Category: Everyday

It is simple, but always striking… especially for one who comes from calmer climates. The wind is from the west, blowing strong all week on the back of my flat, the side with my bedroom, the side where the kitchen and bath are built in. The kitchen and bath, being towards the back and more…

"She decides, with misgivings, that she is finished for today. Always, there are these doubts. Should she try another hour? Is she being judicious, or slothful? Judicious, she tells herself, and almost believes it. She has her two hundred and fifty words, more or less. Let it be enough. Have faith that you will be…

Not so down: the sun appears to be out more, and even the days are longer since the equinox – it is always interesting to see how rapidly the length of the day changes at certain points of the year. I am less depressed partly, of course, because of the impact of the world on…

Having moved the computer to my desk in the middle room (actually I should keep it here, as this is much more of a 'work area' than the front room and couch, where I have spent far too much of the past five years) – I can see fireworks: the municipal celebration of New Year's…

Early Christmas morning: between four and five a.m., briefly awake. At the back of my mind for the past few days: the differences between holidays with family and friends, as opposed to alone, especially among the single and the older (like me of course). Alfred visited for two days, to the 23rd; he is a…

After all that travel, as the days get short, my days are not sharply defined – my body seems a bit off to me: as though my liver, my body's processing systems, are slightly out of whack. Some work gets done, fragmentarily: I am in focus for an hour or less, then tired for an…

The chimney sweep came this afternoon… a pleasant man in his fifties, indeed covered with soot, indeed with black brushes of various kinds. And even a blackened, grimy cloth to protect the carpet – although it didn't look as though it would protect much, he's clearly been doing this for years, as the room looked…

On a day when I'm finally finishing that article that has hung over my head for three weeks, almost finished; and need to work on airline schedules, voter registration, and other miscellanea, which really should be finished today… not one but three invitations to chat, to have dinner, to go out. My negative response puts…

My cleaner, Katia, came today (she is Bulgarian, blonde, charming, and kind; she brought me chocolates when I had been in the hospital; her children and husband moved here a month ago from Bulgaria, and they are settling in to school, college, and jobs with alacrity). We needed to do a Big Task: take the…

I know it's not really the end of summer, not quite yet: it is still three weeks before the meetings that introduce the semester start, four weeks before the students arrive; and although we've had a lot of wet, cold weather, there will still be warm days off and on for that month. But it's…