Cooking . Covid Times . Love . The General
You Can Leave your Ham On
On February 17, 2022 by Speranza
I overheard a conversation lately in which an exasperated older woman was sharing that she now avoided asking her husband any question, no matter how small, because of the endless, elaborate answers he supplied. “I mean, I just asked what time it was,” she sighed, “And he somehow started in on the history of how clocks are made …”
Covid Times . Introspection . My Brothers . Sadness
Happy New Year, try not to laugh …
On January 8, 2021 by Speranza
Hard to write about anything today without commenting on the endlessly distressing news (er, and Happy New Year everyone) but I will now try to do that very thing. Those who know me, will testify that I have always been about savouring and appreciating The Small Things (even before it became fashionable to do so and we all had to read about the technique in someone’s bestselling book).
But truly, it really is all that we have.
Covid Times . Getting Older
Losing your Marbles – or not
On December 30, 2020 by Speranza
So hard to believe that The Pandemic year has been almost exactly that now – an entire year. With more intense lockdowns returning this week and the growing, trembling realization that this whole thing may not have been handled as well by our government as we previously thought, I am trying to return to focusing on the few things that I can control here in my own world. Sadly, this must include the rat’s nest that is called my study. I am usually very much on top of this stuff but slowly it has turned into such a landslide of papers, filing and debris that I had to begin a Shred-Off – and this is only Day 2.
British Stuff . Covid Times . Hope . My Mother . Nostalgia . The General
A New November
On November 10, 2020 by Speranza
Each year I dread November. As well as unconsciously shuffling through tightly compressed memories of my mother’s death (43 years ago) and all the associated bleakness both outside and within, I can hardly bear the early darkness that creeps in after a five o’clock sky, flecked with pink. I am flooded with memories of living in Britain and that particular deep reaching dampness that can only really be remedied with a large Scotch in a steaming bath. (And at seventeen, as now, I don’t even drink Scotch …)
Introspection
Pandemic
On April 16, 2020 by Speranza
When I was a young child my mind had – and still has – an uncanny but undesirable ability to remember scary, dreadful things just as I was trying to fall asleep. Literally, as I felt myself start to loosen, I would be snapped awake by the image of a grinning, menacing rocking horse that was moving independently (when I was five) or a collage of swirling, terrifying news bytes which happen to be true (last night).