An Anecdotal Tribute
“Oh Ruby….Don’t take your love to town…”

These are the Women of Park Avenue. Battered by religious war, forced to leave their lives abroad in the land of milk and honey, and left to work in sweat houses.
Gentlemen, let me let you into a little secret… we ladies like grooming ourselves. So that thirty minutes that we spend in the bathroom isn’t just about driving you up the wall because we are already late for something, it’s generally about indulging in a small sensual guilty pleasure otherwise known as grooming. I seem to spend vast amounts of time grooming. If not myself, my very fluffy cat Solitaire, or Dan’s dense double coat courtesy of his corgi and collie heritage, everything around here is high maintenance. Neglecting the grooming can lead to this. I have enough...
I live on a boat. But this is not about me, it’s about who I share my life with. The ship’s cat. I live alone, and Solly (my cat) is who I come home to. Now people have asked me how my cat deals with being on a boat. Clearly they have this impression that cats and water don’t mix. Well cats have been going to sea in one way or another for centuries. Solly treats it as his personal playground. There are surfaces to be lounged on. And cubby holes to hide in. There are soft mattresses. And...
On 6 February 1918, The Times newspaper published Four Epitaphs written by the English Classicist, John Maxwell Edmonds. The second of these, Went the Day Well? became the title of a World War II film, otherwise known as The Battle of Bramley End, a fictional, apocryphal tale of a German invasion of Britain. Went the day well? We died and never knew. But, well or ill, Freedom, we died for you. I’ve been thinking a lot about my father lately. Amongst other things, my dad was a Normandy Veteran. Acting Sergeant in The Royal Corps of Signals. He never spoke much...