mns  2006-10-01 19:27   

Today I saw the last ship sail from Troy
white sheets stretched into the wind
one last time brown-speckled streamlined
on life's pebbled edge.

What is left when the fires are gone?
A Troy where light extinguished
memory flow in darkness,
laughter running wave-ebbed beach.

We pass in the night, time-locked, airborne
our spirits touching, love bound us all
one distant bark
the horizon flatlines into dust.

This is my goodbye poem to Poppy, the world's most wonderful dog.

mns  2006-09-06 22:30   

The heat of London this summer was overpowering. Even working with three fans blowing I felt like I was disintegrating. Well, if hot in London we thought, it can’t be much hotter in Rome. And so to Rome we went.
It wasn’t hotter than London and even the Pope came out to greet us – to our surprise. Yes, he was there in St Peter’s Square, and it was moving. This was something I had not expected, but it is true. As we arrived I heard a voice speaking over the loudspeakers in German and even though I was sure he was away for the summer I knew immediately that it was he. And it was.
Rome was even more magnificent than I had remembered it. The highlight was seeing my cousin Pamela again; wonderful evenings with her on her balcony, talking, drinking and eating, opera music in the background, black and white tiles, beautiful pictures, sun, dusk and night…
In the city we did the tourist things, throwing our coins into the Trevi Fountain, gazing at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, touring the Colosseum. Once again there was the Forum Romana where I once lay under a tree as a student and studied for exams. Rome is beautiful – it is amazing, stunning, and eternal. If I hanker for something now as autumn comes in, it is to sit in the Piazza Navona, drinking espresso and talking and listening. Or maybe it is to sit in the quiet gardens of the Hotel de Russie on the Via del Babuino – a true haven in the heat of a Roman afternoon.
After Rome came Paris, which seems more frenzied now that I look back. Part of this is because we came back at night to a hotel and not to a loving cousin. And we queued in Paris – endless relentless queues; several hours to get up the Eiffel Tower, over a half hour to get back down again, over an hour to get on a Seine Cruise (booked in advance and advertised as ‘romantic’ – we were lucky to get sitting beside each other. In fact if you are thinking of booking a ‘romantic cruise on the Seine’ feel free to email me and I’ll tell you what company NOT to use.)
Push the complaints aside – nothing can diminish our optimism – our visit to Notre Dame was beyond belief. There was a sung mass in progress, and JC (once upon a time a choirboy) and I (once upon a time a churchgoer) sat and listened in joyous unison. Is there anything more beautiful than the human voice singing praise? It was unbelievably moving.
The highlight of Paris was meeting up with our friends Tacchi and Jane in La Liberté (where coincidentally – JC being a philosophy lecturer – Sartre was once a regular); and onwards to La Coupole. If you go to Paris there are two places I recommend to eat – one is La Coupole, and the other is L’Écurie. And if you are looking for dining companions you need Jane, Tacchi and JC (and me).
JC says I should end this piece by saying ‘and they all lived happily ever after.’
Italy and France are both calling. We’ll go back to France in November for, believe it or not, an early New Year’s bash. I can hardly wait.

mns  2006-06-07 07:18   

It’s nearly a year since I moved to Islington and one of the biggest surprises (and believe me there have been a few) is the wildlife. In previous blogs I’ve talked about the seagulls, the foxes and the cats. This time I am going to write about the ducks.

May brought with it some surprises, most notably the arrival of the aforementioned ducks in the garden below. Initially just two who frolicked on the pond and did what ducks do. That done, the male retired to the roof opposite where he was, in due course, joined by a group of other males. And the female disappeared.
Working on the basis that she had to have her nest near the pond in order to get her ducklings safely to the water, I could only assume that the nest was hidden in the bushes three floor below where I am living.
There are foxes in the garden too, and I had no idea how she managed to keep herself safe, but one morning she and one duckling appeared in the pond.
Meanwhile the males sat on the roof opposite (see my photos) and observed the world.
Later that day both the female and the duckling disappeared, and in due course the female joined the gang on the parapet opposite the flat.

Now for the true story which I only heard yesterday morning from Kent who manages the property, and whose work has an unusual diversity to it.
Every year the ducks arrive and, no, they don’t nest in the garden. They nest on the roof opposite, behind the parapet. So when I was watching the five males lolling in the sun, they, in fact, were guarding the nest that was hidden behind them.

Last year eighteen ducklings hatched on the roof. Remember, this is three storeys up, and it’s a long drop down. Mother duck tried to push them down the drain pipe to the garden below. Some went that way, others jumped off the edge and floated down. Kent went up and rescued the rest, managing to get all eighteen into the pond in the garden.
Unfortunately, having flown the nest, these eighteen had no idea how to behave. And the mother had no control over them. The whole lot got out of the water, ran riot and disappeared out the gates to the side.
That was last year.
This year just one duckling made it down safely – this was the one I saw that morning. However, it had leaped over the side of the parapet and landed on a balcony below, where Kent had had to rescue it, warding off its irate mother who flapped and hissed at him as she tried to protect her young.
Once again, Kent put the duckling in the pond, and it was there I saw it floating happily in the sun.
Once again the mother’s parenting skills fell short, and even though she only had one duckling to watch over, it was seen later that day running out the side gate on to Gaskin Street with its mother chasing it.
Kent saw it later floating in a bowl of water held by someone begging on the street. He thought of a further rescue attempt but reasoned that it would simply run away again from the pond and at least it was being cared for.
In the last week all the ducks have flown away to return next Spring.

Meanwhile at least one of the foxes is living in the garages under the apartments, sleeping on the soft top roof of a convertible. Protected by law and by the RSPCA the fox has a comfortable bed.

mns  2006-04-27 11:01   

The shutters close, no light within, she fumbles
barefoot in dark alleys, hooks of memory claw
to shred the turmoiled visions of the past
what bestial grief is this
laid low before
now to emerge
where she once said
‘Goodbye’
behind a padded door

never look back
Lott’s tear-drenched salted wife immobile
weeps by the Liffey
as the doors clang closed

a sound that tolls through years

ms.

mns  2006-03-11 11:58   

In 1422 Lincoln’s Inn was mentioned in the Black Books although it appears it is in fact older than that. It is the oldest Inn of Court in England and, uniquely, managed to survive the Blitz and stands both as an extraordinary living relic of times past and as a haven in the heart of London.
It is here that John Donne wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls, and here that Charles Dickens based Bleak House.
And here, aspiring barristers who are members of the Inn, must dine twelve times in their first year. So, on a regular basis, JC heads to the Inn where he eats (and drinks and debates), and every time there is a guest night I get brought along.
Dining at the Inn is reminiscent of dining on Commons in Trinity College Dublin, with that air of formality that old institutions retain, but this is older – much older – seeped in something medieval.
The Great Hall is one of the most beautiful halls I have ever been in, with light coming through stained glass windows above the panelled walls. Dozens of long bench-like tables, each holding sixteen people, stretch down the hall, with eight comfortable chairs on either side of each. At the top of the Hall the Benchers (the senior members of the Inn) sit, and they are bowed to as they enter. All the barristers (and aspiring barristers) are gowned. Behind the left shoulder on the gown is a triangular pouch. This dates back to the 1200’s and the origins of the offence of champerty – a barrister was not allowed to have a financial interest in the outcome of a case (for obvious reasons). Back then, if a client wanted to pay directly, he could do so surreptitiously by slipping money into this pouch. Instead of a tie, two white strips of material falling from a barrister’s collar represent the tablets God gave Moses with the Ten Commandments – five on each.

Last time I was there, on JC’s right side was a Muslim woman who was the walking epitome of rudeness. She was clothed so that it was difficult to ascertain whether or not she actually was of the female gender. When she was offered wine she slammed her glass upside down as though she had been insulted beyond reason, and then refused to speak to JC, who is the epitome of politeness. ‘What College are you with?’ he asked. ‘I’d rather not say,’ was her response and that was the end of the conversation.
On my left was a truly beautiful girl from Bangladesh and, as she and I chatted, I became more and more nervous as her husband, who was dourly watching from across the table kept asking what I was saying. Clothed in a pale blue and pink silk sari, her long dark hair tied back neatly, her dark eyes danced in her stunning face, this young girl told me her story.
She had arrived in London last June – just as I did, but in rather different circumstances. Hers was an arranged marriage and she had met her husband in Bangladesh the previous February, and had married him immediately.
Her English was learned from American films and from television and she seemed very happy to talk to me about her situation. While I sit at my desk in Islington writing articles and novels, she works as a carer in her own community, from seven in the morning until eight in the evening, seven days a week. She has scattered hours free during the day, during which time she cleans their home and prepares their meals. I could not work out who it is she is actually working for, and she did not seem to think there was anything unusual in working seven days a week. I asked her if she was happy, and she said yes. Her face lit up as she looked lovingly at her husband and assured me he is a kind man. She was so beautiful and innocent and all I can do is hope that her happiness lasts.
I, of all people, am in no position to comment on arranged marriages. All I can say is that I like the freedom of choice which comes with western culture and I want that freedom to stay. The very fact that arranged marriages last longer is, I suspect, to do with lack of aspiration and the acceptance of a lower level of happiness. I remember that about three weeks after I arrived in London a young woman threw herself, her son and her baby under the Tube – because of the arranged marriage in which she was trapped, and that, I fear, says it all.
Now I have to say, in the midst of these diverse cultures on either side of us, there were the delightful Jane and David who were sitting opposite us and whom I am quite sure we will meet again. My life in London is relatively secluded and I really enjoyed this couple who even managed to make a story about being stuck on the motorway for seven hours with a young child into a witty anecdote. So between the strange tale unfolding on my left and the incredibly funny and enjoyable Jane and David, I had a brilliant evening.
After the port, as we stood to leave, my little Bangladeshi friend put her arms around me and kissed me. I would have like to have given her my phone number, but the truth is I was afraid to. I was already concerned that she might have told me too much and I wanted to protect her.
I hope I did right, although the more I think about it the more I feel I should have given her my number.

mns  2006-02-25 18:08   

It’s nearly March and spring is not in the air.
Over the last month, domestic problems on the Irish front (namely D.I.V.O.R.C.E.) have kept me on an emotional tightrope where there appears to be no safety net.
I find myself in the last few days thinking more and more of my mother. She had these sayings; sayings that as a child left me bewildered, but as an adult can reduce both myself and my sister to hysterics of laughter in a matter of seconds.

One of these sayings was, ‘It’s the best thing that ever happened.’ Now my mother would utter this at the most unlikely of moments, like when my sister fell on her roller skates in the house and broke her arm, or someone failed an exam at school, or when the window-cleaner fell off an upstairs window and I, aged 8, ran to catch him. The implication of the utterance, ‘it’s the best thing that ever happened,’ was, that in the happening of whatever event, a worse one would be avoided.
It was sometimes, if not always, difficult to see how this might be, but I can look back now and realise that my sister falling in the house and breaking her arm (and thereby being more careful in the future) might well be a lot better than her falling on the street under a car. And failing an exam pulled one up short and made one realise that a bit of work would solve that issue in the future. And indeed in my not reaching the window cleaner in time I learned a) I needed to be faster and b) it was lucky this 6 ft tall 14 stone man did not fall on me. And so on – any and every disaster could be seen in a positive way.
My mother was a woman whose cup was always at least half full. This reminds me of a friend of mine, also in the throes of divorce, who was telling me about her husband’s pessimism. ‘His cup is ALWAYS half empty,’ she said.
And then, a few weeks after she said that to me, he went and inherited some €35,000,000 (yes, honestly, thirty five million!), and I said, ‘surely now he can see his cup is half-full.’ ‘No,’ said my pal with a grimace, ‘now his ocean is half-empty.’
Well, no matter what happens – my cup is half-full, and I know it and I know I’m lucky.
Another of my mother’s sayings was; ‘Well, you’ve got to laugh!’
Again this was said at the most unlikely, and indeed sometimes the most awful, of times.
Illness, despair, even death might be staring one in the face, and my mother would smile wryly and say, ‘Well, you’ve got to laugh.’
It was as if, when all is said and done, and there is nothing left, you might as well laugh, because you couldn’t change the bad things that were happening.
And so, as I go into the month of March, with yet another court date looming on the near horizon, I say to myself, it’s the best thing that ever happened, and yes, well, I’ve simply got to laugh.

mns  2006-01-19 22:11   

New Year was the best ever, and the most extraordinary. A bus ride to Waterloo, in freezing London weather, saw JC and I on to the Eurostar and before we knew it we were in France, armed with precise details on how to make our way in Friday evening’s rush hour from Gare du Nord to Gare de Montparnesse. Oh, I’m sure I must have impressed JC with my confidence in dealing with the Metro, and my surefooted leadership through one station to the next, but then, all of a sudden, my lack of French let me down.
No one, but no one, is as rude as the French. Now, I love them dearly, and I know some very nice French people, but when they put their mind to it, they certainly know how to make you feel about as welcome as a beetle in the bathtub.
I was not working on the assumption that anyone might speak English – I struggled womanfully with my schoolgirl French as I tried so hard to get someone to understand that we wanted to go to La Loupe, and indeed we had the tickets, prior-purchased in London. I even knew roughly from which platform the train should depart, but I was thrown by the fact that a) no trains were listed for post 16.30 (and it was now 18.30) and b) we apparently had missed our train. All I wanted was for someone to tell me when the next train to Le Mans would leave. ‘Ne sais pas’ was the standard answer and I was dismissed over and over by employees of the French Rail system. JC propped himself up against a pillar and smoked at least two packs of cigarettes as I tried to get someone to listen to me.
‘Mer,’ JC called an hour or so later. I looked around to find myself surrounded by soldiers with machine guns who were cordoning off the area in which I and I alone was standing.
It briefly occurred to me that maybe one of them would help me – clearly no one else would, but JC had different ideas and he dragged me out of the area behind the red and white ticker tape that was being strung up in a large triangle around me.
What was going on?
I have no idea. It was extraordinary. But then everything was extraordinary, unlikely and bizarre.
And then – JC, who had apparently being doing nothing for over an hour, pointed out that the name La Loupe had appeared on the platform I had been haunting hopefully, and we charged for the train.
If we had met rudeness in the Gare du Montparnesse, we now encountered the exact opposite. At first we sat in pitch darkness in a carriage of eight, with six other occupants who appeared to know each other intimately. But oddly as the train stopped at various stations, some got off, and others got on, and the conversation continued, maintaining the impression of a group of people who knew each other. This was clearly another side of France.
And they helped us!
It now transpired that the rail system had come to a complete halt earlier in the day because of snow and ice, and that we were in fact on the train we should have been on – just two hours later.
Meanwhile, as JC and I headed for Chartres, other members of our party were having their own problems. Lovely and delightful Anna Gudge and Mark Newton were lost in snow, fog and ice, in their car, somewhere in the north of France. Tacchi had finally made it home to La Loupe from Waterloo (Belgium – not London) and Jane was waiting patiently.
Eventually, we arrived and then began the most wonderful if surreal two days. We ate, we drank, we went to the market, we sipped espressos and cappuccinos in a café, we talked and we laughed, and we all saw the New Year in with Carolyn and Bernie Jones (old and valued friends).
Tacchi cooked a veritable feast – occasionally JC and I think through the courses and try to decide what we liked the best. Tacchi’s homemade liver pate was exquisite. JC is still raving about it. I loved the cheese soufflé, (so did he). I adored the apple sorbet (so did he). The coquilles Saint Jacques were wonderful – they melted in the mouth. The quail was to die for (and indeed it did). JC and I had prepared the spinach (epinards! See, my French is improving – that will really help me next time I’m stuck in a Parisian railway station). The fruit salad was perfect and the cheese kept us going into the early hours. Outside in the tree one of Jane’s amazing pottery owls watched over us as the night continued. One of these days I’m going to buy one of her paintings.
And then it was over and we were back in Paris making the homebound trip.
‘Did that really happen?’ JC asked. And I knew what he meant. It was the most extraordinary and fun two days imaginable.

mns  2005-12-21 17:09   

Winter came while I wasn’t looking. I had been sitting in the park nearby watching squirrels chase each other, frolicking on the grass and racing up and down trees when it suddenly occurred to me that it was getting very cold. A few days later after a howling gale I walked through Islington Green and all the poppy wreaths around the memorial had blown over and were strewn on the ground. I was unsure if I was intruding on other people’s place of grief but I decided to pick them all up and to replace them around the memorial. I had this fear someone would shout at me ‘don’t touch them,’ but I risked it and I thought of both my grandfather and my father while I did it. My grandfather disappeared in the Charing Cross bombings in 1941. My father was on his way to meet him… and he never found him. I justified my interference by these thoughts – and then I read one of the cards on a wreath. For Fred from his sister. Fred was a mere nineteen years old when he was shot down and the card expressed the love and affection someone still held for him. This is over sixty years later and I was brought up short at how we remember, how we hurt and grieve for those we lose, and at the brutality of war and the absolute courage of people who gave their lives for ‘our tomorrows.’ Whatever stupid embarrassment I was feeling was replaced with reverence. I can only walk through Islington Green in relative freedom because of young men like the nineteen-year old Fred and my own father who had been in the Royal Air Force.

The best parts of the last month have been a visit from Norbert van Woerkom and Rachel Daly. Norb came and helped me with a chapter of my next novel – my Dutch chapter, as I like to think of it. Mijn dank is groot, Norb. A group of us went to see Joe and I at the Kings Head and I have to say I thought this was one clever and intriguing play. It takes place in Terence Rattigan’s apartment where he is visited by Joe Orton. The apartment is haunted by the ghost of Oscar Wilde. Wilde is played by Brian Murray, Rattigan by Peter Bowles (whose stage presence is surpassed by none), and the young Joe Orton (was he ever anything else?) was played by Simon Hepworth. Rattigan wrote to Orton to congratulate him on the success of his play, following which Orton turns up. I thought it was wonderful (although I know I am the only one of the six of us who went who thought so – which is always embarrassing as it was my suggestion). The script was clever, the idea unusual, the plot both witty and seductive and the acting excellent.

A friend has written to tell me of the benefits of fish oil supplements and in the light of what happened to me on the bus on the way to see King Kong (far too long a film and not my genre at all) I am now about to check out if this friend is right. Apparently the supplement helps suppleness and also alertness. Anyway, to return to the trip on the bus – mid afternoon mind you see, so no real excuse for lack of alertness – I fell. No – it was no mere fall, it was more like being shot from a canon gun; and flying through the air two thoughts occurred to me: the first was, please please please don’t let me land on the flowers (a man had a bag of something on the floor that looked remarkably like flowers. It was difficult to identify while I was being propelled at such a speed) and the second thought was, no matter how bad this is it cannot be as bad as the day someone put furniture polish on the stairs and I slid/fell the whole way down.
Wrong on both counts! I did land on the bag, but it turned out to have tea in it. (He was very nice about his squashed boxes of tea.) And bad and all as it is coming down fourteen stairs in the privacy of one’s own home, it is not as bad as flying through a bus in front of some fifteen or more strangers. JC says he tried to catch me but he too had been taken off guard by the bus’s jolt and that anyway he couldn’t have caught me because I was thrown so fast. What happened was remarkably painful – knees and ankles got twisted, shoulders got lurched out of their sockets and I had a desperate problem in biting down the tears. So I’m going to get the cod liver oil with Omega 3 525 mg and hopefully my suppleness will return and I may become more alert.

The trees in Islington Green have been lit with green and blue lights – this creates a wonderful eerie feeling as I walk past and even if not particularly Christmassy there is a foggy exciting atmosphere about them. And down the road where the enormous steel wings of an Angel (or a seagull?) are suspended above the mall, there is blue and silver bunting which is incredibly pretty.

I finished my next novel – The Lost Garden – and it is now with the printers, due in hardback in March and in paperback in June. Searching for Home is out in Large Print (published by Magna), and Retreat is out in Turkish with the wonderful title Masumiyet Asla Geri Gelmez. And Christmas is only a few days away. I hope it is a good one for everyone.

mns  2005-11-07 21:55   

October 2005.

It was not my favourite month. In the words of the song, ‘the leaves that were green turned to brown' – and that’s a bit how it felt. There were the good things like completing my next book – The Lost Garden of Esme Waters. That’s work that I always enjoy. It’s a bit like putting the final pieces in a difficult jigsaw puzzle and there is a sense of accomplishment that is fulfilling, but also a sense of sadness as the book finally leaves my hands and I say goodbye to a character I have come to know so well, that I fit her skin and she is in me. And so I started the next book…

A few days later, I was walking along Essex Road and turned to go up in the direction of Upper Street when a white van coming slowly down the road towards me pulled up. For one moment the driver’s eyes and mine met and in that instant I knew that something terrible was about to happen. And then I saw the gun…
No, this wasn’t real – this was me looking at the world through the eyes of the main character in my next book. Maybe all authors do this, I don’t know. But what I do is, I start to look at life as though I am someone else. Of course the white van that slowed down took off again, there was no gun, there was just me being someone else. BUT as I turned onto Upper Street there was (and still is) a billboard for the Islington Gazette and it said, ‘Gunman in raid on Essex Road.’
Life imitating art, or art life, I wondered.
Either way, as a result, the unfolding plot of my next book took a different direction.

October was also the month that I was to fly back to Dublin to see one of my old schools for the last time. Pembroke School was finally closing down and I wanted to be there, to walk the stairs once more, to see if it was still painted in a colour of green that I have hated all my life, to know if the statues of St Anthony and the Little King were still adorning the mantelpieces, and if the ancient piano was still in the room known, in fact, as Little King’s. The flights were booked. Lunch was arranged in Dublin, everything was planned. A friend of mine had even arranged to fly back to London on the same plane as me, although I didn’t know that. On the Friday, the day before I was to go, I finally went to the doctor and was told categorically that I couldn’t fly. For some reason, having fought illness all that week, I then caved in. From having walked relatively confidently down to the surgery, I now found I could hardly make the trip home and so I went into my local supermarket to break the journey, and to prop myself up on a trolley even though I could, quite clearly, hardly carry more than one or two items.
And then the following happened – and I still haven’t recovered. I was taking my time in the supermarket using it as a respite from the homeward walk, and postponing climbing the stairs before crawling into bed. In my trolley on that little inward hook I had my handbag hanging, and on top of that a shopping bag which was virtually concealing my bag. AND I had my hand over both. The trolley was otherwise empty. As I reached the freezer counters someone bumped into me, quite hard in fact, and I looked up to see a black woman dressed in very stylish and expensive clothing smiling at me. For a moment I thought she knew me – it was that kind of look, and then I realised that she didn’t because I certainly didn’t know her. I nodded in that way one does, half-apologising for being bumped into! (Is that an Irish thing to do? Or is it just good manners? Or where does it come from?) And then I forgot about her. As I came to the end of the next isle I reached for a jar from a shelf, and for one tiny moment my hand was off the bags. As I turned back I saw the shopping bag was now lying flat in the bottom of my trolley, and my handbag was opened, gaping wide, hanging by one handle from the hook – and the black woman’s hand was in it.
Now, I don’t know whether it was because I was ill, or whether it was because I didn’t believe that someone would rob me, but either way I thought first that maybe she thought it was her trolley and she was putting something in it. And then I thought, no, maybe she was putting something in my bag - but why would she be doing that? And then I thought no no, something is really wrong, but I couldn’t really work out what it was. All these thoughts were happening very fast but I couldn’t assess what was going on.
In the meantime – and this had all taken mere seconds – her eyes and mine met, she slipped her hand back out of my bag and started to walk towards the door. I looked in the bag – and my wallet, which is positively bulky as I’m inclined to fill it with photos and receipts and it’s so stuffed that even I have a problem getting it out my bag, was still there. I couldn’t think what was happening but I decided to follow her, and then she looked back and saw me pushing my trolley in her direction and she started to run. I still didn’t know if she had actually taken anything and all I could do was speed up a bit – with a roaring temperature and no voice so I couldn’t even yell. The security man saw us both and he instinctively knew something was wrong and he moved forwards, but she pushed past him and ran out on to Essex Road (yes, all stories seem to evolve around Essex Road this month).
He didn’t catch her. Nothing was taken – although they had caught the whole incident on CCTV, and there was nothing to be done except that now they will be watching out for her.
This event disturbed me far more than it probably should have done. It was days before I crawled out of bed and days more before I was well enough to go out, but when I did, I kept thinking that she was out there and that if it wasn’t me she was about to rob, it would be some other unsuspecting person.
The whole business left me feeling shocked, and even now, a couple of weeks later, I find I’m uneasy if I’m in a shop. I feel vulnerable and exposed and uncertain of my abilities to care for either my handbag or myself.

And so I missed the closing of my old school, but several friends sent me the photo that subsequently appeared in the Irish Times, and there they were dozens of smiling and laughing faces from the past - some immediately identifiable, others not. But I found myself transported back and suddenly lovely memories emerged of mischief and laughter and feelings of optimism - memories I had forgotten and am glad to have re-emerge. Whatever my personal feelings about the school are, it is a fact that it was unique - the only Catholic lay school for girls at that time; very small with possibly the average class having just ten pupils in it. Despite the lack of facilities and the smallness of the back yard where we are ran wild at breaktime (God, I've suddenly remembered the amount of times I fell on the gravel there and had to have stones picked out of my knees and hands - and oh, the sting of the merchurochrome as it was dabbed on the open cuts!) there was goodwill there and singular opportunities. And seeing the laughing faces of Diana, Denise, Jean, Ann (all the Anns in fact - and all the Mary's), Drusilla, Lucy, Patricia and many others, I found myself smiling.

mns  2005-09-30 20:20   

Summer has ended, and a chilly dampness is apparent. Even Mr Apache (the chilli plant in the living room window) does not have quite the enthusiasm he previously portrayed. I’m still harvesting chillies – several a week in fact – but the new ones aren’t growing at the same rate, nor ripening so fast.
My next book – due out in hardcover in March 2006 and in paperback three months after – is now with the copy editor, and I’ve started another one. I can look back for the first time over the past few months since I came to London and try to assess what I’ve done and what has interested me.

Let me start with my visits to The Kings Head – both pub and theatre on Upper Street, less than two minutes from where I live. I've now seen three plays there: A State of Grace, Who’s the Daddy and Huis Clos – all were excellent.
A State of Grace is a new play by a new playwright, and while only an hour long, held me engrossed as two characters led the audience through a gruelling journey of uncovering the truth about what Grace had done and left us in a state of shock.
Who’s the Daddy has to be the funniest play I’ve ever seen. Two hours of non-stop laughter as Boris Johnson (played by Tim Hudson), Michael Howard (Saul Reichlin) and David Blunkett (Paul Prescott (without dog) and an excellent supporting cast led us through the tangled romantic intrigues of the Spectator scandals. If it comes your way – it is an absolute must that you see it.
I had read Sartre’s Huis Clos some years ago. It says in the programme it is considered his most influential play. Who of us has not heard of his notion of hell as being with other people? Well, Huis Clos describes that hell so perfectly. Forget one’s childhood notions of devils and prongs and everlasting fire; this is so wonderfully written and so well enacted that I left the theatre with the horrible feeling that Sartre is right – hell is other people.

I’ve joined the Woodberry Bridge Club – which thankfully is in walking distance as I’m not the best at using the Underground late at night. After a recent trip to Dublin, coming back late at night through Kings Cross and finding the Northern Line closed, I emerged onto the street to find myself in the middle of a brawl. There was a horrible feeling of not knowing whether to go to the left or the right, and I panicked as I realised there was no way I was ever going to be able to push my way through on to a bus, and so I started to walk home. MISTAKE. BIG mistake. If I was scared outside King’s Cross, it’s nothing to how I felt ten minutes later alone on Pentonville Road.
Anyway, the Woodberry is a friendly social club and there is a host so I’m guaranteed a game and some company.

The other site I would like to direct every reader to is The Poppy Project. Hundreds of women – possibly thousands – are trafficked every year, kidnapped, sold into sexual slavery, abused and degraded, trapped, raped – over and over and over…
I saw one of the television documentaries and I cried. Lucky me; I cried in the comfort of my own home knowing that I was safe and would go to bed that night, loved and protected.
Log on to the site, write to your MP and ask for the following;

· Ratify and incorporate into domestic law the UN Protocol on trafficking - the Palermo Protocol. This aims to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime.
· Sign and ratify the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families (1990).
· Introduce legislation to make it illegal to withhold, conceal, damage or destroy another person's passport and other identity document in order to restrict their freedom of movement or maintain their labour or services (in line with Article 21 of the 1990 Migrant Workers' Convention).