Hello to you! This is a mini-post to tell you that This Oddinary Life is now Softly Falls The Light. I feel most at peace beneath the canopy of the forest, in glade and shade, in those places where the sunlight slants just so, filtered through leaves and branches. Those places where it feels safe to be wholly content, or deeply sad, or anything in-between. That, in essence, [...]

Today, I went to see, after driving so near, so many times. A slight detour, a dent in the route home, via Weobley. Late afternoon. The village, with its timber-framed houses, was eerily quiet. I had the oddest feeling, as if dangling above everything, held in a giant’s pinch. That curious detachment of mine. Again. There it was, where the main road in bends everso slightly left – [...]

On Monday, I follow an elderly man with dough-white arms, strolling down the middle of the road. Thankfully, no cars come. His left arm is bent behind his back, hand curled upwards, fretting at the air. Like a pecking beak - or as if he is making an imaginary crumble topping. Every few steps, he pats his head. I wonder if he has dementia. Why else would he [...]

Three hours of shallow sleep, propped against the big cushion like a rowing boat, a tide of nausea lapping at my edges. 4:00 AM. Bolt-awake in the colourless half-light of a midsummer dawn, bed is surely tilting, body a bucket of slopping water. Queasiness enfolds me, octopus-like, tightens one slippery, muscular tentacle around my midriff, reaches another down my throat, twists, pulls, oh no, here we go… Clutching [...]