And so she emerges, blinking, into the daylight. Is it a coalface worker? Is it a nocturnal woodland animal? No, it’s Laurie Graham, newly-delivered novelist! She shuffles across to her desk. She peers into her Outbox. Nope, nothing there. It’s gone, despatched, flushed down the great Internet U-bend. Furthermore, it has reached its various destinations. At this point…

I’m so sorry I’m neglecting you but here’s the thing: I’m doing my annual gliding swan impersonation, with my little webbed feet paddling like crazy beneath the water. My first hurdle is to finish my book. Have to, have to, have to. My backside is welded to my desk chair. I had hoped to be done by…

I just watched President Obama’s contribution to the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall. There were a number of things remarkable about it. He never used the C word  – I guess he didn’t want to offend Comrade Putin. Neither did he mention Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher or,…

I remember being in England last November and having difficulty finding a poppy to pin to my coat lapel. The British Legion Poppy Appeal used to be everywhere. Their volunteers even sold them door-to-door. We’d buy them by the fistfull. Then gradually they became less visible. Some stores didn’t like poppy-sellers standing in the doorway…

Italy has gone Hallowe’en crazy, several years behind England and many years behind the US. Our local dime store which is hardly in the vanguard of fashion has a whole, erm, department, dedicated to pumpkin-related artefacts. But I did hear one note of sanity on the subject this afternoon. Funnily enough it came from a neighbourhood…

Mr F and I just had pizza down in the square and, as the catalogue for the LL Bean Expandable Waistband Fall Collection has just been delivered we thought we’d really raise hell and buy ice cream for dessert. We have been buying gelato at the same place for years. A 6 euro insulated vaschetta, to go. Four flavours. But…

I took a couple of hours off this morning and went with my friend Laura to see the exhibit at the Punta della Dogana. We’d heard that residents could get in free on Wednesdays.Not that I’m cheap or anything but 17 Euro admission sounded pretty steep to me. The old Custom’s House and Warehouses had been…

I’d like to report a crime. Someone stole the past fortnight of my life. One minute it was September 17th and I was casually throwing a few items in a suitcase for a trip to Ireland. The next thing I knew my most recent blog was two weeks old which, let’s face it, in terms of blog-topicality might as well date from…

Monday friends made us dinner, starting with that strangely popular, rib-sticking American appetiser; cheese and cold cuts.This doesn’t so much tickle your taste buds as beat them up and leave them whimpering in the gutter. Menu-wise where can you go after a wodge of ripe gorgonzola and a plate full of thinly sliced pig? Maybe a stick of celery and a cup…

No blog last week because I was in England visiting my grandchildren. The older pair, aged 8 and 6, are respectively in to Star Wars Lego and all things pink and fluffy. The younger pair are in to dairy products and Rolling On to The Stomach, Stage 1. There may be a credit crunch on but…