Most of us have done it at some point or another – accidentally locked ourselves out of the house. Raymond Carver’s poem tells a quite simple ordinary story but it becomes so much more. Read it to see what he does. He’s locked himself out and of course it’s raining and the people who have … Read more
“The pleasure [of motoring] is seeing Nature as I could in no other way see it; my car having ‘tops’, I get Nature framed —and picture after the other delights my artistic eye.” * Henri Matisse is famous for his paintings of views through the windows of hotel rooms, studios, and houses. This is a … Read more
And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban nights are like the night there. I have looked down across the city from high windows. It is then that the great buildings lose reality and take on their magical powers. They are immaterial; that is … Read more
Hard to think of a better example of misplaced romantic nostalgia than yearning for the days before the era of modern central heating, double glazing, insulation and hermetically sealed homes. The fretwork of ice on the inside of the bedroom window in the morning; the eternal sliding off of the eiderdown in the middle of … Read more
The Journey by Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice– though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. ‘Mend my life!’ each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew … Read more