One or two of you have recently noticed that you have a few more moments in the day available for the children, knitting or wood...

Once in 2020 there was that balmy golden age of early lockdown when we were all going to maintain laudable regimes of fitness, personal...

At last a jewel of a morning – a sky of sapphire blue and crystals of frost and snow crunching underneath. The puddles were frozen and...

Today I found myself talking to a tea towel. The burden of the conversation went something like this: “Is it absolutely essential for you...

I was delighted to wake up Saturday morning to snow. I realise that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for it. There are some who find...

For much of yesterday we watched the Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden. American patriotic ceremonies of this sort I always find...

I had a particularly thoughtful shower this morning. It was particularly thoughtful because the alternative would have been to have been...

For our American readers, the story so far. Our local police force has achieved some national notoriety for the excessive zeal with...

What shocks me most at the moment is the discrepancy between the awful National News and a walk out onto the local hills and through the...

Try as I might, I can never get a grip on January. Every Spring, Summer, even Autumn, even during that limbo week between Christmas and...

The old year is on the turn and ailing away into a pale evening sky. All our attempts at plotting a way of celebrating have been sent...

“Ye have seen his Natal Star,” the Angels proclaim from their Realms of Glory. And so have we. Three days before Christmas we wandered up...

Just for tonight I have turned pagan. I’ll touch up my woad, brush off my mammoth skin and rehearse my shamanic skills by the light of...

Yesterday I got up early with an exciting day awaiting. A real outing! Ok it was only to Alfreton to a Diabetic Eye Screening, but so...

One of the few joys of this time of year is that I can watch a sunrise without having to rise too early myself. In the summer I have to...

Think back to a baking summer in 2016 when we are having our sunroom built, a remarkable instance of forward thinking occurred. It was...

Every day is a significant anniversary of something. Florence Nightingale and Beethoven must have been very disappointed that Covid...

Today I’m sitting listening to rain on the roof and imagining the mud rising and yesterday’s sunshine flowing away. There won’t be a lot...

Above is an example of the witty word-play Deirdre and I indulge in when out walking. Today as we conquered High Tor above Matlock it was...

In Helsinki we were once told, alcoholism and suicide rates have increased during the dark winter days since global warming has resulted...