gwallter

  • At last some warmth returned with the sun, and I took the rough path along the top of the cliff between Rotherslade and Limeslade.  The sea was calm, empty and quiet, except for one thing: the bell of a floating…

  • Yr wythnos ddiwethaf collais i ddant.  Ffordd anghywir, wrth gwrs, o ddisgrifio’r hyn ddigwyddodd  –  fel petaswn i wedi anghofio mynd ag e gyda fi wrth adael trên neu fws.  Mewn gwirioedd, tynnodd y deintydd y dant allan o’m genau…

  • Billie Holiday died aged 44 in a New York hospital at 3:10am on Friday 17 July 1959.  Some failed to notice. The New York Times published a short obit, but only on page 15.  But for those who cared about…

  • From my early childhood, an evening mug of hot chocolate has been a small but constant source of comfort.  I suspect it’s a common addiction.  Chocolate drinking is not a failing that many grown-up people own up to, and certainly…

  • Like a teenager, C. has fallen hopelessly in love, with a visitor from the Continent.  I didn’t see it coming.  And the worst thing is that I’m not sure it’s a temporary infatuation that will soon pass.  It’s taken a…

  • The earth, thy great exchequer, ready lies is the title of a superb new collection of stories by the Welsh writer Jo Lloyd, who won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2019.  The nine pieces are very different one…

  • A powerful symbol of the continuing human assault on the natural world is the wanton destruction of trees.  The outstanding example must be the wholesale clearing of Amazonian rainforests by the Brazilian government (over 11,000 square kilometres were destroyed in…

  • Heddiw mae clybiau darllen yn boblogaidd iawn fel ffordd i ddarganfod a rhannu llyfrau mewn cylch cymdeithasol, anffurfiol.  Yn rhannol oherwydd esiampl ‘Oprah’ yn yr Unol Daleithiau a ‘Richard and Judy’ ym Mhrydain, sefydlwyd cannoedd o gylchoedd lleol (a rhithiol,…

  • Walk for ten minutes from where I write and you’ll arrive at the southern edge of Clyne Common.  Houses alongside the track, most of them built within the last ten years, suddenly give way to an expanse of wild, unenclosed…

  • One of the most useful things an historian can do is to restore to us people from the past who have unjustly slipped from our collective memory.  Until recently an outstanding figure of early European science had vanished from sight…

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