Libraries are treasured places. We may remember visiting a local library in childhood to explore an early delight in reading. Or perhaps we have come to value them in later […]
Most of us can remember our first kiss, whether it was glorious and transporting or merely awkward. Kissing, it transpires, can happen anywhere – on a train, in a city […]
Coco Chanel declared a hat to be essential when lunching with people one didn’t know very well. These days such pretensions may seem old hat but we still set store […]
We barely notice hedges; there is something intrinsically marginal about them – although they are likely to seize our attention when they shine with blackberries or when a bramble snags […]
In our Almanac for 2024 there are twelve beautiful poems, old and new. We open with a poem that moves from mud and greyness to a vision of springtime-in-waiting, glimpsed […]
A simple and almost old-fashioned word, kindness is an underestimated virtue in our increasingly hectic and impersonal world. These generous poems remind us that kindness can take many forms and […]
