Untitled

Tesco Value Joanna Lumley

I miss teaching. I really do. I was talking yesterday to an old friend – the friendship is old, not the friend, about her desire to retire as soon as possible from the profession, and I can quite understand why she wants to. We met about 27 years ago in one of the toughest comprehensives in West London, where I survived eight years. When I had finally had enough, I resigned, not before quite…

Munich – Marienplatz

For AA December 2017. Jacek and I decided on a whim to go to Munich just after Christmas and just before new year’s eve. We had some sort of hope I seem to remember that the Christmas market would still be on – after all the twelve days of the Christmas season start on the 25th, but no, Germany, just like the rest of the modern world, has decided to celebrate Christ’s coming during advent rather…

This time in Chelsea Two weeks ago I started writing about my long and interesting walk in Chelsea, down the Kings Road, back to the stamping ground of my teenagerdom. I had a wonderful day, marred only for a while by the need to go to the loo. But that is the story for many females of a certain age, so I won’t dwell on it again. Anyway I was wandering round the very inaptly named area of…

Candlemas – or the end of Christmas.

Corrected – I think!

Candlemas – or the end of Christmas.

Today is the official end of the Christmas season and we are not yet in Lent. Hurray! I woke up this morning heavy lidded and groggy because I had had an almost sleepless night but I couldn’t go back to bed because I had a hospital appointment. At last, a good reason to go out, go on public transport, take a walk, possibly exchange a few words with total strangers. No, I wasn’t going to accept…

I always wanted to be an English teacher, since I first started school, and I was one of the fortunate people who actually achieved her childhood ambition. As a child I played teacher -schoolchild games with myself over the summer holidays, marking my work, going through pages and pages of workbooks which my mother bought for me, and sad little person that I was, I really enjoyed it.  For…