Nostalgia

Some years ago, at the age of 61, I quit my job, rented out my flat and flew to Australia to research my family history. It was not an easy business. In the days before Airbnb and other similar organisations made letting so much more flexible…

We are all worrying about prices and the cost of energy, aren’t we? We wonder how we will cope this winter. I feel for young families in 2022. But it has made me think what life was like. I grew up in the 1950s when…

I am sure you recall hearing kids groaning ‘oh, not that story again.’ It might have been in a private setting or embarrassingly public, but the sagging shoulders and bored faces are the same. You might even have been one of those…

It was a damp Seattle evening in May, as I settled into my seat at Benaroya Hall to hear the Seattle Symphony. I was attending an event with a friend, and it was our “pre Mother’s Day treat” to ourselves…

Do you remember playing as a child? Without work or obligations, you were free to wander around, use your imagination and indulge in things just for the sake of doing them. Play was relaxing and fun…

My mom died when I was 35 years old. She was only 58. She’s been gone a long time now and sadly, memories do have a way of fading. Here’s one memory I do have. And it comes to me whenever I hear a certain song. Let me explain…

Three weeks or so ago, I had that old familiar bitter-sweet pang of regret. Not really serious – and it never lasts very long. Nor does it happen often. Perhaps once every six or eight years. It’s not exactly real pain. Just a sense of melancholy. A thought of what…

Even before the pandemic kept us stuck at home searching for new hobbies, an entire industry was mushrooming to help people create a modern version of the beloved photo album. From Shutterfly and Mixbook to Walgreen’s…

“Everyone makes mistakes – and so do I,” sang the wonderful Big Bird in Sesame Street all those years ago. I still remember the tune of that song. And the message is great. I was brought up to feel I shouldn’t make mistakes, I shouldn’t get things wrong…

When I moved from Tokyo to New York, I was a young mom with three children under 3 years old. I was too busy settling down in a new home, in a new country, in a new continent to notice much about the weather. I didn’t know then how much it would…