An Ode to June
June. My final month in Innsbruck. I would like to invite you on a jaunt through June. On the first Sunday of this fine, summer’s month, after a night spent in a mountain hut, I …
The Merry Month of May
If you had asked me last week, while I was sitting in the waiting room of the local police station, how I would describe the month of May, ‘merry’ probably wouldn’t have been top of …
A fleeting fragment of France
I sometimes think that what is really, truly beautiful is fleeting: indeed, it is this very transience that makes it so achingly lovely. That cannot be held true for Paris. Its great architectures of stone …
Two Hundred Days
I saw the sea again, today. I heard the roar of the waves, tasted the salt on my tongue, felt the wind in my hair. It had been over two hundred days. The crash of …
Innsbruck
What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees, Up, up it goes, And yet never grows? Gollum in ‘The Hobbit’ by J.R.R.Tolkien They are still there. They are always there. Only when the …
Where words and colour were lacking
There were not enough words to describe Russia. They flowed effortlessly onto the page, they overflowed: first onto paper, every day, something of a stream of consciousness; and then onto the screen, this time with …
Only a game
The child looks up at me, wide-eyed. Never before have I considered myself to be quite so terrifying, but now I find I have to do my best to counter-act this rather unwelcome character trait: …
What the doctor ordered
I could manage one child. Three was a little tiring, as they spent most of their time falling over. But twelve? How am I supposed to keep control of twelve children on skis? As it …
Home?
Are you looking forward to going home? I can’t count the number of times I was asked this question before leaving Russia, and every time I wondered whether to give the easy, non-committal answer or …
Christmas!
No stocking. No tree with tinsel. No roast dinner. Is this really Christmas? Not as I knew it, perhaps. Christmas was beautiful in Tomsk. Ice-skating on a lake at night, Christmas trees on every square …