Travel – Nastasya Parker

Reader, I Cried

This Month’s Bit of String: Black and white schoolhouse portraits

Located at the gateway to the grandest peaks of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, the hotel leans into a a rustic theme in its main corridors and lobbies. The site was a shoe peg and crutch factory in the late 19th century and then briefly part of Draper and Maynard, makers of baseball gloves. Babe Ruth’s might have come from here.

Graffiti at the Basin in the White Mountains reads: "What makes you happy?" — Graffiti at the Basin in the White Mountains

Various chimneys and smokestacks remain, and oxidised tanks with screws big as elephant toes swoop over the wine cellar in the restaurant. This is now a rightfully popular venue with excellent catering. But in the tower leading up to the room where my husband and I stayed, the stairs were strangely hushed, reminding me of when we took the auto road to the top of Mount Washington last year. Higher than birds fly, the silence was stunning.

Vintage photographs cover the walls. Group pictures from schoolhouses or factories, girls in pinafores and boys in shorts. I’d rush over a landing and with a jolt, my eyes met the sombre gaze yesteryear’s children.

Does that ever happen to you? The sudden recognition that each face in old photos was as human as you and me, as complex and full of need. I wondered whether they lived full lives or if they felt they had to settle for less. And I hoped they experienced at least one day of complete, earth-shattering joy.

Perfect Day

This was where our son married their wonderful partner just over a week ago. There was a small, beautiful ceremony, so heartfelt and precious that even the officiant choked up, and then a reception in the hotel where we stayed.

Photo of my son in a blue suit with his bride, who wears her wedding dress covered with stitched flowers. Her head is on his shoulder as they sit on a granite bench in front of hydrangeas. — Our brave little loves.

I could not be prouder that I have a child, biologically a son, who loves so hard they cry. That they arranged and played the piano recording used for the processional, and that the handful of guests featured friends cultivated from all over the world, each one excited and inspired and supportive, on both sides of the aisle.

I’d gratefully relive the day again and again. I remember flashes of our own wedding, when Bear was two-and-a-half and my new husband still lived overseas. Those were some frantic factors to contend with, so as soon as our special day was over, it became patchy in my mind.

Back then, I didn’t have time to record the most marvellous details of my wedding day. I’ve never even managed to put the photos in an album. Now, I have daily scribbles in my routine. They got a bit backed up—it took me 10 pages and 3 days, while life carried on and there were still many moments to be maximised. But I have an account, at least, and pictures I was able to snap myself now and then.

Overflowing

It was handy having a room at the hotel, because I could pop up and redo my make-up a couple of times. I was tearful all through the service and I still can’t remember the speeches without welling up slightly.

Why do we cry when we’re happy? It’s a response to the overwhelming emotion, isn’t it, like sweat for our feelings. A bid to moderate our sentiments’ temperature or they cannot be borne.

After the lovely wedding eve rehearsal dinner beneath the elephant-toed pipes, my husband observed of the kids, “They don’t seem nervous like we were. That’s good.”

A wedding centrepiece of assorted blooms in yellow, white, pink, and purple — Our daughter-in-law and some of her wedding flowers.

“I wasn’t nervous,” I said. “It was just so intense.”

Marriage is, after all, a momentous choice. We close off countless alternative worlds and focus on what one person can offer us. More dauntingly, we vow to offer all we can to that person. I know that’s why I cried privately while driving to my wedding.

And maybe, on some level, we cry because pure happiness and true good fortune are scary. We may feel unworthy.

I am praying the utter love and beauty and sincerity of our Bear’s wedding will ward off misfortune. When I looked into the black and white faces on the hotel corridor walls, even as I grappled with the reality of those figures’ humanity, I was calculating.

If they grew up to be deeply satisfied adults, how does it affect my own family’s odds? Just in case there’s a limited number of content existences to go around, like the minuscule percentage of 9s (A*s) handed out nationwide in GCSEs. Does our happiness tempt fate, meddle with universal justice?

But maybe, extending love and committing, as our precious kiddos did 8 days ago, to face life “together with a spirit of curiosity and patience” shows courage and dedication enough to earn this joy. Can it be possible?

Summer Wishes

This Week’s Bit of String: This Week’s Bit of String: Cinnamon and wintergreen, train whistles and toll bridges

Have you noticed how, if you only visit a place on certain occasions, it seems time stands still there?

Admittedly, I’ve been through Heathrow Airport more than usual in the past year, since my family’s had a lot going on. But 3.5 months passed since my last trip home, yet when I checked in for my flight back to New England yesterday, it felt as if I’d just been there.

I know pretty well what to expect in Terminal 3 now. The bathrooms smell like Tiger Balm, a mix of cinnamon and wintergreen. I think it’s their air freshener spray or something. I could see it swirling beneath the light, murmurations of vapour droplets.

On the other side of the Atlantic, I checked into a hotel after my late night flight. Here, the elevator and corridors smelled inexplicably like Vaseline, or hot tarmac. But there’s AC and ice machines, mini-fridges and not one but 2 queen beds in my room. It wasn’t quiet, staying near the industrial harbour outside Boston. I could hear train whistles fret through the night, and the chatter of a soap opera playing in the next room.

I told myself it was like staying over at my Grammy and Grandpa’s house, in a railway town, and fell asleep for 4 whole hours.

At 5:30 in the morning I set off, walking to the bay. Little rabbits grazed on park land and the water reflected the sky in a beautiful shade of metallic blue. I had time to take in the rocks on the shore, the smokestacks rosy in the sunrise, the impressive expanse of the Tobin Bridge plunging into the middle of Boston’s towers, opposite.

I needed the reminder that I love exploring new places and trying new things. With my family moving, I’ve been anxious and my longing for the familiar has prevailed, plus being downright busy. After this morning’s jaunt, I feel renewed and ready for a mix of new and old, and to view the familiar from different angles in a new place, just like this morning I framed Boston in the distance beyond the sand-coloured posts of the Bridge.

Luggage-Free

So this morning I had time, plus my bags were all at the hotel. Since the school year finally ended on Friday, I have relished taking walks without the LL Bean backpack I bump along to work with every day. Without that load, relief has eased my neck and shoulders.

The night before I left the UK, with my massive list of cleaning tasks nearly complete, I went for a walk with a friend, to catch up before my flight. We stopped at a bridge over the local stream and stared into the shallow water as we talked. Spires of bindweed rose on the riverbank, the layers of heart-shaped leaves reminding me of dribble castles on an ocean shore.

We saw a rat wriggle downstream, and dragonfly zipped along. A vole kept creeping out from the foliage at the base of the bridge wall, then retreating, then scampering forth again.

What a treat to just observe. I haven’t been doing enough of that lately. It’s such fun to write descriptions of these settings in my daily scribbles rather than accounts of Year 10 shenanigans.

Big Plans

The summer will be busy. My family have worked so hard emptying not one but two houses, and moving into a new one. There’s still a lot of sorting out to help with, and then my kiddo’s wedding.

I’ll have five critiques to do for other writers, one story of my own that needs finishing, one that needs editing, and a new one to write, plus submitting my novel to a few more agents and if possible, working on my current novel-in-progress. There are miles to hike (partly to burn off the root beer and Dunkin Donuts), and lakes to swim.

But I hope that sometimes I can just sit and observe. What about you?

So, a benediction for summer:

May your hikes be baggage-free
May the wildlife cavort in front of you as if you were a Disney princess
May your hotel pools be empty, and your airplane or other transport seatmates be entertaining
May your water bottles stay chilled
May your characterisations be kind and your descriptions sharp.

Community Stories

This Week’s Bit of String: French Wars of Religion

Our first views of the Dordogne region, after landing in Bergerac’s two-chamber airport in 36-degree heat, were flat and bright. The only break in the horizon seemed to be a single spire in the distance.

That spire turned out to be very near our destination. Last week, I accompanied my talented musical husband and a 21-piece band to Bergerac, which our town is newly twinned with. They host a jazz festival, Jazz Pourpre, each year and our local big band would play 3 different gigs in as many days.

*Saint James, Bergerac, with its Cyrano statue*

Jazz Pourpre takes place behind the mid-19th century church of Notre Dame. At the opposite end of the street is a monument to the French Resistance, so the band played their final concert under the word RESIST running down the obelisk into the white peak of the tent.

I don’t know how strong the Resistance was in Bergerac during World War II. But it has sometimes been staunch in its individuality. It was a Huguenot stronghold in the 16th century, during the Wars of Religion, and most Catholic buildings were destroyed while the nuns and clergy were enslaved or executed. Hence the formidable height of the Notre Dame, built later in the 1800s with a vengeance.

The great old church of Saint James was left standing, but emptied out and used as a fortress. Among all the relics the Protestants destroyed was a supposed piece of Christ’s cross, gifted to the town by Charlemagne when he passed through. I know there’s little chance it was an authentic artefact from Biblical times, but having been treated as such for eight centuries, that scrap of wood would have been the subject of prayers and pilgrimages and played a role in many lives.

Sometimes a story’s worth lies in what it means to people, not its authenticity.

Atrocities were committed on and against both sides in those wars. There were terrible massacres of Protestants, which our French Catholic guide didn’t mention specifically. But on our tour of the town, she did tell us: “At that time, a human life was worth no more than a chicken.”

Tale Keepers

I kept busy exploring and scribbling about what I found, while my husband and the band played and managed various logistics. Our French hosts from the Twinning committee would wander over and ask me what I was writing about.

One monsieur elaborated on the far-reaching effects of the Wars of Religion. When the Catholics “won,” he said, many Protestants fled the country. But they didn’t want to live without the wines of Bergerac, so they established trade and Bergerac shipped wines up the Dordogne River. Taverns in Bristol were supplied by Bergerac at one time.

*This picture sums up a wonderful 3.5 days*.

However, the Bordeaux region noticed the exports passing through, and according to my new friend, they invested in and developed their own vineyards, then stopped Bergerac’s shipments on the Dordogne and insisted that the Bordeaux wines be exported instead. So we end up with Bordeaux wines being the most famous, centuries on.

The man who was telling me this had lived in Paris for 30 years, even spent a summer working at a camp in Little Rock, Arkansas, and his three children live throughout the world: Bournemouth, Netherlands, Guatemala. But he’s settled in Bergerac and passionate about its history. Likewise, our tour guide Catherine had not been a Bergerac native but was a generous font of local information.

With the lovely Bergerac twinning committee organising transport and meals and even a boat tour on the Dordogne for us, we sometimes wondered what our town on the post-industrial outskirts of the Cotswolds could offer in return.

But as transplants to the area, with no family nearby, we have a lot of experience making it a place worth visiting. Whenever family do come to see us, we find a fair bit to do around here.

We hugely value the local knowledge guarded by those who’ve spent much of their lives here. We may have a fresh appreciation for how it all presents itself, though.

On Our Doorstep

Our town is only one-quarter the size of Bergerac. We too have a central church called St. James, dating back to the 15th century. It was the site of some carnage in 1698 when the steeple collapsed, and the bellringers inside were killed. Now, it hosts a free book fair on Saturday mornings. Behind it, there are a couple trees which are stunning in springtime with an unparalleled froth of blossoms, and further along there’s a little system of alleys entangled with a small water channel.

Bergerac has a much bigger knot of medieval alleyways, but I do love the little stone arches in Dursley. And I don’t think Bergerac still displays a 19th-century sign instructing townspeople not to wash offal or entrails in the spring. Dursley has, thank you very much.

Our town used to be the site of a massive engine factory. A minor work of literature was based in this factory, like a Kafkaesque version of Sinclair’s The Jungle. Peter C. Brown worked in the Lister factory when he wrote Smallcreep’s Day, about a bored employee who explores his workplace and finds all sorts of surreal happenings.

We used to have a Smallcreep Street named after the character. It’s a fantastic character name, isn’t it? If I were giving a tour, I’d definitely include that.

What stories do you know about where you live, and how did you find out about them?

Big Picture Thinking

This Week’s Bit of String: A hasty clearout

My family moved house only once. I was 8 years old, basically prepubescent and pretty melodramatic about it. I initially vowed that if our new house didn’t have a backyard brook like our old one, I would run away.

We got a backyard swamp instead. Home ownership is hard. But the New House never fully sank into it, and my parents remained there for 37 years. I first raised my kiddo in one of the bedrooms and we’ve returned there every summer.

My sister was in first grade when we moved, and since we all have a storytelling streak, she had moments of drama too. Before the move, she arrived home from school ahead of me one day and later recounted to me that she found our Mom on her knees in front of a closet, grabbing everything and then throwing it behind her like a cartoon puppy digging under a fence. That created image has stayed in my mind all these years when I think about moving: chaos combined with hard, focused work.

*The New House. Taken about 26 years ago.*

At the time, we kids were 8, 7, 4, and barely 3, so on the rare moments when Mom could tackle a sorting or packing project, she undoubtedly did so at a frantic pace.

It was then, too, that Mom started using a certain expression which has stuck with me as well. We’d ask what about this, is that coming with us, or how is such-and-such going to work, and Mom would say, “It’s in the plan.”

We came to dread that phrase and Mom ended up alluding to it more as a kiss of death. Anything “in the plan” was like any garment consigned to her Mending Pile. It wasn’t about to emerge for a very long while, if ever (through no fault of her own, I hasten to add).

Now, my parents plus my youngest sister and my cousin, who both live with them, need to move again, and somehow pack and clear everything my family owns from the last 37 years plus some of my late aunt’s things at my cousin’s house.

Zooming Out

When 2026 began, I knew my parents’ move was on the horizon, plus this summer our kiddo’s wedding. This meant a fair bit of extra transatlantic travel, while balancing my job, growing my little garden crops, drafting at least half a novel, keeping up with two different critique groups and various other deadlines…

My planner had spaces for monthly goals, which proved highly useful. Before returning to work after Christmas, I’d organised 2026 through July, listing where I need to be each month to ensure every aspect of the year runs smoothly.

*Also important to make the most of each season. I spotted my first opened bluebell while foraging for wild garlic.*

In January, we’d decide if my husband would join me on my Easter trip, so he too can see the family house for the last time. We’d book airport parking and meanwhile support kiddos with choosing a wedding venue and setting a summer wedding date. I’d also begin decluttering my own house, and plant seeds.

By February, I was looking into housesitters to stay with Obie during our April trip to the US, my dining room table was covered with seedlings, I was finishing a whole new section of my novel, and buying my plane ticket for the summer.

This past week, as March and school Term 4 draw to a close and my flight is coming right up, I’m cleaning the house as deeply as I can manage for the housesitter, while arranging for the summer’s sitter. It’s a constant organisational cycle. And funnily, making space for someone else to stay involves me frantically stuffing things into closets rather than pawing it all out.

Plot Twist

In a way, I’ve applied story-plotting technique to life. In order for this to happen, that must come first. While engrossed from afar in the travails of my family’s house-hunting—and keeping a wary eye on chaotic current events—I’ve kept up with my novel-drafting.

Depending on how many other writing commitments I have in a week, I write either 2000-3000 words. This is made easier by the plotting I did before I started writing. With a rough idea of events needed in each section, I can keep myself going, even when life is distracting.

*Welcome distraction: the cherry tree beside the church in town*

Of course, the planning is a means, not an end. My characters have to be real and rounded enough so the story doesn’t feel like paint-by-numbers. The fact that I enjoy writing about them might mean I’m on the right track. There’s still delight as I see them in action, as they show me why they do what they do.

In real life, similarly, a plan is never ironclad. Having fewer people depending on me than my parents do gives me more control as I organise, but with our little Obie cat, we do depend on house sitters. And just this morning, at 5 a.m., our April sitter messaged that she’s been injured and can’t drive or walk. Or housesit.

So, less than 24 hours before I have to be at the airport, I’m reviewing the situation. Was it a mistake to put something “in the plan?”

How far ahead do you manage to plan things, and does it ever fully work out?

The Wow Factor

This Week’s Bit of String: First fireworks

When my little Bear was 2.5 years old, my best friend and I took them to the 4th of July fireworks in the biggest local town. The Outing Club rocketed the fireworks from their ski slope over the surrounding valley, and we were running late as ever so were just trotting down the opposite hill when they started.

The colourful explosions put a skip into Bear’s step. They cried, “Wow! Oh, wow!”

I don’t think I’d ever heard them say that before. Such excitement is to be cherished and never forgotten, and fully warrants the nearly-taboo exclamation points.

Like the time after school once, a few years later when we were settled in the UK. Bear and I were walking back from town, they were maybe 6 years old, and a harvest moon rose, big and yellow. Bear stopped in the middle of recounting some kind of ds game or Star Wars scene to me, and broke into applause for the glorious natural phenomenon.

It’s so important to put ourselves in the way of moments that produce this type of reaction, even if it’s a daily event like the moonrise. We mustn’t lose our capacity to be impressed.

During half-term this week, I’ve mostly been working on writing and reading and weeding and cleaning. But I did abscond for a day and take the train to Bristol for a good wander. I climbed Brandon Hill and Cabot Tower to look out over the city, had a roasted white hot chocolate from Mrs. Potts chocolate house, and mooched around Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Plenty of Wow Factor there, from Assyrian tablets to ichthyosaur bones to all kinds of crystals and then more paintings and artefacts.

I could have stood for ages in front of James Tissot’s oil painting Les Adiuex (The Farewells) from 1871. The detail of the woman’s lace gloves! The clasped hands and the faces agonised by separation. But, there were other gallery visitors and it’s only fair they should see the painting as well.

Vacationing

When I was out and about in Bristol, there were lots of families trying to keep entertained there. Two siblings behind me on the train really liked the Arriva Train Care centre near Temple Meads station, with its sidings flanked by giant car wash brushes.

“That is so cool,” they kept saying.

And as I wandered at Bristol Harbour, I heard excited young people mistake the boats for the Titanic. At Millennium Square a boy on a scooter, maybe already in the early years of secondary school, freely told his friend, “I love these fountains.”

I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to hear kids enjoy themselves. At work we’re becoming pretty rundown. The students are so unmotivated and in a few cases, unpleasant. That said, my experience is mostly within the special needs area. Many of our students truly struggle, and exams ask almost too much from them.

*Obie, however, is ready to try being a writer and a scholar.*

Other students will experience school differently. On the last day before the break, quite a few of our statemented kids were out (there’s one boy in Year 10 who is marked “ill” on the last day of every single term—intriguing, no?) so I ended up in a top-set year 10 English class.

They were reviewing GCSE war poems they first learned last year, so I took a small group to go over “Kamikaze” by Beatrice Garland. It tells the story of a Japanese pilot who was supposed to commit kamikaze. But he changes his mind, and goes home instead. He chooses life, and his family can never forgive him. His neighbours and his wife, ultimately his children, refuse to speak to him again because of this dishonour.

I read the poem to a group of 4 students I’d never met. The last lines go: “And sometimes, she said, he must have wondered/ which had been the better way to die.”

The boy next to me said, “Wow. That was really—wow. You know?”

Rejuvenation

It’s just nice to share that reaction sometimes.

Although I always have some kind of deadlines and a long to-do list, the half-term week off from my day job at school is lovely because I can do it all with a bit less rush. I can pretend that writing is my main work.

Sometimes, a lack of spare time can make us more productive. We are aware of our limits so we optimise any opportunity to write. A sudden extra helping of free time, as at half-term, might make us more reckless and we squander some of that time. There’s truth in that.

On the other hand, not being rushed can give us some creative freedom. I might enjoy writing more when I don’t have a million other chores hanging over my head, just as those poor kids on half-term can go out and enjoy themselves.

And maybe, when we all return to school tomorrow, those of us who sought and were privileged to find inspiration will have some new energy and tolerance so we can keep trying to pass it on. When I climbed Brandon Hill in Bristol, the views from the tower were pretty great, but so too were the crocuses close to the ground. It reminded me there’s excitement and beauty to be found all over—maybe we just need a little break.

What makes you say “Wow?”

Seven Wanders of 2025

Last year turned into a year somewhat on the go. Toward the end, I was traveling every 2-3 weeks. Even during term time! Paris, London, America, and then right back to supporting students on Monday morning. When it felt tiring, I pretended I was travelling for Successful Writer purposes, although it actually kind of slowed down my writing.

Where were your favourite adventures in the last year? If you weren’t able to go out and about much, what other sources of inspiration or invigoration did you find?

Bath, United Kingdom

In February, I took a day trip on the train down to Bath. I didn’t go into the ancient Roman sites this time, but walked to Victoria Park and worshiped the crocuses, walked along the busy weir, and of course visited Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, an absolute gem of an independent bookstore.

White River Junction, Vermont

During my October trip to see my family, I walked in the dark early mornings across one bridge and down another. The White River meets the Connecticut here, swirling into the border with New Hampshire, and train tracks pass, lined with colourful trees. The main streets of town have those square, flat buildings that remind me of Western movie sets, but lots of boutique shops inside, plus a Turkish cafe and a Cambodian sandwich shop. Most of all, this town is where my Grammy and Grandpa raised my dad and his older siblings, and where my siblings and I used to visit them, and I’d bring my own little Bear when they were young.

Ozleworth, Gloucestershire

We love this rural hamlet best in the cold clarity. It seems to pour icy blue sky into the saucer of the loping green fields. Smoke rises from cottage chimneys and you can see your breath inside the 12th century Church of St. Nicholas, which has a striking octagonal tower.

Paris

Although our reason for visiting Paris was bittersweet, we made the most of exploring the city. We scattered my aunt’s ashes in the Seine behind Notre Dame and wandered the alleys of the Marais. The next day, we walked down toward the Eiffel Tower, cutting through leafy squares between pretty vintage buildings with mansard windows and Invader street art mosaics.

London

Proof a city can be festive without snow. I went on a Christmas-hunting expedition at the end of November, hiking 13 miles around the capital in 8.5 hours. From Harrods to Kings Cross and St. Pancras train stations, to the Charles Dickens Museum and then the stunning shopfronts of New Bond Street, all fueled by gourmet hot chocolate to go from El & N, you could definitely say ChristMUSS was all around.

Mount Washington, New Hampshire

This feels like a bit of a cheat since much of this “wander” was driven. The old Auto Road zigs and zags slowly up to the 6,288-foot summit, the highest in Northeastern North America. The well-paved road feels narrow and is often without any railing or fence, so the views as you ascend beyond the other White Mountains are spectacular but a bit scary. There is scope for wandering at the top, scrambling over rocks and watching the Cog Railway arrive and depart.

Athens

I did get around a bit, didn’t I? Most years, I’m not visiting four different countries. This was my first visit to Greece, and it was so exciting to walk down a busy, somewhat dingy street and see the Acropolis in the distance. I loved the views from Monastiraki Square, thronged with crowds. A band played and restaurants grilled meat outside. Across the Square were the beautifully weathered pillars of Hadrian’s Library, and beyond that the ruins of the Roman market, surrounded by gorgeous houses with bougainvillea climbing the gates.

2025 Reading Round-Up

With minimal ado, here are my favourite books out of all I read this year. These are truly the 10 best of my best, because there were a few more which I rated with the full 5 stars.

What were your favourite reads this year? Have you read any of these books yet? I know I’m a bit late to the party on some, and I’d love to hear what you thought if you read some of these before.

The Women by Kristin Hannah

An epic tale of an Army nurse in the Vietnam War. She also has to cope with re-entering civilian life, particularly challenging with her upper-class family. They serve as a contrast to the strong, unconditional friendships she formed with other Army nurses. Truly an eye-opening read.

“Time and friendship had done exactly as promised: pain and grief had grown soft and malleable in her hands, almost pliable.”

The Lives of the Dead by Fiona McKay

I joined a book group specifically reading novellas-in-flash. It’s been exciting to explore, and I found this one particularly powerful. Each very short chapter is a mini-story, alternating between episodes in a new wife/ mum’s suffocating life, and stunningly retold fairy tales.

“It’s the kindness that does her in, that releases her long-held tears, that leaves her to walk back, red-eyed, along the line of women when she’s done; kindness, the essential vitamin missing from her supplements, the one she didn’t know she was lacking.”

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

I love ensemble pieces, where a quirky range of characters are thrown together. In this case, it’s at an apartment viewing which then goes wrong due to a desperate, bungled burglary. It’s funny and warm, the sort of thing to help survive a Scandinavian-level winter.

“Our hearts are bars of soap that we keep losing hold of; the moment we relax, they drift off and fall in love and get broken.”

Love lay down beside me and we wept by Helen Murray Taylor

I know Helen from the Women Writers Network, so I have been looking forward to her mental health memoir for years. She focuses on when she was sectioned in Glasgow following a breakdown. Helen reveals the contradictions we might hold in our minds at our lowest point and still she invites you in with humour.

“Trying to describe love was like trying to stroke Schrodinger’s cat.”

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

I love Lehane’s books, especially his snappy dialogue. This novel is set in Boston just after WWI and deals with racism, poverty, immigration, labour rights, and even the tragedy of the Boston Molasses flood. It made me appreciate that the USA has come through incredibly tense times before, and we may yet make it.

“Time and again what was renounced as treasonous was merely a man standing before a crowd and demanding he be treated as a man.”

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Short and searingly beautiful, this Booker Prize winner is a wondrous read. It takes us through one day in the lives of six astronauts on the International Space Station, describing the many juxtapositions of what they see below on their various orbiting paths, and lyrically weaves in the astronauts’ backgrounds and aspirations.

“He has an idea that if you could get far enough away from the earth you’d be able to understand it—to see it with your own eyes as an object, a small blue dot, a cosmic and mysterious thing. Not to understand its mystery, but to understand it is mysterious. To see it as a mathematical swarm. To see the solidity fall away from it.”

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

A great book about totalitarianism and war, with breathtaking depth of character. Both protagonists were so incredibly rich in background and passion for their interests, Marie-Laure with her Verne books and her understanding of how to get around without her sight, Werner and his machines and radios.

“She feels the great granite fist, sunk deep into the earth’s crust, on which Saint-Malo sits, and the ocean teething at it from all four sides…She hears the bones of dead whales stir the leagues below, their marrow offering a century of food for cities of creatures who will live their whole lives and never once see a photon sent from the sun.”

Home Bird by Fran Hill

*A reading verandah! Found on a* *walk in small town New Hampshire.*

If you’ve read Fran’s Substack–and you really should–you’ll know she excels at writing humour. But I love her detail selection even more. Her plots advance quickly through the specifics her narrator includes, bringing out the nuances of relationships and recreating the period of her novels.

“She knocked on my door, saying, ‘There’s Bakewell tart going spare,’ but I said, ‘It’s not the only one,’ and she left me alone.”

Still Life by Sarah Winman

A true feast of a book, celebrating art and travel and food but most of all friendship, the abiding kind that’s more like true love. After World War II, an unlikely band of Londoners, united only by happening to drink at the same pub, move to Florence and discover worlds both old and new.

“‘We’re embarking on a world of new language and new systems. A world of stares and misunderstandings and humiliations and we’ll feel every single one of them, boy. But we mustn’t let our inability to know what’s what diminish us. Because it’ll try. We have to remain curious and open.’”

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

This book is about the creative process, relationships, grief, negotiating differences in ethnicity and sexuality… oh, and videogames. I loved it so much. The section about the NPC (non-playable character) is the most gorgeous and heartbreaking that I have ever read.

“Memory, you realised long ago, is a game that a healthy-brained person can play all the time, and the game of memory is won or lost on one criterion: Do you leave the formation of memories to happenstance, or do you decide to remember?”

Halfway to Ninety

This Week’s Bit of String: Making it to Europe

When Operation Desert Storm began in early 1991, my aunt, a nurse, renewed her passport. If necessary, she’d be sent to military hospitals in Germany to assist wounded soldiers.

I was ten years old, and jealous. Forget the desert, the storm, the war. Germany made me think of Alps and castles and history. I wanted in on the adventure.

I remember moaning at the kitchen table, “I’ll be an old maid by the time I ever reach Europe!”

In fact, I’ve lived almost half my life on this side of the Atlantic. I first visited the continent when I was 19, and I may have felt terminally single when I arrived, prematurely an old maid, but I returned to the USA [unwittingly] pregnant. Eventually, marriage anchored me here in the UK.

Life can certainly twist. I decorated for Christmas last week, hanging the stocking my mother embroidered for me, and the one she made for my husband. My Baby’s First Christmas 1980 ornaments from when I was 11 days old are on our Argos-ordered tree, and I bet my mom didn’t imagine they would travel this far.

I turn 45 this weekend, and while it would be nice to have a few more publications to my name, I’m quite content. I’ve had the wonderful excitement of being a parent, plus occasional travel, and my job certainly isn’t dull.

I like the sound of 45. It makes me think of a speed limit that’s high for a town centre or residential street, but just about too cautious for the highway. That suits me. I’ll be celebrating with an Italian meal in a Cotswold town, and maybe carol-singing at the local pub after. If it’s not pouring rain, I’ll have a long hike to a nearby town and write there for a couple hours the day before.

Paragraphs After Paragraphs

At work the other day, the bottom set Year 10s were working on narrative and descriptive writing. It’s for the 40-mark Language GCSE question, so the teacher insisted they write at least 5 paragraphs. That sounds impossible to them.

The scruffy little rugby player banished to the back corner learned that I write stories. He asked, “Were they long, what you wrote?”

Over the whole of my life I’ve probably written at least 5000 pages of story drafts by now. Counting my daily scribbles, it might be 10,000 (admittedly not all A4 sized).

We had this conversation as I encouraged young Mr. Rugby based on what he’d already written. He’d done three short paragraphs, and I’d never seen him so focused. It was hard work for him, but something must have gelled. In Maths and Science, he’s so distracted by other students’ antics that he barely does any work at all.

I’d been urging him to view concentration as a muscle that needs building. “It’s like how you do drills with your rugby team, right? Let’s see if you can go thirty seconds without looking away from your work. Then a minute.”

I’m not sure this has caught on yet. But every now and then, it’s worth testing my own focus “muscles” as well. I spend the majority of my time trying to cross multiple items off a to-do list at once. With the weather worsening and the holidays approaching, it’s extra busy in some ways but it also feels like an ideal time to slow down.

Adjusting Speed

I always re-watch the extended version of Lord of the Rings as the nights draw in. I can’t imagine watching the more concise version; I want to be immersed in the epic worldbuilding and character development. But I also have the decorations to put up, shopping to do, treats to bake, on top of the usual commitments, so for example last year, I was hanging ornaments on the tree while Return of the King was on, and I had to pause with angels dangling from my fingers to make sure I took in the wondrous lighting of the beacons.

*A cosy corner near the couch where I mostly do my writing* *(and reading)*

This year, somehow I managed to be still for long portions of the films. I wasn’t even scribbling or answering messages on my phone or using the Mahjongg app. I’d lit candles, my own mini-beacons, and I just curled up to watch the story unfold.

It felt luxurious. I did the same, briefly, when I put Frozen on the following weekend. What a treat to train undivided attention on the opening scenes: the view through the ice, the sunrise and aurora colours. I miss the wintry terrain of home sometimes, and I marvel at how this Disney animation captured the slightly porous, ridged contour of the ice chunks.

I’m also treating myself to sink into a reread of Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea, which I read just a year ago. But I craved the sumptuous layers of stories and magic, and wanted to see what I can pick up from a second read.

I still have big plans of course, for Christmas and for the next year. Hikes and excursions… In 2026 we’ll be taking a little trip to France for a Jazz Festival, and I’ll visit my family. Even when I feel a bit worn out, there’s some part of me aching to keep exploring, to keep making the most of each day. I’m just reminding that intrepid young part of me that slowing down and enjoying a moment is pretty worthwhile, too.

How might you take things a bit slowly over the holiday?

Writing Showcase

This week Lou Wilford, a fellow writer I know through reviewing and critiquing groups, has featured me on her blog as November’s Showcased Writer. Lou writes with wit and humour, so her own monthly blog posts are terrifically entertaining.

*Dickens Museum, Doughty Street, London*

Follow this link for my interview and a couple of stories. I enjoyed reflecting on Lou’s questions. We cover my influences and processes as a writer; what it means to be “cultured,” and the unfortunately valid question: “Are writers selfish?”

I selected my story “Centuries, in Burnt Sienna” as a sample to include in the showcase. I wrote it in 2020 and it was published in 2021, but I find myself going back to it when the world seems particularly tumultuous. Two sisters come of age in the 1980s and 1990s, and while they experience the terrorist attacks of September 2001 very differently, it ends their rivalry and brings them closer than ever before.

It’s a total classic, rich in taste and colour imagery. Also featuring pioneer Barbies at risk of dysentery, and a puppy named Periwinkle.

So anyway, that’s all I’m publishing for this fortnight. It’s handy timing. I worked hard on the interview questions and such during my flights at the end of October, and the work pays off a month later as I’m busy making Thanksgiving pies. I’m also fresh off a madcap romp through London, walking 13 miles in 8.5 hours to take in as many festive sights as possible. I expect I’ll be writing about that a bit in my Seven Wanders of 2025 coming up in another month!

Happy beginning of the holidays, everyone. Do let me know what you think of the interview. What makes a person cultured? And should we allow creative types a bit of selfishness?

All Over the Place

This Week’s Bit of String: Expanding brackets

Back in school for the Christmas term, I spent 40 minutes working with a student on algebraic practice expanding brackets. Guiding him to multiply each bracketed term by each term in the other brackets, explaining why we’re multiplying here.

He was making progress, starting to remember a couple more steps as we moved on to the third problem of his online homework—and then he was sick of it. He insisted on guessing, repeatedly and incorrectly, stabbing the keyboard, for the fourth problem.

I sputtered reminders that he could work out the right answer if he tried.

*Autumn leaves at Mascoma Lake, New Hampshire*

He stabbed another wrong guess. “Miss, I just saw, like, three stages of grief pass over your face in one second.”

He may well have seen anger and bargaining and depression, but his comment then immediately made me laugh. It’s fitting, I suppose. It’s been a very busy couple of weeks.

Across the Ocean and Back

Just a week ago, as the half-term break ended, I arrived back from the USA. I published my previous blog post from Heathrow Departures on my way out, and spent the entire flight westward on writing tasks. Caught up on the latest Mslexia issue, scribbled about the journey, and wrote answers to interview questions for a Writers Showcase I’ll be participating in at the end of the month.

I made the trip for three reasons: to be with my family as we cope with bereavement, to start finding some private closure for myself, and to help out in any way possible. My parents are now in charge of my aunt’s house as well as their own, and my autistic cousin is now a wonderful part of our family. There’s a lot going on.

For example, on my first full day there I woke up at 4:15 a.m. and started scribbling about the previous evening’s reunion with my family. At the vaguest sign of daylight, around 6:45, I embarked on a 5-mile hike. I started in awe of the New England autumn colours which I haven’t seen much in 22 years and eventually made my way to the cemetery where I had a good cry at 8 a.m. over the family graves. I thanked our lost loves for giving us such good examples of how to look after each other.

After helping my mom with weeding, organising the pantry, and then hoovering up cobwebs from the basement ceiling, we left my aunt’s house for my parents’ and met up with my brother and his kids, plus my kiddo and their fiancé, for raucous family times. This included, among other random moments, me bouncing my niece on my lap while singing a sped-up version of a Sunday school song about Daniel in the lion’s den, in honour of my cousin’s middle name Daniel. Junie demanded it twice more.

And that was just one day! It was a wonderful week, I managed to squeeze a fair bit in, although it feels surreally separate from my back-to-term life. Despite the lack of sleep on the overnight flight home plus hints of jet lag, I made it through this past week at school while also cleaning my own house this time, running the BlueSky channel for Women Writers Network, critiquing 3 different pieces for other writers, editing the opening section of my new novel to submit that for feedback, starting my Thanksgiving cooking, and writing this masterful piece.

Ups and Downs

My day job itself is a microcosmic whirlwind of emotion. I’ll spend an excruciating hour with a student who refuses to go to classes so it’s down to TAs to educate her 1:1. An hour despairing of my career choice while she refuses to do anything while she glowers at her phone under a fur-lines parka hood. Try to make conversation and half the time I’m met with a sneering, “You WHAT?” The next hour, I might be fortunate enough to attend a Photography class, prompting and scribing a student’s self-evaluation of his work while a couple other boys in the class exchange corny jokes.

“Miss, what do you think of this one: What did the first hat say to the second hat? —You stay here, I’ll go on a head.”

I told my husband’s favourite joke which involves an elephant impersonation so I could never do it justice here. This surprised the boys so much, they cracked up. Meanwhile, my student tried his best to bite his smile back and I could claim my revenge:

“Pretty sure I just saw all five stages of grief pass over your face when I told that joke,” I quipped.

While acknowledging, and celebrating really, that our lives are made up of such emotional tempests, and that progress is often two steps forward and one (or two or three) back, I don’t necessarily like that portrayed too realistically in a book. I like a story to have a fairly orderly trajectory.

Yes, the protagonist, having been made suddenly aware of a problem during the inciting incident, will over-compensate and mess it all up. Yes, all will seem lost at the midpoint and they’ll have to rally again. But it irks me when a writer reconciles characters just to fall out over something else, for example, or gives them a crucial self-realisation only to forget it in the next chapter and have to learn it again. This seems common in stories of middle-class angst.

Maybe my intolerance makes me a selfish reader, but I don’t need fiction to resemble real life that much. I can read about real, sometimes harrowing issues, but give me some kind of actual trajectory through it. The ups and downs of real life are tiring enough.

Does that bother you in a book? How firmly do you like stories plotted, or are you happy enough to spend each moment with a character?