Remembrance

My earliest memory is uncannily relevant to the events remembered this week. I was sitting with my elder sister in our ‘tree house’ intrigued by the pulley with a basket at its end. We could lower it to be filled with sandwiches and, if we ate them, down again for a...

Meandering

On most Sundays, we set out in the car on a ‘magical mystery tour’ to explore places we haven’t been to before. Not many are left within a day’s reach, so we returned to another part of the ‘ings’ or flooded water meadows by the Derwent, now a vast silent mirror of...

Custom

Does it matter how one looks when one is being interviewed for a position of responsibility? Should a woman wear a smart suit in a sombre colour – trousers or skirt immaterial – or what one liked and felt comfortable in?  A Labour Party leader in the past was...

A Discovery

After living in Yorkshire for so many years I assume there is nowhere that can be reached on a day’s drive that I haven’t discovered. I was wrong. Preferring hilly country, we have usually avoided lowland and that can also mean wide, open valleys. Last Sunday, still...

Stopping by woods

In the northern hemisphere days begin to lengthen on my birthday, 29 December, giving a few extra moments that light up the darkest period of the year just time passes the double-headed Janus, to enter a new one. Yesterday evening we turned off the electric light and...