Dear readers, I haven’t posted recently because I’ve been keeping a deathwatch for my dear and lovely husband. It has been a strange, disorienting time, with night turned into day, and sorrow alleviated by funny and affectionate stories about him. Howard died this morning, holding my hand, in blessed peace at the end of a…

Another notch on the belt of this damned virus with the death of Ferruccio Berolo, maestro ballerino and notable feature in the San Barnaba/Santa Margherita neighbourhood of Venice. Whatever the time of day you could depend on Ferruccio to be somewhere on your route, ready to stand you a coffee, or, preferably, something stronger. In…

One of my grandsons emailed me yesterday. He had done a page count of some of my books and wanted to know how I manage to write upward of 300 pages. He, aged 11, had just struggled to complete 17 pages of what he’d thought was a super idea for a story. What to tell…