Last weekend the weather here was absolutely beautiful, which was good news for the local celebration known as the Beeston and Chilwell Garden Trail. This is one of my favourite events of the year, though I don’t always manage to attend. In the interests of impartiality, I’m...
I cannot remember how long ago I invented Ragaris, the medieval continent with equal rights for women – it was before I met my husband, so maybe about thirty years ago. And I certainly can’t remember why. You would think that by now I’d have sorted...
What does the Kingdom of God mean? During His earthly ministry, Jesus sent out disciples two by two by preach and heal. They preached “the gospel” and “the kingdom of God”, and I’ve always wondered about the content of their sermons, considering that Christianity and its...
The BBC has an archive, some of which seems to be available online and on Facebook, and recently my cousin Calum Benison has been posting a few snippets showing 1960s news broadcasts about recent innovations in science. My interest in these has been mainly because...
We live on a corner, we use the back (kitchen) door a lot, and the kitchen is easily visible from the garden. Perhaps for this reason, we’ve been burgled several times, and the most recent occasion was last Friday. The drill goes as follows: 11 pm...
This week I thought I'd tell a sad little story that I think could be more widely known. Most of what follows is collated from Wikipedia. It's the story of Sophia Dorothea of Celle. She was born in 1666, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick-Luneberg by...