Last week was a time of separation, disowning, distancing and many many words. The few that were directed towards me suggested that my mind was incapable of complex thinking, and could only manage these basic blogs I write most weeks. At one point in my life, my head was full of academic thinking, but now,…

I was at a place at the weekend that I’ve never been before. I can’t describe it to you, because almost all off it was covered in sea mist. I can tell you there were dunes, sand, and a few metres of sea, but that’s all. It was a gentle, mystical, forgiving seaside, and I…

I was at a funeral recently, and I lost my voice. That is, I was sure I was singing, but I couldn’t hear myself. Why? The male basses and tenors around me drowned me out. It’s happened before – strong voices overpowering quieter ones. The singing was great, of course, just hard to distinguish anything…

So, my daughter wrote a great story about her Brownie camp. The leader asked if she would read it out at the prize-giving ceremony tonight and she said no. I asked her why not. “I just don’t want to” was her reply. As I thought about the sheer terror of sharing my own work with…

A few weeks ago, a friend (thankyou Aileen!) reminded me of the phrase ‘a thin place’. In other words, a place that is close to heaven. I’m sure you’ve all been somewhere like that, where you feel that you only need to stretch out your hand to touch something outside of your finite life. It…

So many bad, painful, shocking things have happened recently – to the world, to people I know.  What’s a body to do – retreat into the dark and never come out?  Cry until there are no tears left?  Never dare, never change, never try anything new? Never hope?

So here’s some of them  – the people I’ve created and spent nearly two years with.  They’ve shaped my story, and determined how it will end.  See more of them and their world in my novel, Chez Moi (working title) due to come out June 2018.

Hearing of how Cambridge Analytica used a personality type questionnaire via Facebook to access personal records got me thinking.  Why do so many of us do these quizzes and what makes them so appealing?  The answer lies in that universal question – who am I?

Following the well-known advice of William Faulkner, I have selected a few passages of my latest work and taken them out as being superfluous, self-indulgent and downright unnecessary.  I’ve copied and pasted one in here, as I couldn’t bear to kill it completely…   Francesca lifted one mustard, navy and red patterned curtain and looked…

Last week when the snow had stopped falling for a time, I saw an angel.  Well, the shape of one like you see on Christmas trees or cards.  It was hard to make out at first, but the more I looked, the clearer it became.  It was a gentle reminder to search, scavenge and scrabble…