I knew straight away that something was wrong. I had arranged to go to an opera with a friend. She’s normally a chatty person but, when I got to our seats, she wasn’t saying anything. I asked her a few questions but she was monosyllabic in response. During the intermission we went out to the … Read more
It is not by design that I have come to meet the Devon-based ecological gardener Poppy Okotcha on the spring equinox, when day and night are equally balanced. It feels fitting. In her new book, A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us, Okotcha describes how it is now that she rids her garden of last … Read more
The question I’m a man in my late 50s. My parents were teenagers when I was born. They married so I wouldn’t be illegitimate, it was the 1960s. My parents divorced. My mum and stepdad moved up north, my father remarried and stayed down south. My father and his wife have three children, now in … Read more
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/apr/13/do-all-wind-turbines-rotate-in-the-same-direction-if-so-why
Babies should not be put in a dark, quiet room for a nap but in a light room with background noise like a washing machine, an expert has said. Prof Helen Ball, a scientific adviser for the charity The Lullaby Trust who has carried out sleep research with more than 5,000 parents and babies at … Read more
‘It’s a Marmite place, you either love it or hate it,” says the lady making us coffee at Ness Café, as we gaze across the flat, arid landscape that is Dungeness beach, a chunk of Arizona on the Kent coast. Certainly it’s not for everyone. Some find it too bleak, depressing even. Others lean into … Read more
Golden Cap and the Anchor Inn, Seatown Drive down the tiny lane from Chideoak to Seatown and park at the Anchor Inn (theanchorinnseatown.co.uk). Buy water at the nearby Spar (you’ll need it) before ambling through the wood, across fields and up, up, up until – massively out of breath – you reach the top of … Read more
It’s a week until Easter and yes I am a little rosy cheeked at still going on about Easter eggs, but Terry’s has just launched an orange gooey egg to go head to head with Cadbury’s Creme Egg. This year sees a new addition to the Terry’s stable – a milk chocolate egg with orange … Read more
As the English son of Irish parents, my son is not above playing both sides of the national divide. Among his schoolfriends, he evokes his Irishness for the mild exoticism it provides to his multicultural classmates here in Walthamstow. When watching Ireland play football or rugby, however, he instantly becomes a diehard England fan. ‘You’re … Read more
Nobody spoke about being gay in Ireland. I come from a big Catholic family – six kids, millions of cousins – from a rural part of the country, and I didn’t think there was anyone like me. Although my parents and family have been unwavering in their support from the day I came out in … Read more