The Year of Living Deeply 28: The Toffee Crisp Mystery

Phil has been round. I know this because we came home the other night to find a pack of Toffee … More

Deck shoes and other enthusiasms

Some of you will have seen this blog post before. It is a taster of some of the contents … More

Dear James (may I call you James?) Though it’s been a while (at least ten years, maybe more) it feels as … More

This being a Saturday in Lent, I am reposting a favourite blog post from my archives. See you after the … More

I am really bad at doing one thing. If I am chopping an onion, I am listening to the radio. … More

I am delighted to be publishing Deck Shoes, a book of enthusiasms, influences and memoir, with Impress Books, next year. … More

Next year is going to be a big year for me. I am going to have two new books out … More

Reading Frank O’Hara in the Hospital 1 The IV drips its slow news. So long, lean and turbulent morning! … More

There were just a few of us in the room, gathered round a table. I had been invited to … More

Dear Friends Here are the blog posts which you read most often in 2017, according to my WordPress stats: … More

A Tuesday, appropriately. (Tuesday being the day I was formally diagnosed.) Poetic, it strikes me now. But at the time, … More

In the dry months after my cancer treatment, when the visitors stopped visiting and I put all the cards … More

The other day I was asked what I look for in poetry. Needing to give a quick answer I … More

After they left, the house went very quiet. No one really knew about the quietness but me. I played a … More

Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of my diagnosis with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL), an aggressive cancer of the lymphatic system. I … More

Tracks 2 am: moonlight. The train has stopped out in the middle of the plain. Far away, points of … More

The way I found out, just as with my diagnosis, was via a segment of a conversation about other things. … More

Dear James (may I call you James?) Though it’s been a while (at least ten years, maybe more) it feels as … More

On certain afternoons I am certain it has come back. A twinge in my right side, where the pain … More

Made of orange card, it’s an outline of my son’s hand. Comprising two sections, one his tiny, spread fingers, … More

‘I am so, so sorry.’ ‘You’re going to be fine.’ ‘Fight it, you know you’re a fighter.’ ‘Are we going … More