Three pieces of art are gifts which we received during the course of the year and which have now been framed and hung in suitable places. The girl in a cafe on the left is the work of the Catalan artist Artur Duch and the prints on the right will be...

In Calverley Precinct outside what used to be Woolworth's.. For those sensitive to what's going on in the world, it is important to be able recognise a perfume, if not always to appreciate it. As Sherlock Holmes points out in the Hound of the...

In the barred gate of the entrance to Shell-Mex House in the Strand is this blocked letter box, bearing strange and confusing messages..In the vegetable garden I spot across the fence in the neighbour's garden a fox among some shrubs. At first I think...

The variety of chard called Bright Lights lives up to its name, especially when the sun is low in the sky..In the train I am sitting opposite a young woman busy writing cards on the table between us. Her book, closed on the table, is a paperback called...

"There's rainbow," Heidi calls to me when I am downstairs in the kitchen. " a double rainbow". I run upstairs and there it is, only a single one by now, but bright enough to win Noah's approval, and to make me grab my camera. I think of what used to...