Monthly Archives: August 2021

Strange and unexpected

The three houses have all changed now, of course. Perhaps they are no longer even separate houses, perhaps they are all part of a single dwelling. The high stone wall that has appeared prevents inquisitive minds from knowing the answer. … Continue reading

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Holding back the start of term

While I have spent the past two days attending meetings and preparing classes at my new school in Dublin, my nephews are still enjoying the penultimate week of the summer holidays. The new term at Huish Episcopi does not begin … Continue reading

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Many days in a life

It is forty years ago today, on 24th August 1981, that Mark Chapman was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for the murder of John Lennon. By the time I began buying records in the mid-1970s, John Lennon was in his … Continue reading

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An unpleasant uncle

All that remains of the souvenir postcard is the top right-hand corner showing the stamp, postmarks and addressee on one side and the statistical dimensions of the Eiffel Tower on the other. Had it reached my grandfather intact, it would … Continue reading

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It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it

I was searching for Seamus Heaney’s poem, Servant Boy. It was the poem from which the Heaney volume of poem’s Wintering Out took its name. The opening lines seemed to capture the mood last year: He is wintering out the … Continue reading

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