Monday morning–my first sugarless day– I was awakened by the sound of birds singing and cows moo-ing: Since I was still the only one up, I went round the cottage filming the window fixtures and talking to myself: When I finished this catalog of domestic quotidian, I took off my glasses to polish a lens  Read the Rest…

Sunday was my day of reckoning for all the cake in my system. In the morning we drove into St Ives, Wendy parked in the car park and we rode the shuttle bus into the heart of town. The car park/shuttle is really the only solution for these villages with narrow streets never meant for  Read the Rest…

Wendy, Sue and I set out for Cornwall early afternoon and I got a feel for the pattern of the days. Everything is a reason to stop for a cup of tea and probably a slice of cake. (The English have a real gift of the cake.) I think our first stop was to celebrate  Read the Rest…

Castle Cary is a market town in southern Somerset but I only know it as the train stop for Butleigh where my cousins live in a stone house with five cats and a rabbit hutch used now for pegging up the washing. Sue met me at Castle Cary; David, her neighbor had driven her. I  Read the Rest…

Nina (rhymes with Dinah) and I went out to dinner a few evenings ago. After the how-was-your-day conversation, Nina quoted a friend (who was quoting Woody Allen) saying that if this election turns out badly, she’ll be in the basement in a pool of blood. It’s come to that. There’s nothing to do but that  Read the Rest…

I had a lovely birthday, thank you. I am now 64. There’s no more “when I’m.”  My friend and college roommate, The Very Miss Mary-Ellis Lacey who is actually now a Mrs. Adams, sent me a birthday card just before she and her husband left on a Rhenish cruise. (Yeah, look that one up.) Mary-Ellis  Read the Rest…

I’m up on Whidbey Island writing a novel.  I have no idea how to write a novel.  This novel actually began in 1997 with a very long short story that I thought would develop itself.  I thought a novel would spool from my imagination without my having to think about anything like structure or an  Read the Rest…

(This the eleventh in a series that begins with A Night in Steerage.) London is my favorite city in the whole world but I ached on the way to the train station.  I had loved not feeling (completely) like a tourist.  Wendy, Sue and I had gotten on well together and I felt a lot  Read the Rest…

(This the tenth in a series that begins with A Night in Steerage.) The day after my birthday, Sue and Wendy had appointments in Wells but I opted to stay home.  I was intent on finding a footpath, if I was lucky, to Street.  Or barring that, just a footpath to walk.  They are everywhere  Read the Rest…

(This is 9th in a series that begin with A Night in Steerage.) After my experience in Wells, I wasn’t eager to try new bus adventures.  I wanted to go to Nether Stowey to see the Coleridge Cottage.  Sue looked into it for me and said that the bus would only get me to within  Read the Rest…