You long to press your forehead to the cold window pane and breathe, then trace a message of escape in reverse. Clutching your safety blanket, liquid for lost fingers, you wonder if another one could take all these cares away. Tied to your wrist, the silver string that leads to your distant whole, strains and... Continue Reading →
Today is a sad day. Writer Iain Banks announced he has terminal cancer and isn't expected to live beyond the end of the year. My previous post talked about my five favourite books and just nudging the outside of those is 'The Crow Road'. I adore this book, bought on a whim on a vague... Continue Reading →
This list is part of a much bigger one of 'books I can't live without', but I whittled it down to five because it's easier to build a blog post around it. Top (insert number here) lists are entirely objective of course, but I quite like them. So now, without further ado and in no particular... Continue Reading →
We took the car ferry across the glossy Sognefjord to the Norwegian Glacier Museum. Inside, three huge cocooning screens showed a film that flew us over the glaciers that spread over the country. Afterwards, it was only fitting that we visited a real glacier - or at least part of it. The Boyabreen arm of... Continue Reading →
'When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lighting or in rain?' 'Well you usually get all three together. I'd check the weather forecast.' Lynda, mother of the witches three, shrugged her hood off and glared at the young girl to her left. 'All right Miss smarty pants, put that phone down! Oh never mind.... Continue Reading →
The scratching became a tapping, that soon became a crying, I heard the voice inside me, in my bedroom down below. ‘Mice,’ said my mother, clucking, so my father got to trapping, and I waited for the screaming, in my bedroom down below. A doll found silent sitting, like the bride forever waiting, they called... Continue Reading →
William Shakespeare died 23 April 1616. He's buried in Stratford-Upon-Avon in Holy Trinity Church. William Shakespeare's grave, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK Some say he was the greatest writer who ever lived. Others say his works belong to other writers. Personally, I think he did write his plays, albeit with ideas from the players with whom he worked... Continue Reading →
I remember when I found you, just before you caught the train that day many months in coming. Of course you'd always been there, doing what you were meant to. Bandaging, teaching, cajoling, exasperating, bringing me up in a world I tried to hide from.But before that moment there was an arms-length between us.... Continue Reading →
Don’t believe what you read in the papers. They call me a rogue, a trouble maker, unstable, but that’s bull. I don’t play by the rules, that’s for sure, but frankly, the rules suck. They've tried to stop me. They've cut off my magic a hundred times. I just buy more on the black market.... Continue Reading →
...of a poem in the letters page of Good Food magazine. But publication nevertheless. My boyfriend persuaded me to email this to them. I thought it would be a bit of humour for their office after Christmas; I certainly didn't think it would be published. It's quite cringe-worthy, but I'm sharing it with you to show that... Continue Reading →
Wordland 