Can we do it? Just once? Drink more wine than we know to be sensible, sit on the floor with our legs crossed, we need to be grounded, you…

You may think it merely a collection of songs, those things that play in the background of life, but this is my realm, my kingdom, a galaxy entirely of my own making, the largest in the universe of my Inner Life, each colourful constellation a spiderweb of music and memory intertwined, I can map it all the…

1) Choice of second language at university My decision to study Russian as my second foreign language was down to a combination of things. One of those was Mrs. Pearce, a French teacher who covered a few of our A-level classes back in the day. At the time, I was…

Nine months in, you are no longer that perfect circle I purchased, when I hold you up to the light, you are now more oval than round, you have bent and bowed, warping beneath the weight of unforeseen forces, a gradual evolution whereby you moulded yourself to my shape. Perturbing…

By rights I should hate you, I’ve taken against far more innocuous objects for less, but you have something about you- something that…

I see you,  those to whom the outgoing year has not been kind, absentees from the annual parade of smugness, those whose years have been…

Once upon a time, I thought the key to a strong relationship was being able to stick together through the big things- the milestones, the exciting times, the travels and academic challenges of those formative years, when the world and its worries were still at arm’s length, but now I know that the opposite is true- that any…

The box appears on the doorstep one day. I am at home, but there is no knock on the door and no other sounds to signal its arrival. It isn’t until I open the door with the intention of heading to the shops that I notice the box. Passers-by have…

It’s always a beautiful moment when I clock the first crocus of the year. The yellow ones appear first. They raise their heads in late January, pushing up through the soil with a tenacity and determination that belies their small stature. They are the heralds of spring. They bring with…