I love that Alula is growing up somewhere so full of magic and wonder. Where she runs around school barefoot, singing songs about love and thanking the mother earth and father sun for her lunch. Where at night she counts geckos not sheep. In the mornings she wakes up and squawks ‘cockadoodledoooo’ at the top …
Today has been magical. I tried to think what particular thing was making me feel so happy and in the end I realised it was the sum of its parts. A morning cuddle with Alula where we argued about who loved each other more and I won again (because Alula hasn’t quite understood the concept …
The lady over the road sells clothes. We’re not talking Topshop here. Hell, we’re not even talking Primark. And when we first moved in I kind of had a glance at the random assortment of bintang t-shirts and fisherman’s trousers hanging up, sighed deeply and silently to myself about the fashion vortex that is Bali, …
‘I love you in the morning And in the afternoon I love you in the evening And underneath the moon Oh skiddly dinky dinky rink diddly rinky do I LOVE YOU’ (Alula sings) Mummy, I love you, she says. I love you more, I say. I love you most, she says. I love you to …
Alula and I are talking over a soft boiled egg and soldiers. Alula do you remember travelling? Er, no. You don’t remember anything – anything at all? No. What about living in India – remember the beach? Remember going to school with Dumpie? Um, no… I remember Egg though. (her first big crush) What about …
Right here’s another one for you. You’ll need to be sitting down. Yesterday my friend shoved a picture in front of my face and told me to stare at it. ‘I’m not much good at these staring until a picture jumps out at you things,’ I said as my eyes went fuzzy. If I was …
Roosters, birds, crickets, geckos, ducks, the man shaking the tin cans on the line in the rice paddies trying to scare away the birds. But other than that silence. Which isn’t very silent. Cockerels are loud. We’ve just learnt to block them out but now on this day of silence we notice them more. I’m …
I’m writing this about friends of ours – friends whose company I enjoy a lot. But I’m never going to have dinner with either of them again. That’s because they’ve given up eating. As in solids. As in chewing. And you thought I was lazy. And they’re not doing this indefinitely. No, they’re doing this …
Finally…the cover for my book Hunting Lila has been finalised and here is the first sneak peak for my blog readers. 17-year-old Lila has two secrets she’s prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she’s been in love with …
I went to see a psychic. Purely for research purposes. Ahum. No. Whilst it is true that my new book does have a psychic girl in it and I wanted to quiz a psychic on concepts of free will and destiny (like if you tell me that I’m going to die when I’m 62 in …
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