I don’t know what day it is without checking my phone, the Argos website has given up and I’ve lost the ability to extract anything from my wardrobe that isn’t grey and slouchy. It’s day 84,533 of lockdown. Or thereabouts. The hardest part, hands down, is the inability to meet family and friends. Video calls …
It’s day two of lockdown. Or, perhaps, hopefully-as-locked-down-as-it’s-going-to-get; best manage our expectations. Social distancing and self-isolating are lodged into vocabulary like they’ve been around forever. The phrase ‘when it’s all over’ needs no further explanation. The world has changed so rapidly that time is, paradoxically, passing extremely slowly. Surely it’s not only a few days …
Mother nature whacks a crispy gust to her face. She instinctively holds her breath, momentarily stunned and concerned. Will I survive here? This isn’t even an exposed snowscape or mountain top; it’s just the airport car park. The taxi driver hauls her cases into the boot with bare hands – bare hands in this weather?! …
“It’s Erin, isn’t it?” Emmy lifted her head to meet the eyes of an elderly gentleman leaning over her table in the coffee shop. “Sorry?” she was nonplussed. “Erin. She told me to go and sit down next to Erin, the pretty girl in the corner” he said, indicating that ‘she’ who had given him …
Giggling from the car behind, Emmy created a story out of what she observed one sunny August day… She hated these bloody things. Could never get her car close enough to the payment machine. And straining the whole right side of her body out of the window wasn’t getting any easier, at her age. However, …
“Eleven”. Emmy spat out the plastic tube attached to the glass needle. Still holding the tiny cold body of the mealworm between her thumb and forefinger, she scrabbled to locate the correct plastic cup. If only she was better organised. Selecting an unlabelled vessel in the sea of white containers on the bench in front …
Emmy loves how resilient spring is. Summer has it easy. In summer, wildlife is simply required to appear. Whatever its aesthetic technicalities, the hazy warmth and sparkling sunshine make it dazzle. Spring nature, on the other hand, is the most hardy. It cannot get away with battening down the hatches and burrowing away – that’s …
Day 0 – The Night Before Welcome to Birmingham International Airport Car Park. Auto number plate recognition in operation for pre-booked customers, the sign read. Emmy waited. The barrier did not move. She was, of course, a pre-booked customer. Emmy booked everything as far in advance as humanly possible. And yes, her car was filthy …
When the rain won’t stop teeming and the unforgiving arrow of winter still cuts through the air, retreating into a cosy cavern of tasty food is an ideal way to salvage a Sunday. Such was the conclusion reached by Emmy and Vernon on an early March weekend. Vernon creaked open the door to Bill’s restaurant …
It felt like New Year’s Day. It wasn’t, of course. It was Valentine’s Day, as proclaimed by garish cerise balloons dancing in the breeze around Leamington. But the rejuvenating sense of new dawns that typically occupied the first day of the year mysteriously crept into this February morning. Something about the way the pale blue …