Back in late May 2020, when the pandemic was already feeling endless but we were all still in ignorance of how much longer the ordeal was yet to last, I succumbed to a fit of madness and ordered a lilac tree. Syringa chinensis, to be precise. I mean, it wasn’t complete madness. We do have…
“Is it that he’s molting making all the fur stand up, or are his hips a bit more prominent than usual?” my husband asked me a few weeks ago, when looking at our cat with his tail up and nose down in his food bowl. I didn’t know it then, but that turned out to…
Hello there, I thought I’d dust the ol’ blog off a bit and try writing something again. The pandemic has killed off a lot of my initiative for creativity, mostly by sucking all the brain energy out of me, but once in a blue moon something floats up from the depths that contains the kernel…
Heeeeey, I’m still here! I know, I know…. what happened? I had this blog and I really loved writing, and then this pandemic happens and I’m stuck at home for weeks and weeks, there’s no better time to start writing more, right? RIGHT? Turns out I’m wrong. Lockdown with your husband and your five year…
This is going to be part of a series of learning at home with Hawkeye during the global coronavirus pandemic Hawkeye: On Sunday Mommy and Daddy and me (but not Mr. Darcy our cat) went to the beach. (Mommy: We were responsible and socially distant from everyone else.) Hawkeye: On the beach we collected shells.…
I am a history buff. Have been for years. I’m not exactly sure how it’s started, though I suspect a particular European history teacher in Exeter had a hand in it, making it interesting and all that (how dare he?) by somehow finding the ridiculous and the sublime in every era, every conflict, every revolution we…
I haven’t been writing again and it’s becoming an uncomfortable itch. I want to write. The words are often there, but making myself actually make time for it is hard. It’s not quite as brainless as crashing out on the couch with a mindless novel on my Kindle app. But the other weekend we were in…
I had no scheduled classes on 11 September 2001. I was sleeping in, and was woken up by my boyfriend, ringing me from Ireland, more precisely, from a train somewhere between Dublin and Sligo. Being five hours ahead of us, they were well into their day already when his mother first rang him to say…
Mr. Darcy, our cat has always been somewhat special. About eight and a half years ago I finally prevailed on The Mister to let me get a cat. He is not, bless him, an animal person, though he has nothing against them. But if you’ve never grown up with a pet it’s hard to understand…
This post was something I had in mind to write last summer when my blog was in temporary hibernation, but as cold temperatures have given way to sunshine and warmth, and everything outside has sprouted leaves and is furiously blooming, I’ve found the sentiment to be just as true this year as last year, and…
The most strenuous thing that I was supposed to be doing today was getting my hair cut. I mean, I nearly cancelled the appointment. It’s been in my calendar for two months, and I obviously hadn’t known I’d be sick when I booked it, but there I was vacillating between keeping and and cancelling it…
The Feathered Rose 