It’s half term. We are surrounded by our children. Actually, my family are all on holiday while I’m at work and I am in no way grumpy or ungracious about that. Obviously. But it’s had me thinking rather wistfully about the summer, when we went all together to Brighton for a day of beach, fish, …
I do a lot of stupid things. Some of them are just dumb. And some of them are a bit dangerous. Last weekend I lost my glasses because I didn’t notice I wasn’t wearing them. That was just dumb. When I was thirteen, I bought a catapult, which I hid from my parents because I …
In the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge there’s a seventeenth-century Dutch painting of some people walking on a beach. Last year, the painting went to be cleaned and, as she started to remove the old varnish, the conservator, Shan Kuang, noticed something unusual about the surface. It turned out that not only were there people on …
While Ben Stokes and Mark Wood were polishing off the Australian tail at Trent Bridge on Saturday morning, I was in the cellar. There are three things to take from that. First, that in the forty-one years since I first went to a test match I’ve seen very little that was as thrillingly unexpected or …
I went out for dinner on Monday night with my three children, Miriam, Esther and Silas. Miriam’s away at university now and Esther heads off in September, so the opportunities for us all to be together are increasingly limited. This dinner was special though, because until my birthday later this month, we are 100 years …
I went to a party last weekend, on the edge of Dartmoor. It was brilliant. Lots of old friends, more fun than I thought possible and even better than I’d hoped or expected. There was a cricket match for goodness sake. The party celebrated a combined 100th birthday for the hosts, an 18th for their …
Later on this evening, I’m going to be meeting up with some people I went to school with. There will be some very familiar faces, some I know less well, and more who’ll barely remember me, but the reason I’m going is for the handful I really love. These are my oldest friends, who have …
So, last night, I’m at home, cooking macaroni cheese. Now, my macaroni cheese is good. It is rich and golden, it is unctuous and gorgeous. It is an artery-hardening, full-fat delight. There is much cheese, of many varieties. And that’s the problem. There are three boys in my house, Sam, Silas and Linus, and they …