Sugar, sugar…

Sugar cubes: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Würfelzucker -- 2018 -- 3582” / CC BY-SA 4.0 When you reach the age of 60, the UK NHS offers you some exciting experiences - or at least that was the case before the pandemic. There's a one-off general health check, which wasn't very encouraging about my body weight, but at that point I didn't…

The first time: how to publish in academia

Last week I was asked by someone relatively new to the academic game how they could start publishing. This being 2021, I rapidly realised that I should ask Twitter before answering. I wasn't sure how far my own experience, back in the 1980s, was typical in Arts and Humanities subjects, let alone how it would…

The glamour of the academic life

Recently, on Twitter, there was a very entertaining account of a nightmare experience of giving a paper by Duncan Wilson, a historian at the University of Manchester. Just remembering the time I gave a talk in a uk university, 3 people turned up and 1 fell asleep after 10 min. They then told me there…

Shedding stuff

How do you get rid of someone's belongings in a way that's appropriate and respectful (and even helpful!)?

Living in the between-times: rules and spontaneity

I don't go to gardens for chaos: there's enough of that already.

The end of the road

I've been thinking about writing this post for a while because, as someone who - as I said when I started this blog - only knows what she thinks when she starts writing, I need to process my mother's death. I could do that on my own and with friends but, as I have already…

Regaining the Trust

Today was very special. We returned to one of my special places: the National Trust's The Vyne. Back on 20 March, as lockdown descended, I blogged about my sadness at the closure of my very favourite National Trust site, Greys Court. Over the past few years it has been watching the seasons change, particularly in…

Sanity in a time of coronavirus

It is an effort, a huge effort, to remain calm and act normally when the world seems to have gone mad, and for all of us there will be some tipping point at which we can't put on a brave face any longer

Going to dinner with the speaker

Academia can be hideous and cut-throat, but it can also be social and fun.

Having a fall: what’s right and what’s wrong in the NHS

Some people fall over: others have a fall. There's an important difference. When you're young, you fall over, and you get up. Nobody makes much of a fuss. Life resumes immediately after a few moments of interruption. When you're older, however, you have a fall. This can be devastating. My father had a fall, broke…