Last year at my house, my partner Susie was away at the exact moment in December when we normally get the tree. Now there are those who would regard this as a golden opportunity to take back control of Christmas - choose, install and decorate the tree in a quasi-military operation; no discussion, no arguments, …
I am feeling young today. But it is not because I have a youthful spring in my step. Nor am I dazzled by the heady possibilities of a world yet unexplored, the rich potential of a life yet to be lived. No. I am feeling young like a naughty schoolboy: it’s the end of term …
There used to be mice in our house. Sitting at the kitchen table late in the evening I would occasionally see them scurrying across the floor and then disappearing through impossibly small gaps in the skirting. Once, they went into my bag and ate some chocolate. But mostly they kept themselves to themselves and stayed …
When I was a little boy, my parents threw a party. This being the early 70s, and my parents being sophisticated, modern people, this involved many small bowls of salted peanuts. Because in the 70s, along with cheese and pineapple on sticks, the salted peanut gave any social gathering a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, an indefinable air …
Sports fans have long memories and, to be honest, an occasionally overdeveloped sense of justice and injustice. It’s one of the reasons that non-sports fans find us so insufferable. Ancient games are analysed and reanalysed, the question of who deserved what, or didn’t deserve anything, endlessly picked apart: Leeds United deserved to win the 1975 …
On Monday, I rebuilt my bike. It’s a twice-yearly ritual and one of my most satisfying. Stripping it down to the bare frame, every part laid out on the kitchen table from the bottom bracket to the brake blocks, everything examined and inspected, cleaned and polished, is a ruminative, meditative exercise. It’s the moment when …
I woke up tired this morning. On Friday, I went to see my Dad in hospital, where he’s stuck with a bout of pneumonia, and then had supper with my Mum. On Saturday I saw some very old friends, sat around, sang, laughed a lot and went busking. My children showed up as if by …
I was in a museum recently, looking at some Art with a Capital A. Now, I work in a museum but, even so when I go away, such is the aching sadness of my little life that I find it hard to keep myself from visiting others, especially when they are full of Very Beautiful …
I’ve been back from my holiday less than 24 hours and, weirdly, I’m already having trouble remembering exactly what happened. I know that sounds ridiculous but it’s really hard to get an overall sense of the thing. We stayed with our friend Isa and her family in Laramie, Wyoming, but instead of a sweeping cinematic …
Yesterday, my holiday began. I didn’t get up early. I didn’t ride my bike to Victoria. I didn’t catch the bus to Oxford. I lay in bed till 8 o’clock. I had coffee. I watered the pots in the garden, ate some sultana bran, sat at the kitchen table and all was well. And then …