Stories from all categories
At the top of a very high hill yesterday, what in Holland or Denmark would be called a mountain, with a view over all of Switzerland ~ so it seemed ~ my friend taught me ...read more
Scampering down the steep stone steps to gain the river path I met our neighbour, skulking behind the boat shed. He was smoking pot. I told him so. "You're smoking pot!" 'Ach,' he said, 'it's ...read more
A melancholy day. We visited the grave of my friend's husband. The room where I am sleeping is filled with his things, fishing trophies he won and a fearsomely engraved pewter hard hat with his ...read more
To turn the tide of a rainy & dismal afternoon I started reading. Beryl Bainbridge's elegant eloquence has cheered me up no end... as her characters in this novel might say. This is from Master ...read more
An elderly couple pedalling uphill on a tandem bike: the Swiss are awesome! Casual bigotry in the marketplace: the Swiss are awful! These thoughts freewheeling through my head: generalizations are stupid! Yes: all of them. ...read more
Robert Peston's preface to Sian Busby's posthumously published last novel, as quoted in The Guardian. He transcribed the novel from her notes after his non-smoking wife had died of lung cancer. "My motive was selfish: ...read more
It's 11pm. Went for a bedtime walk around the road with my friend and host. Most of the houses are dark and in one or two windows are lights. Don't other people's houses entice when ...read more
Watching television news for the first time in several years. Things have changed. The screen (huge!) is split into seven sections with different background footage, text, or video showing in each of them. A continuously ...read more
Walking home past an outdoor restaurant in town that provides rugs for its hardier patrons. Everyone else was huddled indoors, it's barely ten degrees and the wind is icy. A woman wearing a piled confection ...read more