The other day I walked my friend Estelle’s dog. It’s something I’ve done on occasion when she has been unable to, and it’s something I enjoy, both because I like walking and because Ruby, a black labradoodle, is one of the most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever known. Everyone on the street knows Ruby, and everyone […]
Tag: Family
Tales of Old
This is a wooden spoon. As statements go it’s not that revelatory; unless your eyesight is impaired you can see it’s a wooden spoon. To be specific, it’s a broken wooden spoon, an end achieved when I smacked the bottom of a pan with it, something I often do and, in the case of this […]
Lockdown: Day 17
Years ago, working for a bank, I was helping a lady open a bank account for the first time in her life. She was obviously out of place, looked nervous and awkward, and only doing it because her husband’s employers, as most were in the late eighties, moving to payroll rather than cash. When I […]
Lockdown: Day 3
When you make the choice to live twelve thousand miles away from your family there’s every chance that you leave someone after a visit knowing you may never see them again. Yesterday we received the sad news that this lady, Esther (Ettie) Annenberg, Neil’s Nan had died. She was 111. I heard some sharp intakes […]
Happy Birthday Mum
It would have been my mum’s birthday last week. It’s over a decade since she left us – sometimes it feels like she’s been gone forever, sometimes it feels painfully close. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not weeping into my tea or tearing my clothes or anything, it’s just that I often see something that […]
Tracy Annenberg 