It’s some years now since we used to load up our car in Edinburgh and set off on the road to Morocco, via Hull-Zeebrugge and Algeciras-Tangier, and then on to…
We have a lion. A real one? I’ll return to him presently. As I write, we’ve been in Fes for exactly four weeks, acclimatising to some exceptional heat. After a…
Still here in Fes, Morocco. Forty-four degrees today, Sunday. Going outside is like entering an oven. We long for a welcome breeze flowing through our flat, as back in Edinburgh…
My sister-in-law insisted I view the five headless corpses on the rug in the back bedroom. Professionally butchered, they might even have looked beautiful if your taste ran to such…
Last Saturday afternoon, I persuaded my husband to come with me to see the film version of Where the Crawdads Sing at the Everyman cinema on the fifth floor of…
As any pigeon knows, things happen when you turn your back. Like the farmer intent on ploughing while Icarus falls from the sky in Breughel’s famous painting. I’d switched on…
Autumn has been seeping its way into my bones the past few weeks. I thought of Elizabeth Jennings’ line ‘Autumn is bonfires, marbles, smoke’, conjuring up the smells of burning…
I never imagined I would feel sorry for Jeremy Paxman. Not that he would welcome that from me or anyone else. I was no fan of his blunderbuss style of…
A couple of weeks ago, I jumped at the chance of a ticket for a performance of Rona Munro’s fourth medieval play, James IV, Queen of the Fight. I’d already…
I initially thought of calling this piece ‘No teeth. No teeth, Mrs Tittlemouse, said the smiling Mr Jackson’. Anyone of my generation brought up on the children’s tales of Beatrix…