March, 2020 The priest advanced towards me, arms open wide, about to plant a kiss on my cheek, his standard welcome for female volunteers at the cathedral - harmless, if a touch damp. But I was to be spared that day, because such a greeting was against the new Rule. So he made a courtly… Continue reading Close to You
Three
A village near Wigan, Lancashire, 2009 The professor sat in his usual chair, feet high on a matching stool, because they were playing up that day. Still witty and brilliant of mind, he was a stooped shadow of the man I'd met six years before. The Venetian blinds that were hell to clean were half-closed,… Continue reading Three
The Mask
May, 2020 Just as it was getting dark one night, there was a single knock on the front door. A parcel lay on the porch. The person who put it there, about to get back in his van, turned and smiled in my direction. Or at least I think he did, because he was wearing… Continue reading The Mask
Home Alone
This piece first appeared a year ago, a guest post for an American audience. It belongs to the Pensionista collection as a mini-manifesto and also as a basis for a later feature on the lockdown experience of 2020 - and the coronavirus outbreak still running its course. Close the front door behind me, then turn… Continue reading Home Alone
Flower Power
February, 2020 The red smudge in the road wasn't blood - and too flat to be a cat or a hedgehog. It was definitely, however, something run over, that had once been alive. I could still make out the outline of a leaf or two and the squashed head of a flower - maybe the… Continue reading Flower Power
Theft
A silky square of material, to be worn around the neck, it looks like an innocent addition to anyone's wardrobe, but it isn't. I know, because I stole it. Central London, October 2019 I was half-way down Oxford Street when I noticed something flapping on my coat sleeve - a small scarf, the label still… Continue reading Theft
Moonscape
2019 - 50 years since the first 'small step'.... It had a dignity, an innocence even, the surface of the moon - before they came... A world with no seasons or air or wind or water - but a place with the power to pull oceans on earth from shore to shore... Lunar highlands -… Continue reading Moonscape
To the Touch
August, 2019. Lichfield Cathedral. The sisters lie together, sleeping in stone the way they slept in life. It's a fine memorial to children who died more than 200 years ago, commissioned by their distraught mother. Visitors are often drawn, not just to the small white figures but to the marble mattress that looks soft enough… Continue reading To the Touch
Washing-Up
He broke as many plates as he took a mop to, chipped most cups he encountered - but it was the pots and pans than really insulted his masculinity. Even the toughest of them had their surfaces scraped, leaving grooves in the non-stick or copper bottoms. No glassware was safe in his company. I blamed… Continue reading Washing-Up
Bad Vibrations
April 2019, a Ladies loo. We stand side by side at the basins, washing our hands - but the other woman's really scrubbing hers, like Lady Macbeth. As well she might, because she's about to commit a crime. I fish out a paper towel - a Handbag Essential; she turns to a machine on the… Continue reading Bad Vibrations
