by Valerie | Sep 23, 2014 | art, General interest, history, people
I’ve suffered from insomnia for almost as long as I can remember, and this summer was no exception. It wasn’t helped by a hacking cough right into September when I had a fever and was prescribed antibiotics. For years I have occasionally taken a sleeping pill if I was... by Valerie | Jul 31, 2014 | art, General interest, history, travel
Rain from a grey Italian sky has brought me inside from gardening; it has put me in mind of what we humans do to the earth’s surface. Or non-humans, for that matter. A few years ago I was a ‘hanger-on’ at a conference in Paris. It was on the 18th-century architect... 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...
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