by Valerie | Nov 27, 2019 | art, childhood, General interest, history, Italy, people, reading groups, theatre, travel, writing a novel
The loft – a child’s paradise. The place where parents put whatever they did not quite know what to do with but feared to throw away. Occasionally there is a sad moment when you silently watch bulging bin liners bumped down the stairs to a temporary store at the back... by Valerie | Sep 25, 2019 | museums, people, travel
Evenings are now invading afternoon as the northern hemisphere tips into the darkest days of the year – a time of melancholy. I was born in the depths of winter and suffer from the loss of daylight. Christmas is three months away, but already I yearn for the bright... by Valerie | Jul 24, 2019 | art, General interest, history, Italy, museums, people
As I write, history is palpably being made, so I take refuge in the past. I have been asked how over 600 drawings and sketches by Leonardo da Vinci came into the possession of the Queen of the British Isles. No pictures survive from Antiquity, so no depictions... by Valerie | Jul 17, 2019 | art, General interest, history, people, travel
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the indefatigable German immigrant in the 1930s who was passionate about English vernacular architecture, founded the indispensable Penguin guides to the buildings of England’s towns and villages. It may be legend or fantasy that he wished to... by Valerie | Jul 3, 2019 | art, Fashion, General interest, history, people, poetry, travel
As a child, the Nottinghamshire novelist D.H. Lawrence used to watch his father walking slowly back home up the dew-strewn pastures between his mining village and the pits after a night shift and later wrote, ‘that is the landscape of my heart’. Those words came to... by Valerie | Jun 26, 2019 | General interest, history, people, poetry, Uncategorized
A few days over 200 years ago in May 2019, a young, impecunious and terminally ill poet sat writing poetry in Hampstead on the north road out of London. The rented house where he lived still preserves the sensitive stillness that pervades his poetry. The stillness of...
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