It was a most unexpected ending to the day. Rather than feeling joyful, that afternoon was filled with sadness. We had been building a wall on and off for twelve months; it was the year's big project. Then the work was done, the site was cleared, and it was time for saying goodbye. I didn’t…
Animal antics
It was part of my job to set exams. One year I decided on a new approach – I would write questions that came at the curriculum from new angles. Within an hour of the exam finishing, angry students had arrived at my door. I had tricked them. Generations of students before them had analysed…
French without tears
It took some time to realise what was happening and it was wonderful. On the Wednesday of my week in Paris I had been to a film and had understood most of what was said. By the Friday, understanding spoken French was almost second nature. After six years, something had clicked. In aeroplane terms, I…
Granny C and the thistle
Granny C was angry. She wanted to see more of us. She had come to stay and we weren't paying her enough attention. She knew we had planned to clear the thistles from the meadow to allow the poppies to re-grow like last year [Field of Glory, 15th August, 2011] but spending hours digging each…
In the aspect of the beholder
Until recently our feelings about views have usually differed. While my wife loves ‘untouched’ expanses of nature, the Cairngorms for example with not a house in sight, or miles of Atlantic rollers, my breath is taken away by man-made structures. The Roman aqueduct at Nimes blew my mind when I was a teenager, and for…
Back to the elements
Our recent holiday in Kenya was special. And we, to be more precise I, went with serious concerns. The UK had declared that civil unrest made the country unsafe for holidaymakers. Friends warned us about the dual dangers of altitude and buffalo - unlike lions and elephants, buffalo are plain spiteful. And research on the…
Fleeting memory
‘Quick’. ‘Look’. ‘Top of the trellising’. And there they were, just two metres away, a pair of goldfinches. I knew that they were around, we had talked about them often, but this was the first time I had actually seen them, and in our own garden too. They were small (shorter than a robin), and…
Line of most resistance
It was a lovely spring afternoon and I sat sipping tea in the conservatory, calculating the amount of my time I spend procrastinating. The task was prompted by the sight of shirts, towels and smalls fluttering prettily on a washing line that I had just put up; a job that took 3 years. In the…