I’ve fallen in love with many places in my time. The shadows underneath the dining table, where I used to hide by my grandfather’s feet. The house where I grew up in Streatham, opposite the pebble-dashing business. Charles Bridge in Prague in the early hours of the morning before the tourists arrive. The Arts Centre […]
I was going to start this post – my first of the year – by wishing you a happy new year, but that seems trite, because, well, David Bowie died today. I hate the feeling as we age that the people we love are not immune to death. And because I cannot be trite, I […]
With the summer behind us and the kids back at school, I’m getting into the groove with the novel again. The second act of The Voyeur is going to be submitted to my online writer’s workshop over the next month. Initially, it felt unfamiliar to be diving into my novel again: the peril of taking […]
Today I feel lost and broken and sad. I’m sitting in the conservatory of the house we rent in Geneva. The doors are open and a light breeze is playing with the hem of my dress. The sky is a blue blanket dotted with wisps of cotton. I want to fly into it and disappear. […]
It’s 18 months since I first started blogging. I started this blog as an antidote to a fiction-hating friend. I was unable to convince him of the merits of fiction, and a few weeks later I wrote my first words here. It was my penance for being such a weak defender of something that has […]
My love for you is burned onto the pages of my journal It pools in the grooves where my pen has pressed The past in a capsule Let me savour the man I knew – the one hidden by cares I’ll hold the memory of us on my tongue and let it mellow there In […]
Christmas is over five weeks away and I just bought myself a present. I grew up in the UK and my Indian parents would bring a plastic Christmas tree down from the loft. It was small. Fast forward thirty-three years and I am married to a German. Christmas is celebrated on 24 December with a […]
It’s a horrible habit, isn’t it? Waking up and before you’ve even stretched to reach for your phone on the nightstand. I do it daily, scanning the news headlines and social media before my eyes have even focussed. It’s the sort of action which removes you from your physical environment and throws you into the […]
I’m it! Thank you Graham Milne for asking me to take part in the ‘Why I Write’ blog hop and for providing a balm for me on what had been a tough day with your honeyed words. For those of you new to Graham’s writing, check him out on Twitter, at his blog or Huff Post. […]
It is a joy to lose myself in fiction most days and sometimes it is a relief. Today, it just felt like frivolity. A blanket of darkness has settled on the world stage. It feels as if social structures are crumbling around us, yet still we carry on with our daily lives as if in a […]
It’s been almost two weeks since the children and I arrived in Geneva. J had been living with a tiny amount of rented furniture in what was to become our new family home. It felt odd at the time he said, imagining what the house would feel and sound like when it was filled with […]
The clock has just struck noon and I can hear the spin cycle of the washing machine downstairs. Its rhythm and the summer heat are lulling me into a state of relaxation. It’s humid here in my parents’ living room. Their house pulses with heat even when the radiators are off: a blessing in winter, […]
When I was pregnant with my daughter a little over four years ago, I remember my mum bringing up religion with my husband, who is an atheist. ‘The moment you see the baby born, you’ll hear hallelujahs, I’m sure of it,’ she said, only half teasing. ‘You can’t witness something so magical without believing in […]
This post was inspired by @JEdwardPaul, who posted a link to a spoken word piece by Mark Grist called ‘Girls Who Read’. My man and his reading habits The last time my husband read a book we were on honeymoon. That was five years ago. In the intervening years the most I’ve seen him read […]
Memory is, by its very nature, flawed. We filter our past through the prism of our own feelings and experiences, making our memories unreliable. For years I thought that my memory was more unreliable than other people’s. As a creative type, I’m more prone to reimaginings than the average person, but I’ve realised there is […]
It’s the weekend. Those two blissful days each week when we are not bound by routine. When we can do the things we want to do in the working week but never have the time for: lie ins, long baths, writing, spending time with loved ones, and nothing. Oh, the bliss of doing nothing. Like […]
This post was written for the What I See Project, which is asking women globally what they see when they look in the mirror. It’d be interesting to hear male answers to the question too, but for now it’s women only. You can find out more about the project and contribute your own video blog […]
Tonight Hana, I am lying here in bed at a childishly early hour writing directly to you because I can find no other way to process what happened. Soothing words are little comfort, television is hollow and sleep is not possible, although I have tried. As ever, the solution is to write, to pour all […]