a lonely cloud wandering a red balloon bobbing a jumbo bound for Brooklyn vapour trail exhaling a paper kite parading a flight of young geese gosling a solitary starling a kestrel that’s amazing a swarm of bees just being a bubble tempting fate a yellow biplane towing a banner proclaiming L U L U L…
Spring in Paris
The seasons reflect one of nature's most spectacular rhythms. We are lucky that they differ greatly one from the other, each with its own particularities and its own advocates. As I see it, the best of them all is spring, which according to astronomers, started this year on March 20th. Spring is the season in which…
In search of the presentable potato
It began a fortnight last Saturday. I had settled down for an evening in front of my computer, intending (as I do on occasion) to get to the bottom of these stories one hears about the possibility of cultivating better, bigger and healthier potatoes in one’s back garden. Not that a more presentable output from…
Tuna polpette
Polpette are traditionally made with minced beef or pork and are spherical, like small golf balls. We make them with tuna and flatten them to make the most of the crispy, cheesy, lemony surface - delicious! Serves 2: Preparation 20-30 mins.
Show me the earth
Show me the earth, I said he smiled and cupped his hands like a maltster might or a coffee merchant to show me the soil which richly crumbled between his fingers. I could tell by the ingrained dirt that here was a man hewn of the earth a son of toil, and so twenty sacks,…
We are made of memories
we are made of memories we met somewhere before first day at school seems like yesterday I wore a new blazer like a tortoise would its shell a coal shed, a first kiss fumblings in the dark that coal dust smell I can conjure it at will walking along the sand somewhere…
Food escapology
After a late start, I gradually learnt to cook and for years now I have shared the culinary responsibilities with my wife, herself an excellent cook in the French tradition. In our cooking we have always tried to follow that tradition, so get almost as much pleasure from choosing the menu, buying the ingredients and preparing and cooking…
Surely not the postman?
As life plods inexorably on its way, one might as well get used to the notion that some of the characters who once seemed to be part of the very fabric of society will recede into the background; they will flicker, fade, and then perhaps disappear quietly for ever. Among them are clearly some figures…