Newsletter

My beautiful house, Summertown Villa, is now sold, and I am moving. As everyone who has moved knows—and who hasn’t? —this requires sorting, purging and packing

Yes. Happy New Year! 2021. No point saying that the trajectory assumed in 2020 (the Roaring ’20s) never saw the light of day, at least for now.

So the pandemic rages on, despite multiple vaccines just around the corner. Many of us are not bothered by wearing masks, washing hands…

It’s not my intention to serialize Mine, but perhaps just a wee bit more… because a few of you have asked.

PART ONE

Chapter One (continued)

Because some of you have asked for it, here it is: the opening to Mine.

Sophie Taylor loved the North, the Far North, the frozen silences…

It seems such a quiet September. There’s no rush—for work, for school, for supplies, for uniforms—at least for now. (Albeit, there is Zooming, and two novels

Social media, love it or leave it, it’s here to stay? Whether you agree or disagree—and I have one colleague who literally calls it “evil”…

I don’t usually sputter when moseying up to the monthly newsletter/blog, but this month is an exception. I’ve delayed. Can’t blame it on the weather—it’s been perfect; can’t censure Covid-19—lockdown is easing; can’t accuse time—learned a long time ago that it’s my responsibility to make that work. So what’s the issue?

How many times have I heard the adjective surreal used to describe this spunky new post-pandemic world? Fairly, how many? More than I care to count. I’ve considered new descriptors. Oxford Languages provided several: unreal, bizarre, weird, strange, freakish, unearthly, uncanny, and dreamlike. Most curiously, thesaurus.com suggested hypnagogic (related to the state immediately before falling asleep)…

When the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was released in January I went to see it, not because I actually watched the original series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001, but because I hadn’t seen it.

As the child of a military officer, a lot of my time was spent overseas