I'm never sure how to write about a book I love. Sometimes I write lists of books I've found wonderful or useful. Occasionally, I've written about unfamiliar words - to me at least - from something I've read. This book is different though. It's a book I've read a few times and always find something new and meaningful.

Here’s the first post of a continuing series - hopefully. These are the photos I take around and about with no clear directive in mind. Like written notes, I think of them as visual notes.

My husband read me this article the other night. Let me see if I can remember it correctly. It's a good'un.

You may have noticed if you've visited here before, some changes. For five years and a bit, I've blogged and posted writing prompts at A Picture, A Story. Lately, I've been thinking about this effort. What is it all for?

The other day, I picked up a paint swatch chart by Farrow & Ball. My youngest daughter said that we'd been living in our house for nearly three years now and nothing had changed in its interior decor. She's right by the way. Interior design is not my strong point.

I love a good ghost story. Horror not so much. But ghosts, paranormal activity, even the odd UFO encounter here and there, I feel drawn to them. I know. It all sounds so absurd, these things that go bump in the night. And yet.

The sun warms my face while shallow waves lap the shore. The bottle of cold beer I reach for is sweating small beads of condensation as it sits on a table under the dappled shade of a palm tree.

I found some notes I’d written back in February 2018 entitled Things I’ve Noticed Here — a Brit in Canada. As you’ll see, there was no particular order to my thoughts.

When I first started writing this a week ago, the rain was hammering down in vertical sheets filling the house with a dark and gloomy atmosphere. Looking out of the window today the sun is bright, the sky blue and I can see the snow capping the mountains just beyond. 

Pool, puddles and jumping. Here’s one of my favourite family photos. Looking at it again ten years later, I find myself on a thought journey about photography and creativity.

I don't read many graphic novels but the ones I have, I love. If you're unsure of the correct terminology - is this a graphic novel or a comic book - here’s a description I’ve come up with from my quick internet search that hopefully clears this up.

For a few weeks at a time, I develop a regular habit of writing down snippets of conversation I hear, stories on the radio and various scenarios I see when I'm out and about. 

Memories can be slippery devils. They swim around my brain, waiting for a moment of capture, the moment when I need to reel one into my conscious mind to muse over.

The sweater took me the summer holidays to knit. I finished it in time for the start of term. At fifteen-years-old, my knitting expertise consisted of a couple of scarves and possibly a bobble hat.

It seems obvious right? You’re away from home, you feel some loss, even grief and realise you feel homesick. Is that all there is to it? Maybe. I wonder, though, if it might be more complicated than that.

For the past couple of months, I've been reading the novel Fayne by Ann-Marie Macdonald. At 736 pages it's a big book requiring a big commitment. Strangely I wasn't put off by its size. My daughters laugh at me when I describe movies as being 'okay, but too long'. I get fidgety in films that are longer than two hours. 

Growing up in the flat landscape of East Anglia, I only ever saw mountains on the telly. Now I live at the bottom of one.

A magical thing happened this morning. I woke up, spent an hour writing, took the dog for a pee, cooked some porridge and heated soup for my daughter's lunch. And then there was a sharp bang as a tiny songbird hit the kitchen window.

The first in a new series on the exciting contents of my notebooks! In this one there are old names, words and phrases from My Little Book of Names.

In 2014 my husband and I went on a trip to Iceland. We were excited to have some time to ourselves while our two children aged 9 and 7 at the time, spent the weekend with family.