There’s nothing like easing the mind while lighting the imagination — Early January is my time for winding down after the festivities, of recuperating walks along the beach, of reading for pleasure rather than work, and viewing any likely movies that catch my eye, all aimed at allowing my blood pressure to ease and my stamina rebuild for the coming year…

January Six Word Story Challenge: “Hometown Pride” — Hull — the birthplace of Chip Spice! Okay, stop laughing. First, let’s settle what a British “chip” is. It’s not a deep-fried wafer-thin potato “crisp”, nor does it have any resemblance to a stringy “French fry”. A traditional British “chip” is a potato peeled and cut into batons about as long and as fat an index finger…

A cheery smile can change your day — and theirs. — Yesterday morning, across a busy street, I saw a lady I recognised. I’ve no idea of her name, or where she lives; somewhere in my neighbourhood because our paths cross occasionally. In the past we’ve exchanged smiles, sometimes a Good morning, sometimes a quick chat about the weather. …

Is this a Sustainable Plan or a Virtue Signalling joke? — I have been wrapping the final Christmas gifts and the task has proved less than joyful. In fact, it left me seething. Most people want to do their bit in cutting back overuse of the planet’s resources. Food is not thrown away in this house, it is eaten; clothes are…

It depends on where you live. — I had to smile when I read an interesting piece from Clive Thompson In Praise of the Hot-Water Bottle, which he’d sourced from deep in a cupboard when he fell ill. Here in the UK, hot-water bottles are in every shop imaginable — the traditional flat rubber bottle, the mini…

November Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Collecting Smiles” — Jurassic Park in an English Garden While on holiday, it is interesting to walk the area around our hotel to see how the locals live, to spy what they grow in their gardens, to follow ginnels and snickets and other pedestrian shortcuts between lanes hardly wide enough to park a car. The oldest part of this…

October Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Collections” — Nature’s Harvest; Vinegar’s Preservation; Yuletide’s Eating Behold and be amazed! My first chutney. Please stop laughing, this is serious. And I lie; it’s actually my second attempt in all of… probably ten years. Why? Because the first attempt — I can’t even recall its produce — was so sour it could have stripped paint at six…

Six Word Photo Story: Freestyle — History in windows isn’t always ancient Swinbrook in Oxfordshire, England (population 139) is the ultimate chocolate-box retreat of thatched cottages of creamy stone, where gardens overflow with spikes of pink hollyhocks and blue delphiniums. Sitting atop a gentle rise, the current incarnation of the Church of St Mary the Virgin dates from the early 13th century…

September Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Comfort” — Timely gathered before the birds breakfast The last days of August left a heavy morning dew, and a welcome squall early in September brought down the first usable fruits from the apple trees standing by our fence-line. There have been falls throughout the summer, not ‘windfalls’ but ‘drought-falls’, small deformed fruits which had tried their best…