It must be time to head home. I am getting angry at myself for everything, and for anything. And for what? Never mind. This is my reflexive response, and at age 66 what can one do but hang on for the increasingly rough ride? Not to be overly pessimistic. In fact, when I inhale, take several deep breaths, and think about the unfolding day...well, I haven't done badly in the life department. It's just that I haven't done enough. Not that I can define what 'enough' would look like. No, not Read more [...]

London is the place to be, I am more or less thinking as the day dawns. It should dawn late being the first of the new year, but my eyes burst open early, and what is there to do but throw the legs off the edge of the mattress and rise to the occasion? The real occasion is over, of course. New Year's Eve in the Paddington Hilton featured the booming bass notes of some unseen party somewhere, complete with the occasional run of a sitar and the general sense of a Bollywood music track. What could Read more [...]

Are we middle-aged or elderly, the quartet of us waiting in the Moreton-in-Marsh railway station? It strikes me that this is a moment in time. I am particularly struck by transitions, moments in clearly advancing time. This being my departure for London. It is in many respects overdue. Only this morning I realized that the notes in my wallet were all American, the coins the same. For protected within the walls of Caroline's and Alastair's country house, there is no need for money. The Farriers Read more [...]

Whatever the Royal Shakespeare Company was up to last night in Stratford, I was up to something else. Almost the moment the lights came down, I was truly lost. I found myself drifting and dozing through an antic, loud and very physical holiday production. And why? There seems no point in analyzing the RSC's 'The Mouse And His Child,' a British classic, if one is to believe the program notes. The whole experience may say more about me. First there is my conflicting set of feelings about this Read more [...]

Boxing Day. A Shadow Boxing Day, with me pitted against my own wretched excess. Jake, my cousin's son, helped me do up my trousers this morning. An event accompanied with much self recrimination, personal denunciation...and a general forswearing off wretched food excess. Followed by lunch, comprised of a sumptuous turkey sandwich fashioned by Alexandra, Jake's sister...a somewhat unconventional combination including not only cranberry jelly but actual stuffing. Which delivered a message. Stuff Read more [...]

Lack of sleep somewhat fogged my departure, particularly the packing, which never seems adequate at the best of times. This not being the best of times, to wit, wintertime, when the livin' isn't easy in Britain's seasonal cold. But really, I was thinking of missing Jane. It was a very mixed bag, the trip preparations. The result being an air of confusion, subtle but pervasive. The Vodafone card swam into my brain at Heathrow. Death Row, as my cousin Caroline calls it. I had seen the card, Read more [...]