The summer of 2016 has been my first full summer in Canada in almost sixteen years. When I lived in England, I often thought about Canadian summers with wistfulness. As gusts of cold wind buffeted my umbrella, and I sloshed through puddles on my way to my day job, I...
This week, a moving van arrived at my home. It brought a china cabinet that’s been in my mother’s family since the mid-nineteenth century.In the furniture world, the cabinet is a stately dowager duchess or grizzled elder statesman. Made of solid wood, it...
We had a trio of birthdays in my family this week. My mother-in-law, a cousin and my own.As English Rose remarked with all the sensitivity of an almost teen, I’m getting “old.” When I raised an eyebrow, she quickly amended it to “older” but the...
On 18 July 2015 English Rose and I landed in Toronto on an Aer Lingus flight from London via Dublin. I was on my way home, but English Rose had left the only home she’d ever known.Missing EnglandOne year later, I still miss the gentle English mist, fish and...
When I was at school, the last bell of the year signalled not only the beginning of the long summer holiday but also many weeks of reading. Back then, after months of set school texts, summer was a glorious time to read what I wanted.Although those days are long gone,...
