Stepping on the stone

  One ritual in the Hindu wedding ceremony is when the bride puts her (naked) foot on a stone and agrees to be the rock of the family. Patriarchal as this is, I like it because someone has to  stand up for the family and the children, and I take this part of my...

“Indian summer”

Oh dear. My sincere apologies for the tardiness of posting this. I did, in fact, write it yesterday but there appeared to be no internet connection last night, which was more than rather disappointing. Anyway better late than never, I suppose: I’ve made it to India to...

Happy birthday sweet 16

  It’s not quite the birthday I’d planned for her, but I’m thankful that we at least had a dining table and I could cook a proper meal and some brownies....

Farewell Beryl

  Beryl Angela Cook 25 January 1929 – 19 August 2015 A lone bouquet of irises lies on a wicker coffin. Tributes are paid to a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend. A venerable husband, hunched, crumbling, stands beside a recently occupied grave, takes a...

Whoops!

It’s funny how, just as I despair of finding something to write about, a juicy morsel sometimes falls right into my lap. I was upstairs doing some crochet and fretting about what to write when the OH crept sheepishly up and informed me of the latest disaster to...