Iestyn Edwards is...what?

                            A woman at the back end of middle age, with wiry, flicked hair, in a pink vinyl mac, and gingham pedal pushers came through from Thorpeness Meare, leaving her Jack Russell off the lead as she continued past the pond. Three pairs of nesting swans and the Egyptian geese were grazing there. The woman turned as people remonstrated with her, then stood in a bevelled pose, like the central figure in The Three Graces statue, and indicated that she was happy for her Jack Russell to run to and fro barking by the water's edge.  The goose nosed the tiny gosling into the pond and jumped in after it followed by the gander. The swans stood absolutely still, feathers up all around, guarding their cygnets.  Still the woman remained in her pose, smirking indulgently at the Jack Russell.  A man picked the dog up by the collar, walked over to her and thrust it into her arms. 'Take this ba...

                                                                                                                    The bakers were on tenterhooks... ‘Right. It's time. Terry - put his blindfold on again...' The following example of my mother's narcissism has stuck with me all these years - decades - because I was powerless. There could be no remedy. Nothing I could have done better. Nobody to reassure me.  It may seem trivial - possibly comic - but it was nevertheless symptomatic of Eirwen's condition as a whole.  So, here we go - Terry (my father) had put my blindfold on again, as instructed... 'Come into the bedroom, Iestyn,' Eirwen called. 'Right...keep your head still and shoulders down,...

     #journalism #thetimes #drag #mytutuwentawol

Something a house-sitter must absolutely do is continue the routines of the house-sittee.  Of course, this tends to mean sticking with the set times for, say, dog walks, feeds, wees, treats, bed and so on.  However, when I house-sat in Chichester - nice place, Chichester - house-sittee Laurel, said,  ‘If you see a blue tit with a white patch on its head looking in through the kitchen window, please remind her of her survival instinct, if at all possible, by making pecking movements at her.' Oh.  Laurel explained, ‘My husband Yan and I were coming back from Waitrose, and as we turned into the drive, there was Susan my neighbour right down on the gravel making 'stop' gestures at us. A young blue tit had been attacked by a cat - tail feathers all gone; and I looked everywhere, but there was no sign of its parents.  'I told Susan, of course she couldn't take it because she has a cat. I hoped she didn't think I was accusing her Bassinger. I took off my hat, and Yan a...

                                                         Bertram Nicholls 'Lambeth Bridge' 1949 Dressed in a woollen blue coat fastened with nappy pins and stained down the front with tinned ravioli. A straw bonnet during the summer, the top of a sawn-off kettle in winter. Support tights, no knickers, one blue shoe, one brown welly. Speckled with sticking plasters. This was Lill, in her early seventies, I imagine, going back and forth over Lambeth Bridge all day, day in, day out, pushing a supermarket trolley filled with china ornaments wrapped in newspaper, curtains with the hooks half off and a display halibut late of the fish shop in The Cut.  On his way to work at Myer's Beds each day Big Sid, who lived round the balcony from my family, took her a flask of tea. He collected the empty flask from her on his way home each evening, saying,...

The people on this side of the demised lane won't talk to the people on the other.  The story being that Tim, the previous owner of Blaine’s house, over on the other side, had put in a planning application to build sixty-two houses on the land between his back garden and Tesco Metro. Objections were strident, planning permission was denied, Tim in high dudgeon sold Eight Magpies to Blaine and moved away. Quite far. Suki, from this side, added, ‘Decrepit old George and Venetia, who were already living on the land behind Tim's house - so would presumably have been most impacted – to this day won’t speak to either mummy or the Bodings.’ 'But why?' I asked.  'Because of the objections to the planning permission.' 'But the planning permission was denied,' I said. 'Tim - developer - moved away. Blaine bought his house.' 'Exactly.’ Oh. Blaine himself told me, 'Actually, while all this with the planning permission was just getting a bit warm, at ...

A hiker stayed over in the hotel last night. He was from Bristol, late twenties, bearded, stocky in an olive green ribbed sweater and matching nylon trousers. He's on for thirty-five kilometres today.  He asked the breakfast room at large if anyone minded if he filled his water bottle from the jug - nobody did - meanwhile agreeing with me, 'No, there's not much to Bognor Regis, all said and done.' He also didn't think there was much to my friend, Pippa, who, on a walking holiday with her sister, got fed up with the walking part by the first morning, whining about how she just couldn't, she couldn't.  'Sarah would walk to the next B and B, getting through twenty miles or so a day,' I said, 'and - even in the wilds, middle of nowheresville - Pippa would somehow manage to arrive there by evening in a taxi. This was pre-Uber.' Hiker man looked disapproving. 'Bet she didn't sleep as well as he sister at night, though.'  Oh... #walking ...