Stormy tea trays
We’ve had some rotten weather recently, rain-grey clouds rolling over us like dismal tumbleweed, so this resonates.
Long-memoried trees
We know that trees record time and climate in their year-rings – wide rings in good growing years, skinny...
Squashed-fly biscuit
A hard, flat, rectangular British biscuit formally called ‘Garibaldi’, we called them ‘squashed-fly biscuits’ because of the tiny dark currants that...
Chatteration
'Again there was a sudden chatteration of gulls.' A fine description of the confabulations of sea-gulls when they get...
Splatchers
‘Splatchers?’ said Roger. ‘Splatchers,’ said the boy. ‘For walking on the mud.’ ‘Gosh!’ said Roger. ‘Like snowshoes?’
When these children...
A waste of an island
Wonderful notion this, from one of the best of Ransome's enchanting children's books. Of course if you land on an...
Parenting, then and now
This crisp and even cavalier telegram has a distant father allowing his four children to sail to an island in...
Sea-boot rough
Winter sea hoarseness and tight-swallowing soreness.
...‘My throat’s as rough as the inside of a sea-boot.’
Trim, trig and tickety-boo
Came across the upright word 'trig' in another of Arthur Ransome's charming children's adventure stories, Winter Holiday, which I read...
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