to write) some suitable poetry to be set to music, for a song cycle by my very talented friend J. The writing process...
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Bite me
The students that I work with in China are not always reliable correspondents once I have returned to my natal shore, but some of them stay in touch and become friends. Those that do so all comment...
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In praise of the handwritten word
Regular readers will recall my description of a small orange book in which my parents noted down the food they served to an increasingly baffling range of guests in the 1970s. One can scarcely imagine...
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Broken Dishes
My current reading matter is the first volume of my diary, covering the years in which I was eleven and twelve. This is an instructive experience. I have recorded events that the uninitiated reader...
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‘The dog expects me to make a full recovery’
I never finished Middlemarch[1]. I was required to study it in my final year at university, and failed to make it past page two hundred: it became a question of whether my brain was going to turn into...
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‘He had his thingy in my ear at the time’
Disaster! Volumes 4 and 5 of my teenage diaries have gone so mouldy that they have become unreadable and have had to go in the recycling (I know I said volume 4 was a corker. The Lord giveth, and He...
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The day after New Year’s Day
For all that has been, thank you. For all that is to come, Yes![1] Garden Naturalist and I spent the afternoon of the day after New Year’s Day pruning our dead tree. The dead tree is about sixty feet...
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Home Economics
(or, eating for £1 per day) This post is prompted by an article by this guy, and a much more sensible blog post explaining why it is nonsense. I’m not going to recapitulate Aethelread the Unread’s...
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Things that make me happy, part 2
A good laundry day. Not a merely blusterous day, but one that is pleasingly warm and windy (much like my dear father post-Christmas pudding), and which causes the laundry to dry swiftly and evenly. A...
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‘GAH! Michael Gove!’
Seymour nominated me for the Leibster award, a thing which draws attention to, you know, blogs. WIN. The rules are that I post eleven facts about me (chosen by me); I answer eleven questions (chosen by...
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A room of one’s own
The room that I used as a study at the house in Bristol faced across the road, and the angle of the window meant that, when the sun was shining, I had to draw the curtains to see what I was doing. The...
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Shake it all about
At through the lattice, Deerfeet writes as follows: ‘It sort of feels a privileged position as home educating parents, to be able to prepare and educate our children on the changes they will face as...
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‘The man doctor will see you now’
I love Woman’s Hour. It’s a super program, full of thoughtful, passionate women talking about things that actually matter. I admit that there is sometimes an almost audible grinding of gears as they...
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Delete as appropriate
My former husband, Garden Naturalist, is a fine man. He has settled into the role of former husband with grace and thoughtfulness, continues to buy me lunch from time to time (or allows me to buy lunch...
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Requiem for a laundrette
In less than a week, Giant Bear and I will move into our first house together. This is, of course, exciting on many levels and for many reasons. Surprisingly high up the list is ‘not having to go to...
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Bride And Groom With Ambulance
Regular readers (and/or people who already know me) will be aware that, in a few short weeks, I am going to become Mrs. Giant Bear. I have been doing my due diligence: reading wedding blogs, talking to...
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Why Don’t You Do Right?
I have a bad habit of attempting to influence the reading habits of my students, both covertly and overtly. For example, a recent seminar on footnotes and referencing used examples drawn exclusively...
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An unparalleled display of shawms
A cursory glance at the walls of a friend’s room, house or other similar display of personal effects is likely to contain pictures of them in Foreign Parts. An unscientific trawl through Facebook pages...
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A bit like the rubella jab
Many important things happened this week. Two of them were as follows: Dr Maya Angelou died, and a mentally unstable racist and misogynist shot some women. Straight away, I’ve reduced both those things...
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