Acting is all about honesty, if you can fake that you can fake anything.
The White House Rose Garden was established in 1913 by Ellen Louise Axson Wilson the wife of Woodrow Wilson. It was on the site of a previous ‘colonial’ garden established by First Lady Edith Roosevelt, those roses took a lot of tending and a good deal of horse shit. Then a rumour reached me that … Read more
8.15 and it’s dark. There are those who complain about shorter days and the onset of winter, but I like the sniff of autumn, and the crunch of curled leaves. Our cottage is designed to be cool in the summer and cosy in the winter, those damn peasants knew what they were doing building granite … Read more
Don’t we accumulate friends over a lifetime. A posse of like minded pals, or even unlikely chums that crop up year after year when their birthdays come round. January is lean for me, I do know about three folk with their birthdays in the bleak month. But I’m too overwhelmed by Christmas to remember them. … Read more
When I left the cottage the rain was barely there, By the time I reached the field it was a proper summer shower warm and ‘Soft’ as they say in Ireland. I would like to be in Galway now, on the rough Atlantic coast, eating in smoke stained bars whilst the fiddlers play and the … Read more
On the way to the organic farm shop the dawter spied a herd of deer in a field. We drove past them on our right, leaving them behind us as we swung round the lanes towards the fresh vegetables. We arrived, on Monday, the sign said ‘Open Tuesday till Saturday’. So the girl turned the … Read more
We have a drawer full of candles. Our next door neighbour does car boot sales and house clearances so he gives us boxes of old, waxy, white candles, dirty, drippy Christmas candles and if we’re lucky boxes of old dining room tapers that melt into ghostly fingers down the side of our candlesticks. We’ve always … Read more
Don’t we all have a purpose in life? Some of us know what that purpose is, others thrust their purpose upon us, but I wager most of us spend time wondering what is the meaning of life. Now given that we’re all living through an unprecedented existential crisis I ponder, on an hourly basis, “Why … Read more
Water water everywhere and ne’er a drop to drink, wash, flush, or feed the spuds. The South East is leaking! Now, I could care less if we run out of water in 20 years time since I’ll be 91 and supping on NAR, the ‘elixir of life’ invented by a scientific wallah from Kazakhstan. But … Read more
I read in the magazine ‘What Doctor’s Don’t Tell You’ that filter coffee is better for diabetics than a cafetier or the Old Git’s fancy machine. So I bought a funnel on line, a pack of filters and a permanent gauzy type thing from Jeremy’s Kitchen Shop. The result is a delicious, mellow cup of … Read more
Down in the orchard the Himalayan Balsam is in full bloom. It grows beside the stream and inhabits the spot where the wild garlic grows in the spring. It’s tall and gregarious and shares the pond with Bullrushes and whizzy dragon flies. I always thought the common name for the Himalayan intruder was ‘Policeman’s Helmet’, … Read more