I love walking around Rivington with my three dogs. Three dogs on their three leads and the potential for a challenge is clear. Muddily apparent if you know Rivington near… Read More »Rivington Walks and Reads: Go Bolton!!
“I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.” He looked at me… Read More »Jane Eyre’s First meeting with Rochester: The Freedom of the Outside!
‘Everything is as it was, I discover when I reach my destination, and everything has changed. ‘ Michael Frayn, Spies.
I’ll tell you, shall I, something I remember? Something that still means a great deal to me. It was long ago. A dusty road in summer I remember, A mountain,… Read More »A long ago by Eleanor farjeon
There was once a scribe who lived in a small village just outside the coast whom was well liked and generally highly thought of in his home community. The scribe… Read More »A thought for the day two!
I read because I want to get to know myself better and being relatively stuck with being me for at least this span and dimension, It seems a good idea… Read More »A thought for today…………
Whenever writers are asked about their craft more often than not, they refer to the importance of reading. When you read, you absorb so much that is essential to the… Read More »Starting your story: Orientate your tale! Cornelia Funke's Thief Lord
The bar at the Ritz-Carlton looks out on the Public Gardens and requires a tie. I’ve looked out on the Public Gardens from other vantage points before, without a tie,… Read More »Flow: Dennis Lehane and Raymond Chandler!
Still on the theme of St Annes and spontaneous purchases from the blog on Agatha Christie and Miss Jane Marple, I also bought this book with this opening: ‘THe cold… Read More »Lorrie Moore: A Gate at the Stairs
‘I’m not going fishing yet!’ declared my daughter before the school run. ‘When are you going fishing then?’ I asked her curiously. ‘ When the salmon floats down the lane.’… Read More »Just go walking with your mind!
A short break in St Annes and a brief trip out to Cleveleys and The Works revealed the oddly comforting joys of reading once of the most successful and prolific… Read More »Agatha Christie: The Body in the Library, Nemesis and A Murder is Announced!
I have come back to life today, I have come back into the world of moons and suns And flowers and trees leaping into the light And all the Earth… Read More »A Return by Elizabeth Jennings
“What do you want to see most?” Orrison asked, as they sat down. Trimble considered. “Well — the back of people’s heads,” he suggested. “Their necks — how their heads… Read More »F Scott Fitzgerald: The Lost Decade
Going over it again brought Helen nearer, and in the white, soft light that steals upon half sleep near morning he found himself talking to her again. She said that… Read More »F Scott Fitzgerald: Babylon Revisited.
All day they had watched their feet toasting in the sunshine, breathing in the metallic heat of this small place where only the most dangerous prisoners were kept. Shoes were a… Read More »The Misty Hut
Who made the world?Who made the swan, and the black bear?Who made the grasshopper?This grasshopper, I mean–the one who has flung herself out of the grass,the one who is eating… Read More »Mary Oliver's Summer's day
“She lifted her head like the sun raised up the sky, everything moved, glowed, just shone. How long had they known that life was for changing, they’d known long before… Read More »Red
The Oven Bird (Robert Frost) There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He… Read More »Robert Frost:'What to make of a diminished thing.'
What if you were haunted by a pair of lovers whose desire for your destruction was so strong that it defied both death and time? A defiance whose ability to… Read More »The Lovers by John Connolly
It began with a light covering of dust. George didn’t stop writing that time but carried on for he had wanted a sign znd now that he had it, he… Read More »dusty answer
”The wheel is come full circle: I am here.” How many of us would make such a declaration I wonder? Edmund’s insight here shows a tragic grandeur even if his… Read More »King Lear: Edmund Act V scene 3
Snow, ice and then a hint of fog. Boxing Day a time for keeping warm and feeding off festive calories whilst dozing and sipping mugs of tea. I have had… Read More »Susan Hill's The Woman in Black: Seeping malignancy just under your door!
THE MAGI by: W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) OW as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and… Read More »The Magi by W B Yeats
Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga? What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islandsWhat water lapping the bowAnd scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through… Read More »T S Eliot's Marina
‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? – You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you, – and… Read More »Speaking oneself into life! Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
I am enough. I am unstoppable. I am loved. I am what I am, and what I am has beauty and strength.
I always wanted to be Huck Finn. He knew how to talk to people. He knew how to drift wide. He still does. There is this loosening out of my… Read More »Huck Finn
It had started to rain. Grey lonely rain that stirred up the earth below the garden and coated Mercy’s old boots. Each step muttered something about the past; promises, feuds,… Read More »Reprised Mercy!
A sniper. A cat. A death. The police were arguing what these seemingly unconnected clues meant: “It’s obvious” said One. “It’s a terrorist calling himself sniper cat!” “No I think…..” he… Read More »Sniper Cat Reprised. By Edward Lewison-Hawksworth
A Song for Simeon T. S. Eliot Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls andThe winter sun creeps by the snow hills; The stubborn season had made stand. My… Read More »TS Eliot's 'A Song for Simeon.'
