Author: Anny
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Blackberry breakfast…
For the last few weeks I have been watching the blackberries ripen in the hedges as I walk the delinquent dog each morning. On Friday, I could resist no longer. The poor dog stood around, looking just like small children do when you stop in the street to talk to people – that posture that…
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Dollops of culture…
I really like Julia Cameron’s advice in The Artist’s Way, to set yourself regular time out, to do things that rejuvenate your creative spirit. And of course like a great many of us, it’s my ‘time out’ that is too often sacrificed when family life takes over. But I think I can go straight to…
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Melancholy and excitement…
Strange sensations today. The girls have gone back to school after the long holiday. For the first time in ages, we had a real sunny summer and what a difference it has made to us all. Number One Daughter who faces the heavy toil of Year 11 really doesn’t want to go back – and…
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Flights of fancy…
You know how it is, nothing happens for weeks on end, then suddenly everything is going mad and you’re racing to keep up. It’s been like that here for the last few days – but in a fabulous way. A friend of ours loves to fly, and last weekend he decided the weather was perfect…
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A churchy day out in York…
Warning: this post contains gratuitous references to bell-ringing. Anyone with allergies to bells should stop reading now. York is one of my favourite cities in the UK, and I was delighted to be able to spend the day there last Saturday. Now of course there’s more than enough to keep you happy and occupied in…
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Re-reading is challenging…
Well it’s a few weeks since I embarked on a self-imposed challenge not to buy any new books, but instead to read or re-read titles languishing on my shelves (or piled up by the bed, in the bathroom, on my desk – oh you know the score). So how am I doing? Umm. First the…
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Squirrel Attack…
My advice is this – if you go down to the woods today – wear a hard hat. I’m used to trying to squirrel-spot before the Delinquent Dog does, because experience has taught me that if I don’t, I risk having my arm detached from the shoulder as he races towards them on the end…
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The Chef lives…
In the 1970s, my mum became the proud owner of a Kenwood Chef. She was an enthusiastic cake maker (and eater for that matter, although unlike me she had hollow legs, but that’s another story…). She must have used it practically every week for the next thirty plus years. When she died and we cleared…
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That sort of week…
I won’t bore you with the details, we all have them in some guise or other from time to time, let’s just say it’s been that sort of week. But the sun has come out, it’s practically the weekend and I’m feeling a lot better, so with a bit of luck next week might be…
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Low energy levels…
It’s probably hay-fever and the antihistamines that are to blame, but I have to say, I’m feeling tired today – mind and body. Happily though, the garden is carrying on, doing its own thing, not bothering if I turn up to poke it or prod it – just as well. I shall go and…
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Iain Banks: Away the Crow Road…
I was elbow deep in potato peelings when I heard the news last night, that the author Iain Banks had died at the grossly unfairly young age of 59. I’d missed the apparently well publicised announcement that he was suffering from terminal cancer, so it came as a huge shock. Like many of his fans, I…
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What a pest…
I know they cause problems, the rangers at the woods near our home have spent years and a huge amount of sweat removing vast amounts of them. But they’ve left a few – and at this time of year, I’m glad they have. Rhododendron – not one of nature’s shrinking violets – excuse the pun…
Mostly Motley 