The romantic convention will have it that absence makes the heart grow fonder of the missing person – or, for the sour minded, of someone else someone present. It has been suggested that the first writer to coin this phrase was one T H Bayly, a nineteenth century...
There are a good many cardinal rules about living in isolated, or fairly isolated, rural areas – such as always knowing at least two mechanics or roof tilers – but amongst the most important concern water and electricity. Rule one: never (if possible) live at the end...
Conscience comes with Christmas. It has been said that carrots scream when you pull them out of the ground. Of course one should be using a fork to loosen the soil, then gently shaking off the earth and rinsing them under an outside tap. Perhaps then they will only...
A sure sign of the end of autumn, the beginning of winter is the disappearance of flies. But there is always one fly left. No-one knows for what he or she is looking but everyone knows that he – or she – is (insert favourite expletive) annoying, indestructible and...
As I was going down to St Astier the other day (pls, no panic, this will not be a poem) I saw a pair of men’s shoes in the road. Highly polished, seemingly new, black men’s’ moccasins were lying on their sides about a metre from the kerb, noticeably on... 