I have signed the contract for the publication of my short story collection, but haven`t yet posted it, secure delivery, to its destination in California. But I am pleased to have done this and in a few days will write to the three UK publishers who have not yet read or commented on the collection […]
Jeff is still recovering from neurosurgery, but all in all is pleased he went through with the operation. I am still tired after not quite sleeping enough, and all that. This afternoon we watched most of the Duke of Edinburgh`s funeral, which was genuinely moving – the absence of large crowds gave it an eerie […]
I have my early school reports, from Redland High School for Girls, Bristol. Nothing too memorable, I imagine. I was never either top or bottom of any class, but two statements have stayed with me until now. At five and a quarter this was said: `Deborah is still rather slow in the cloakroom. Her number […]
I remember the day of the Queen`s coronation. We had bought a black and white television. Our house in Bristol (in Tyndall Avenue, and yes Tyndall was a slave trader among other things…) had three rooms on the ground floor. Dining-room, lounge, and Daddy`s study. In the lounge my mother had set out plates of […]
This has been a hard week. Last Monday Jeff had surgery at Queens Square Neurological hospital. A cervical laminectomy is the name of his operation, which was carried out by a skilled surgeon. Discharged on Friday he has had – as predicted – really bad pain, and needs regular doses of painkillers of various kinds. […]
Monday March 29th. I haven`t watched Shtisel Season Three yet. Jeff and I decided to watch it, then discovered – after discussion with a family member, that we were in fact rewatching Season Two. In Jeff`s case understandable – he really hadn`t seen most of that, apparently. But I had (I think,) which was why […]
Don`t like to go on about it, but sales are up again on my memoir, M E and Me. I don`t exactly know how and why people suddenly come along who buy it. But I am sure, (and this applies to other things I have written) I should have kept an eye on the marketing […]
I decided some time ago that I am entitled to call myself a writer, a real one. If I produced a detailed CV I could demonstrate moments of real achievement – though not the kind of achievement that involves recognition, on more than a minuscule scale, of my work. I reflect on this particularly at […]
More than a month since I received the Covid vaccine. I notice, as we go for local walks, that people who stroll past us seem more relaxed than they have been for over a year. Few people, at least in this locality, wear masks any more. Add to that the fact that for the first […]
I switched on Bloodlands last night because I like watching James Nesbitt, though I don`t always love police dramas. To my shock, or rather not to my shock, but to my sadly lack of shock – here again was what I call that ubiquitous plot motif. Is it really a truth universally acknowledged that a […]