All Blogposts

  • Three years of ‘And Other Poems’.

    My poetry site And Other Poems turned three years old in August.  What started as an uncluttered  place for my own poems has grown into an online anthology of over 350 poems by more than 250 poets, archived at The British Library, and viewed more than 125,000 times.  In September 2015, my post ‘Three poems by Tania Hershman’ was Read more

  • Not quite here, not quite anywhere.

    I’ve been absent, absent-minded, not quite here, out of sorts, not myself.  I’ve been a bit poorly, had some kind of bug, haven’t been sleeping well and, to make matters worse, because I lost my only pair of decent reading glasses, I’m wearing an old pair which are scratched, not the right prescription and giving Read more

  • Strategies for staying off the internet

    Here are two houses: our holiday rental in Portugal and our home in the UK: Q. Apart from the weather, what else was different about my holiday in Portugal earlier this year? A. There was no wifi at the house. In the end, I decided that I like the internet and I felt cut off Read more

  • The Day before GCSE Results Day

    Twenty-four hours before my oldest child receives her GCSE results, it’s hard not to relive the day the game was up for me.   One thing I’ve learned about being a parent is that  it’s impossible not to revisit my own past as my children grow older. Until my ‘O’ Level (as these exams were called Read more

  • Postcard from Camhina and Porto, Portugal

    Here are a few photos from our holiday in Portugal a short while ago. I’d really recommend the house we rented and the general area. We flew from Bristol to Porto, rented a car at the airport and drove about 45 minutes north, to Camhina. The house was lovely – spacious, comfortable and well-equipped, and Read more

  • ‘Old Girls’ at Ink, Sweat and Tears

    My poem ‘Old Girls’ from my pamphlet The Misplaced House is at the excellent webzine Ink Sweat and Tears. It’s one of the few poems I didn’t manage to place anywhere before the pamphlet was published. You can read the poem here. If you’re interested in submitting work to Ink Sweat and Tears, submission details Read more