All Purls. No Swine.
On this April 16, 2026, the day that would have been my grandmother Molly's 128th birthday, I bring back a post originally published on Ricochet on April 16--Easter Sunday--2017. Happy Birthday, Granny! (I've made just a few small corrections, updates, and edits.) My grandmother Molly could be a rather stern old lady. She was born… Continue reading Happy 128th Birthday, Granny Molly!
I remember the day, on Church Lane in Handsworth, at a time very different, in the late 1950s. With my maternal grandparents and my mother. Early church service (the children's service) at St. Mary's. Sermon by the vicar, the Reverend James Charles Harrison Tompkins, he who my father suspected had always had a lifelong infatuation… Continue reading On This Easter Sunday
Welcome to that most British of festivals–Bonfire Night–Guy Fawkes Night–the Fifth of November. The festival that, when I was a kid, was exponentially bigger than Halloween, as for a few days before, children would push around a wheelbarrow laden with a straw-stuffed effigy of Guido Fawkes, usually dressed in their father’s cast-offs or scrapings from… Continue reading Celebrating that Most British of Festivals: Guy Fawkes Night
I wrote a post, five years ago, about my husband, who died five years ago, on July 3, 2020. His family story exemplified the American Dream: Grandparents on both sides who immigrated legally from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, and who worked like hell at whatever work they could find, to survive, and… Continue reading Happy 249th Birthday, United States of America!
Much has changed since I first posted about this on Ricochet, on May 8, 2017. Auntie Pat is no longer with us, having passed on at the age of 99 in December, 2022. Queen Elizabeth is gone too, and the country awaits “The King’s Speech” at 9 o’clock this evening, the same time at which… Continue reading V-E Day +80
Happy 127th birthday, darling Granny. (Some lightly-edited content from a few years ago, together with some more recent and raw reflections): I had my last conversation with Granny (my mother’s mother) not too long before she died. She was in her late-eighties at the time, almost bedridden from the terrible arthritis that had plagued her… Continue reading Wisdom from My Granny, 2025
Here we are, at St. Patrick’s Day, 2025, not a big seller in the land of my birth, but huge in the two areas I’ve lived in, in my adopted country–Boston and Pittsburgh. It’s the holiday that always “Springs” (see what I did there?) to mind when I think of revolting unusual celebratory foodstuffs. Green beer.… Continue reading St Patrick’s Day 2025: Weird Holiday Foods Edition
Today (March 6, 2025) would have been Dad's 106th birthday. He departed this earth at the age of 88, on September 30, 2007, and I miss him every day. A few years ago, I came across the book mentioned in the title of this post, on my way--as so often happens--to looking up something else. … Continue reading A Book Recommendation–From Sapper to Spitfire Spy–And Some Notes on Diving For Pearls
A popular modification (so my mother told me) of perhaps the world's most ubiquitous Christmas hymn, from the year 1936. And a replay (mostly) of a post from some years ago, both here and on Ricochet: I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King… Continue reading “Hark the Herald Angels Sing…Mrs Simpson’s Got Our King!”
A Ricochet post from November 10, 2018. Updated and reposted today, November 10, 2024, in honor of the 249th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Several years ago, a United States Marine Corps career officer of my acquaintance observed that, for a foreigner, for a civilian, and for a woman, I seem to have… Continue reading United States Marines I Have Known and Loved–And a Couple of Others