Blog

Mad cow disease in France.

Mad cow. A few days ago while enjoying the sunshine seated outside the Café des Cordoniers, I ran in to an Englishman I had met years earlier and hadn’t kept in touch with.  We shook hands (these continental habits do wear off on one!) and passed the time of day for a few minutes. He […]

Posted 12 years ago

My favourite things – Roy Orbison

It is odd that singers like Mick Jagger, Elvis Presley, Bono etc., are almost household names in every generation, yet Roy Orbison isn’t.  I suspect my children have never heard of him.  But he worked alongside many great names, to include the above, was revered by them, and was every bit as popular. Those of […]

Posted 12 years ago

Trip reports, book reviews, holiday advisors, opinions in general

Woah !    Hold on – thank you for the many faxes and e-mails but I cannot answer all of you!  So I will try to address the main issues collectively here.  Comments, questions and opinions received can be divided neatly in to three different piles:-   –      People who feel it is their “right” to […]

Posted 12 years ago

Marriage, love, relationships and success with them.

There was an item on …. was it Lifehack ? …… somewhere …. yesterday about knowing when somebody loves you.  It coincided with my being asked to do an item on Happy Marriages, so this is what I am scribbling down at the moment as I start to think of what to write. First, I […]

Posted 12 years ago

Page Three Girls

Page 3 girls ! No, it doesn’t bother me at all. I used to know a Page Three girl.  We were both well in to our forties when we knew each other.  Her name was Sally and she was an intelligent, thinking person, a dental nurse, and a wife and mother.  In her youth she […]

Posted 12 years ago

Belize, central America. A little girl called Adele.

“Travels with a Biro” This is Adele. She is now almost four years old.  She lives with her aunt and six other family members (apart from the aunt’s current boyfriend) in a shack next-door-but-one to our house in Belize.  She is Garifuna (as opposed to Creole).  She is holding a little doll I bought her. […]

Posted 12 years ago

Young woman waiting at a bus stop in Marakesh.

I did a lot of sketching while in Marakesh (my husband tells me I say that about almost every place we go!), and for the first time I tried using wax crayons.  The sketches are somewhere here on this site.  I think I will always prefer using a black biro though – there is something […]

Posted 12 years ago

One of my favourite things, part 4. Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke 1887-1915. I suppose I came across Rupert Brooke when I was a school girl, for we almost certainly had to learn that poem The Soldier …. “If I should die, think only this of me …”  I can still recite the whole thing.  There was – and is – something about the few […]

Posted 12 years ago

Extract from “A Textbook of Hygiene for Teachers in Africa” 1956

EXTRACT FROM “A TEXTBOOK OF HYGIENE FOR TEACHERS IN AFRICA” first published in 1956, then again in 1966 and finally in 1976.  Tragically, the same textbook could be used to this day, 2012. “From time to time medical officers from the Public Health Authority will conduct special health surveys at your school.  The object is […]

Posted 12 years ago

Extract from “A Textbook of Hygiene for Teachers in Africa”.

My father was a doctor of tropical disease.  He taught at Fort Hare, a blacks-only medical University in South Africa.  We lived all over Africa – and many other places too.  This is an extract from his book “A Textbook of Hygiene for Teachers in Africa”, first published in 1956, then again in 1966 and […]

Posted 12 years ago

Books now available on Amazon:

A Call From France
French Sand
Kefani: An African Childhood
The Man With Green Fingers
Saying Nothing