Yesterday I returned from a visit to my daughter. We celebrated her birthday and I babysat my grandson when her husband took her out for a meal. It was only for a few days but, while the journey there went smoothly and took only a couple of hours, the return took much longer than expected. […]
Category: Haibun
Changes
I remember how hard it was when I discovered I was pregnant and experienced so many changes that I wasn’t expecting. When I gave birth, then took my baby home and had to look after her on my own for the first time; I was scared I’d get it wrong and terrified I we wouldn’t […]
Rustling Leaves
At this time of year leaves cover the garden, revealing more of the captivating and resilient birch trees with their slender twiggy branches. Even the beech has creamy-pink bark with copper- coloured stems, the remaining […]
October Apples
Some of the windfalls have been collected and piled on a plastic garden chair. There are no signs of wild-life bites or nibbles, and only one green apple among them. They blush with October colours and scent. Among them, one is more than half russet, almost bronze, a bruised rogue among the beauties. It must […]
Morning
Since I retired and as I get older, I find I need less sleep. I frequently wake around three, four or five o’clock, unable to return to the dark cocoon that enveloped me so cosily when I was younger. When the cats chirrup from the bedroom door, I no longer turn over and burrow back […]
No crickets here
I’ve always been attracted to the sound of crickets. As a child, I was enchanted by their presence in American films, when characters sat on the porch in the evening to a soundtrack of crickets chirping; and then, when I visited Italy several times during summer, I was amazed by the constant background noise, even […]
Hiroshima Spores
I wasn’t alive in August 1945 – I arrived eleven years and a day after Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. I knew nothing of the horrors of those atomic bombs until I saw ‘The Bomb’, Episode 24 of ’The World at War’, a documentary series I watched with my father and, more recently, with […]
Under the Table at Grandmother’s House
Although my grandmother was quite open and modern in her outlook, her tastes were old-fashioned. This was reflected in the house where I grew up: in its solid furniture, embroidered cushions and tablecloths that hung low to cover the table legs. For a small child, the dining table was a house or a tent, where […]
Dragonflying
It’s the vivid season when colours are like splashes from an artist’s palette: ochre fields untold shades of leaves and grasses […]
Measuring Time
When the whole world measured time in light and dark, descent and climb, civilisation was still new my child, an infant just like you. One drab June, we wandered ancient grounds, round rain-soaked prehistoric mounds, counting a nursery rhyme of stones. We imagined thousands of dawns and shadows pierced by shafts of light – the […]
