A potato. Kicked into the little bonfire and pulled out an hour or so later with a bit of green stick that happened to be left on the ground. Burned potato skin pulled open with a rusty fork. The same fork that had stirred the curried beans warmed up as a side dish. Beans curried… Continue reading Potato
One of our favourite discoveries this year has been the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield. It’s created on the old Bretton Estate, which once provided a home to Bretton Hall, a college for arts and teaching students. I studied theatre and dallied with music, and so Bretton Hall was fairly clearly on my radar… Continue reading Student Halls Revisited
An almost audible cyber-sigh passes around Facebook on Sunday teatimes when one of the Class of 1988 announces that they’ve put line-dried sheets on the bed and will be turning in early. Someone fanatically houseproud chimes in to say that they’ve ironed their bed linen, and we laugh through a debate about which of us… Continue reading Class of 1988
Flowers were the first perfumes that I remember. We used to bottle a strange mixture of crushed rose petals and water from the hosepipe. When I focus, I can almost smell it now. I’m not sure why we made it, or whether it really smelled of anything much other than in the moments when our… Continue reading My Perfume Stories
I’m from a lifetime of Marks and Spencers underwear, from last season’s clothes bought on sale and from the dizzy limit of wealth being enough spare cash to buy a jacket from Jaeger. I’m from a favourite cousin’s hand-me-down sailor dress, and from a family of women who each in turn convinced themselves that they… Continue reading Where I Am From
For “Snack or Treat” (76 of 365) Knickerbocker Glory in the Harbour Bar at Scarborough. Stupidly expensive, but worth every penny!
I spend a little piece of each morning fighting off the ravages of age followed by a few moments in close connection with my youth. I always have to make the bed before showering. ‘Have to’ in an OCD sort of a way, and also because I don’t have a dressing table and so part… Continue reading Morning Routine (61 of 365)
We used to build hiding places like this all the time as children; we lived on the edge of town and had lots of fields and open areas within about five minutes’ walk. The place we grew up in is now much more built up, and most of those fields have gone. This hiding place… Continue reading Hiding (24 of 365)