Standing  waiting for the morning train, and I can feel season’s change – the light is already softer, gentler; a tender autumn sun that doesn’t singe and burn. The train pulls in and this is special morning as, for once, it’s almost empty. In a set of four seats there is place enough for ten people, […]

So, I have a potential muse – just close to home and professionally inappropriate – which is OK, it’s only a muse – a pleasant idea, a creative spark, if you like. This maybe-muse has no idea that it makes me think of places I’ve never even been – that I see crumbly, sun-warmed Provencal […]

Sitting on the edge of Muizenberg beach today, just looking across the bay, I see a young Border Collie running after his boy on the sand, then hurdle-jumping as he meets the surf. How that dog loves his people, but, oh, how he hates the water. Your human habitation lies quietly beneath the shadow of […]

There’s a man sitting opposite me on the train this morning: he reminds me of the spy-thriller author John Le Carre, but a younger version.  He is reading, but I can see he’s easily distracted by noise – which is OK, as there aren’t many of us on this train. A few stops further down […]

The dusty, gritty smell of cold night air – tinged with petrol, clutch-plate burgers and bad coffee – that’s the good-memory smell of so many road trips up and down the N1. Weirdly, it’s suddenly triggered by light on the faces of some actors in a TV night-scene, just like those tall, tall lights you […]