Aubrieta in garden borders or spilling over walls and rockeries is a lovely sight. Brash and brilliant mats of colour – whether Blue Beauty, Royal Violet or Purple Cascade, the most common ones. It’s an honest, reliable and easy-going plant, requiring no care whatsoever. I wondered where the name came from and after a bit… Read More A splash of colour
A few things have changed down Walcot Street in Bath since Jane Austen went shopping for decorative fruit and flowers in June 1799. She was looking for a present for her sister Cassandra – fashionable items (and expensive so it seemed) to decorate her bonnets. A plum or greengage would cost three shillings; cherries and… Read More Down Walcot Way
‘Nobody in England had written such a book as The Old Wives’ Tale in such a way. It had not the exuberance of Dickens; nor the ironic sentiment of Thackeray. It was less brilliant than Meredith and less nobly tragic than Hardy. But, on the other hand, it had a warmth and kindness quite foreign… Read More Every word counts
What have you been doing to cheer yourself up this wintry season?
How nice to find oneself rubbing shoulders with Alan Bennett. On a bookshelf in a bookshop, that is. Copies of my book The Road to Civitella 1944 placed next to Bennett’s Keeping On – Keeping On. I have met the good man at a book signing at Bath Literature Festival a few years’ back, his… Read More Font-astic!
It’s not often you have the chance, outside of London, to hear a renowned percussionist play a rare concerto for vibraphone by a Brazilian composer and percussionist. So when the programme for the Spring Concert for North Wiltshire Symphony Orchestra (NWSO) came out, I leaped at the chance to hear Sacha Johnson play Concerto No… Read More The rhythm of life
