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When I was in my very early thirties I decided to learn to drive. My first instructor was a chauvinist pig. “That’s the trouble with women drivers” he would sigh, “If something drops on the floor they cant leave it alone. They have to bend down to pick it up, they stop concentrating and blah … Read more

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

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

You can’t know everything. Even if you look at it from all sides you still can’t know everything. So now that I know nothing I don’t confess to be an expert – on anything. I know more than some about music, but not enough to riff with Eric Clapton or scat with Claire Martin. I … Read more

So it seems Emily Maitlis stood herself down after telling the truth about The Cum. I have been stood down, more than once, for telling the truth. Mr.Blobby says we can all make up our own minds about The Cum, and thats it’s time to move on from a little political skirmish. Matt Cock stands … Read more

Forget-me-knots have taken over the garden, I pulled some of them out gently and have laid them in the log basket next to the fireplace. They won’t last but they look beautiful. Dandelions everywhere. A couple of buttercups. Bundles of bluebells. Primroses pink and yellow have lined the path to the studio. My Stauntonia, after … Read more

Three handfuls of Epsom salts, a squirt of Badedas and Radio 4. At 7.30 this morning I climbed into the bath and pondered on the end of the world as we know it. By midnight on Friday we will be out of the EU. Speculation abounds; queues, stockpiling, hoarding, lack of medicine, lack of bananas, … Read more