Charles made the application without telling either Mother or Father. He’d seen a documentary on the television and thought it would be interesting to be a host.
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“On the whole I have had sense enough not to do things in public, except when it has been absolutely necessary, or would hurt people’s feelings badly if I didn’t.”
Agatha Christie “An Autobiography”
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Having competed #MyYearWithAgathaC in 2020, I’m going to go a little easier on myself in 2021. I’m hoping to make my way through all of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse novels over the course of the year.
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The young ladies who boarded at St Winifred’s Grammar School for Girls were expected to chip in with various chores.
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“I BELIEVE it does not matter at all; I believe it is all that matters.”
Sara Baume “handiwork”
It was fifteen years ago this autumn that I first began the practice of writing daily. I’ve missed the odd day here and there but for the most part I’ve managed an hour or more at my laptop everyday for the last decade and a half.
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The Pensioner’s Palace Club has always existed. However, until the late seventies it had no official home. It met on Monday and Friday afternoons in the Parish Hall.
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Last weekend I completed my 2020 reading challenge. Sleeping Murder - Miss Marple’s Last Case, was the final crime fiction novel of the 66 Agatha Christie wrote in a publishing career which spanned six decades. I managed to complete all 66 in around about 11 months. I have to admit I feel a little bereft now.
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Arthur thought it was important to be honest with the children. There was no point trying to protect them from life’s harsher realities.
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This morning I woke with the distinct feeling that today was going to be the day.
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Occasionally there was a certain amount of logic to Great Aunt Andrea answers; a stopped clock, as the saying went, would still tell the time twice a day.
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Leopold has a secret. It is easy to keep secrets when you’re a ten year old boy in a house full of women. No one ever notices him.
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We thought she’d have grown out of it by this stage. It’s the sort of thing little children do. Babies, I mean, and toddlers. They’re inquisitive when they’re young, and always hungry. Babies are forever putting things in their mouths. Marbles. Cigarettes. Leaves. Great, filthy handfuls of soil and sand.
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At any given moment on any given day I am usually thinking, I wish I didn’t have to do what I’m doing because I’d rather be writing or -at a pinch- reading. I am not as nice as I pretend to be. I suspect a lot of other artists are wired very similarly.
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Sticker books were all the rage when I was in upper Primary School. All my friends were collectors. We’d gather in the corner of the playground and arrange our doubles along the wall, negotiating our swaps and trades. Some stickers were harder to come by than others.
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Personally, I’ve never managed to make it past the six month mark. Once, I was only able to hold out for a fortnight. That, I can assure you, was a dreadful mistake.
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It took me almost thirty five years to realise there’s a world of difference between a thing and a ‘thing.’
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It was the wardrobe that worried Canon Pennyfather, you see he could’ve sworn it had been much closer to the sink yesterday evening.
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For the day it is, and because it’s very windy outside and I’m trying to find excuses not to force myself out for a walk, I have compiled a list of the twelve books which creep me out in the best way possible. They’re not all strictly horror. I’m not even sure how you’d classify some of them. But they are certain to unsettle you and give you very very strange dreams. Hope there’s something here which makes your Halloween weekend a little more terrifying.
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They argued in the taxi on the way over to the Mitfords. Alison knew Fred was already planning to do it, but when she asked him, please not to put her through it again, he snapped and said he intended to perform a card trick he’d picked up from a television show.
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We each got our own bedroom. We drew lots to make the process fair. Gwen got the big room at the front. I got the small single at the back and Mary, who we’d found in the classifieds, ended up with the attic room, which was a decent size, but hopelessly sloped on either side.
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