by Valerie | Jul 23, 2014 | childhood, General interest, people
It’s good to know your presence is needed for grandchildren, and that it leaves time for you to have your own life. We’re just back from Daniel’s first proper birthday party, shared with a friend Jago, a week older. (Here they are being photographed... by Valerie | Jul 16, 2014 | 1950s, childhood, General interest, history, people, travel
I had visited Nymans before, but it was some time ago and I liked the idea of wandering through gardens in the south of England on a lovely summer’s afternoon. And so we did. The roses were stupendous in the walled garden, but I seemed to be impelled towards... by Valerie | Jul 7, 2014 | art, childhood, General interest, history, museums, people, travel
We’ve climbed the tower which the eccentric William Beckford built so he could escape from the social whirl of early 19th-century Bath to contemplate, in solitary brooding, the hills around the city, the Mendip hills of the Neolithic inhabitants long before the... by Valerie | Jun 24, 2014 | art, General interest, history, museums, people, travel, writing a novel
Back at the start of my novel, now with a title but needing a character revision. This is the third revision, and I realise that the first chapter I always thought was so apt, isn’t at all. I need to think it out again. So I found myself contemplating roses on the... by Valerie | Jun 11, 2014 | art, General interest, history, Italy, museums, people, travel
Then the Sistine Chapel. Such is the forced direction that one enters on the wall with Michelangelo’s Last Judgement; it is the way the priests entered under Jonah, a prototype of Christ. We, the lay visitors, should have entered at the other end, to meet under those...
Recent Comments