Nothing to write home about
Towards the end of last year I went on a wonderful three-week holiday to Australia. It is one of my favourite places, if it is fair to think of it as one place – in three weeks I saw just a tiny fraction of it on this visit. My parents lived in Melbourne for a… Continue reading Mini-returns and unfamiliar ‘homes’
On my journey to work there is a point where the train line rises above the roofs of the houses and I can see all the way across the city. It is fleeting so I have to avoid falling into my commuter cocoon before I get there so I don't miss it. Each morning I… Continue reading A break in the commute
Standing idly on the train station platform this evening, I decided there was nothing better to look at than the shoes of the people swarming around me. I prefer to think that still says more about the station and my computer-tired eyes than my proclivity for shoes. A train pulling in provided me with an… Continue reading People watching and shoes
When I was in Canada recently I learnt to appreciate the scale of animal, insect and bird migrations a little more, particularly the huge journeys made by hosts of salmon, geese and Monarch butterflies. It was not that I didn't know about these before but there is always something about witnessing events or their… Continue reading Canadian return migration: salmon, geese and butterflies
I have recently returned from a big holiday treat, crossing Canada by train. So wrapped up was I in what I would see and how it would feel to have traversed such a huge landmass, I did not really think about what it would be like to spend four days on a train, with just… Continue reading A little homemaking on the prairie
I have just finished re-reading Tolkien's The Hobbit, inspired to return to a childhood book by the forthcoming film. This reminded me that Bilbo's journey and subsequent memoir are a perfect depiction of what it means to return home after living abroad or, as in The Hobbit, after an extended trip away. Since this is… Continue reading There and back again: a hobbit returns home
Scrapbooking experienced a resurgence a few years ago, with an effervescent range of electronic and paper options becoming available to the new and experienced conserver of memories. This is a practice with a long history and in the modern era, women in particular have been responsible for preserving and arranging their family histories: trials and… Continue reading Scrapbooks
Coffee shop chains were a rare sight when I moved back to the UK in the late 1990s, at least outside of major cities. When I did see a branch, it brought familiarity from around the world, and from an important part of my life as a teenager, learning to like coffee with friends and… Continue reading Coffee shops
Madeleine Hatfield 