The Importance of Nooks
I've had favourite reading spots in all my houses. When I was very small and the airing cupboard was just outside my room, I'd climb up into it with book, blanket and torch, closing the sliding door behind me.
Latest
On the shelves
When you are bed-bound through no fault or decision of your own, the very best thing you can do is read. Leave your own head, your own faulty body, and fly off to new worlds, new bodies, new lives.
The art of saying Goodbye
My allotment. This funny little patch of land that was never mine and yet that I had hefted myself to as shepherds heft their sheep to their land. My hobby, my obsession, my escape.
Dad's Army take my cat to the vets'
It is safe to say that Mabel does not like the vet...or anyone outside of her little family circle. So we called in reinforcements to help with the annual gathering for her annual checkup.
September
If I am honest (and why not be here), new shoes, new books and lunch box aside, I was not a fan of school. I did not have the right shoes, hair, personality, to fit easily in.
A literal burning hellscape
The wildfires are too close, the summer is too long and I look at the brown row of beans, beets, and would weep, if I could spare the moisture.
Welcome to my AirBnB!
"I simply fell in love with studio living when I was in New York, so convenient! No, there's not an awful lot of room between the sink and the pillow, but I think you'll find that if both of you face each other and sort of shuffle in opposite directions, you'll manoeuvre nicely around the space."
The oldest of Stones
In 2900BCE, an old people were here. They cut the rock from its bed, they shaped it, they transported it, they placed it in careful alignment to whatever dream or compulsion drove them to carry out this work.
Tardy
Will book one ever be published? That may be a question that never gets answered but why stop creating and living in something I love? Maybe ask me again when I am a complete recluse with a towering pile of copies of the Mabinogion threatening to crush me...
The woman in the no-plastic shop does not like me
Given that I have been rude enough to see the 'OPEN' sign and the door left ajar as reason to walk in and interrupt her quiet inventory time, the very least I could do would be to damn well buy enough to make it worth her while.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
"You've moved everything around!" This will be today's cri de coeur from everyone who walks through the door (who's been here before, obviously) as I have boldly, nay, recklessly, indeed moved everything around.
This month, I met Helm
And Inspector Alleyn and Hamnet and William Morris and John Donne and Olive Kitteridge and Deborah Levy and Lucy Mangan and...and...hopefully, you've realised this will be a post about what I've read this wild and woolly March. If, however, you are labouring under the
history
Behind the Old Stones
...the fort opens out in front of you, this wide grassland expanse on the top of the hill and this lovely weathered lump of oolitic limestone (satisfying to hold and say) really can't be mistaken for anything other than the creature it's named for.
walking
Old Stones - the first
We go left. This is the path I walked so many times, so long ago, with my dog, his tail a plumed marker. Each step is familiar, each tree and hedge. I can anticipate where the path will dip, fall away, regain itself.
Museums
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Welcome to the first of my dispatches from behind the scenes at the museum. Any museum, frankly. One of those universal truths is just how many biscuits volunteers can get through in a week.
Well, here is a new thing
What I am doing. For some time, certain friends have suggested I write a Substack. "Do it! You love writing! People will pay you!" they'd shout in varying stages of inebriation. And for ages, I, in my own varying stages of inebriation, have declined. Resisted. Rolled
News
Nearly there
This is Old Stones, a brand new site by me, Tonia, that's just getting started. Things will be up and running here shortly, but you can subscribe in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new content is published.