Who has thought about the songs for their funeral? This post is about one of mine. I think about death often. I write this as I am wandering through one of my favourite places, Woodvale Cemetery in Brighton on England's south coast. As I walk, I think about lost beloveds, mine across the world, and... Continue Reading →
Old Friend
I went to a local comprehensive, about three miles from where I lived. It collected up the kids from a radius of scattered villages in the Chiltern hills, delivering them on rickety Taplins or Chiltern Queen coaches in a chunter of diesel each morning. One year, I think when I was in the second or... Continue Reading →
No Ghosts
I was on a long drive last weekend. It was tedious and came on the end of a busy few days. I pulled into a motorway services, parked, turned off the engine and draped a large dark blue scarf over my head and upper body to take a reviving nap. I wondered what this... Continue Reading →
Dragonflies and Sea Frets
(Or: Applying The Essentialising Filter ™️ of bereavement) It is now a month since my father died. Grief came in unanticipated form, insinuating itself subtly, damply, into the walls, floors and ceilings, draped light as a sea fret over the roof tiles and filming the windows. It is as though my present and my past... Continue Reading →
Black Rocks and Sparkling Seas
Last week we gathered for my father's funeral. Though sad, still sad, it was a very happy occasion. He had asked that we lay on a party that he would've loved to be at. We certainly did that and he was greatly missed. My brother and sister both spoke at the service and I wrote... Continue Reading →
Golden
The heat keeps on, pressing my skin, the continuity is a reminder of where I was just a few days ago. Though time stretches strangely in strange times, makes it seem like I am remembering an epochal, ancient past or a current, fleeting dream. I was revisiting a place I knew well, my childhood home... Continue Reading →
Bees
It is a sad time. A time known to most of us in one way or another, of saying goodbye. It helps to think with words and pictures, and perhaps, later, to elaborate.
Waiting for the birds
It’s morning, the day is my friend, I inhabit it calmly. Not badgered by lists and plans that require me to stretch it beyond its natural limits. The day doesn’t always respond kindly to this rough usage, it becomes withdrawn and places its wonders before more receptive eyes. Standing just now in the kitchen, clearing... Continue Reading →
Strangers
https://unbound.com/books/twice-the-speed-of-dark "Filigree ghost patterns of love and grief had crept across Anna’s hollowed insides, like lichen, like salt crystals blooming on the innards of a calcified cave." Twice the Speed of... Continue Reading →
Lulu Allison, contemporary fiction author 