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Kissing the French – extract from “A Call from France”

Kissing was a problem when we first arrived in France. People seemed to trot around kissing each other, and seemed to sometimes want to kiss us. All ages and types flung themselves at each other, planting vigorous kisses – or air-kisses for that matter – on each other’s faces, and there seemed no rhyme nor […]

Posted 13 years ago

The English pub v. French cuisine. I love English food.

I should say “the British pub” (v. French cuisine) though I haven’t been anywhere in the British isles other than England unless you count a brief trip to Scotland over 30 years ago and a brief trip to Wales nearly 10 years ago. I also did a trip to Alderney with a boyfirend 500 years […]

Posted 13 years ago

“The Man With Green Fingers”; a novel set in Cyprus.

This morning somebody asked me how I thought of the story for The Man With Green Fingers.. Well, I have no idea. I think I set it in Cyprus because we were staying there at the time I started to write it. No more complicated than that. The plot developed by itself. I certainly didn’t […]

Posted 13 years ago

“French Sand” – a novel set in New Caledonia

My novel, “French Sand” takes place in the 1960s on the South Pacific island of New Caledonia. Despite being on an island, there is nothing Robinson Crusoe-ish about it, and it is a story of an abandoned woman and how she re-makes her life. A series of surprising events lead her to look more closely […]

Posted 13 years ago

Learning French – how difficult is it ?

My blog for today is an article I was recently asked to write for France Magazine some years ago.. My wonderful husband speaks French. His written French is a different story altogether, and one which we will not go into for fear of wrecking my lap top. But he does speak French and almost everybody […]

Posted 13 years ago

Charities – we should not give aid to Africa

When we were in Africa a few years ago, a local chap suddenly rounded on me while I was chatting about charities like Oxfam and Water Aid. I am not part of those charities, I was just chatting in a general sort of way. The man exclaimed something along the lines of: “I wish you […]

Posted 13 years ago

Should children be forced to eat ? Family life.

As a grandmother, my answer is a firm and emphatic NO. Goodness, I remember such fraught meal times as I tried to cajole our eldest and also our youngest in to eating things they didn’t want. The middle child always tucked in to anything and everything, but he was unusual in that way. Meal times […]

Posted 13 years ago

Books now available on Amazon:

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