Home & Garden


One thing I learned during the lockdown of 2020 – if I did not know it already – is that I enjoy my own company. I know that whilst I was just as happy living on my own on the 10th floor of a tower block, I am not at all sure I could have survived as well as in my present home – a 2-bed bungalow with a garden.

I love people and getting out and about, especially to pubs, cafe’s, cinemas and restaurants. But I am very much home-loving. Even if I fell asleep on the Northern Line and ended up at Mordern or the end of some other tube line, I would always find my way home, no matter how much alcohol I’d consumed or how many miles I had to walk (or stagger).

Having lived in a 10th floor council flat in south London for 22 years – which I loved by the way – it was great to be home in Devon. I am now a private tenant living in a very nice bungalow with a decent-sized wrap-around garden. I am enjoying it while I can as when I reach retirement age I will no longer be able to afford to live here.

Home & Garden posts

Birds in a Barbed Bush

I went to war with this mahonia once, and I think I won. I suffered injuries but at least my car suffered scratches no more. Birds live in it, which presents a mystery: why would they do such an apparently reckless thing? It would be like me seeking comfort in a barbed wire dressing gown.

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Snow: A Cautionary Tale

I love to see snow, but it is quite rare in this part of the world. We had ‘snow’ this morning but nothing compared to the big freeze of 1963, which is where my fear of ice came from…

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Wishful Thinking For New Year

The old year is like the rusty dead leaves momentarily reprieved by frost. They will fade away just like 2020. After a year like this, a spot of wishful thinking would seem in order.

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Mending Fences

My personal diary, Sunday, 27th December 2020. Devon. Bella has a go at blowing my fence down, and doesn’t entirely succeed.

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Lockdown Garden

Lockdown gave me an opportunity to really go to town on my garden – and get some serious work done. Sun and fun – and exercise too!

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