Making Pastry

Oh, the anticipation and the reality of warm-kitchen days when hands touched over a huge bowl or fingers gripped together round a wooden spoon in snowstorms of flour and avalanches of butter eggs and sugar both tied up in aprons red-cheeked and bright-eyed mixing and stirring – baking and burning pies and tarts to tempt […]

The Long Night

They kept vigil throughout the night, watching every movement, every breath, every flicker of dwindling candlelight, shadowy fingers of encroaching death, until the welcome morning light gently caressed the child’s fretting face and soothed away the livid, bright red of fever. All those missed heartbeats crashed together with relief at the sight of the child’s […]

Memories on the Breeze

More than one hundred and fifty years ago the garden belonged to someone else, a different family. Back then the trees were mere saplings, there was a neat path, fragrant roses, herb garden and vegetable patch. Life was simpler, with fewer gadgets, neighbours and expectations. It was quieter and slower paced. The inhabitants of the […]