As I’ve got older I’ve become more and more resistant to going out in the evening – especially in the winter. It takes a lot to drag me away from my cosy hearth. This week though I braved not only cold and dark, but also wind and torrential rain to go and see the most […]

Somehow, amazingly I’ve managed to keep to my plan of doing a little bit of preparation towards Christmas every day. I don’t do big things – it’s more along the lines of ordering the turkey or buying chestnuts and wrapping paper. The tree and putting up the decorations are planned for Saturday, with my eldest […]

Nothing on the creative front to report from here today, but I have finished my Christmas cards and Christmas party invitations and my sewing machine is buzzing away as I quilt Ilsa’s quilt! The big news is that Northumbria Police have made three arrests in connection with my mother’s robbery and two similar cases this […]

The good My mother found the passport and the savings book that she thought had been stolen at the weekend. The British police were magnificent – kind, patient and very reassuring to a shaken elderly lady. My camera has turned up!! Thanks to Lindsay who disguised it as very un-camera-like so nobody would steal it […]

Over the weekend, my 84 year old mother was the victim of a conman. He was Irish and came to her door with a story that he was a tree surgeon and was working in a garden behind hers (where there incidentally are no trees) and had dropped one of his tools into her garden. […]