The sun is shining after days of dreich. A young friend rings up. She is twelve. She has been asked to write a critical essay on Little Red Riding Hood and she doesn’t understand it and she doesn’t know where to start and she would like me to help her. I’ve been offering any tutoringContinue reading “15th January, 2021. Give it to the Page.”
Author Archives: Tania Kindersley
7th January, 2021. Anarchy and Famous Blue Raincoats.
There is madness in America. I don’t really know how to write about this. Watching from far away, I found the noise and the lunacy and the fire and the fury not quite real. My brain could not compute or calibrate. Who were these people, and what were they doing, and what did they want?Continue reading “7th January, 2021. Anarchy and Famous Blue Raincoats.”
6th January, 2021. Words and Flight.
The sun is shining and the world is blue and gold and white. It has gone silent again, as everybody is indoors, confined to barracks. The normal mutter and chug of the diggers and tractors and vans is missing; the occasional shouts and whoops and hoots of laughter that filter through my window are gone. Continue reading “6th January, 2021. Words and Flight.”
5th January, 2021. Birdsong.
It is just before eight in the morning and two little birds are singing outside my window. One has a high, light, staccato beat, a kind of tik-tik-tik. One is singing lower and longer, a bass note by comparison. They sing in harmonious unison for a while; sometimes together, sometimes as a call and response. Continue reading “5th January, 2021. Birdsong.”
4th January, 2021. Midnight and Bridget.
I got a little bamboozled over the weekend. The whole point of this new diary – and this new year and this new resolution – was that it would not be predicated on the lockdown. It would not be doom and gloom and pandemic and we are all going to die. It was going toContinue reading “4th January, 2021. Midnight and Bridget.”
January 1st, 2021.
I’m not going to call this The Lockdown Diary any more. I’ve had it with 2020, and I have decided that 2021 is the year I choose hope. The pandemic is still out there, and the news still feels fierce and threatening. I suddenly realise that I did not even write about the vaccine whenContinue reading “January 1st, 2021.”
Lockdown Diary: New Year’s Eve. Farewell to 2020.
Oh, I was going to write you such an end-of-the-year post. It was going to be magnificent. It would have everything in it and it would send you into 2021 with a smile on your face and a dance in your step. But my work ran away with me and now it’s 6.45pm and IContinue reading “Lockdown Diary: New Year’s Eve. Farewell to 2020.”
Lockdown Diary: Day Two Hundred and Eighty-Two.
I was going to write you so many lovely things. And then I lost four days down the back of the sofa and I can’t remember the lovely things now and I have only the recollection of a blur of insomnia and a faint feeling of unreality. This whole diary was supposed to be aContinue reading “Lockdown Diary: Day Two Hundred and Eighty-Two.”
Christmas Day.
Morning light in the field. Me in the field, ready to give the mares their festive carrots and some extra hay on account of the snow. The red mare was pleased. Lunch for one. A very generous elf left a bottle of the good claret on the doorstep. I haven’t opened it yet. I’m justContinue reading “Christmas Day.”
Lockdown Diary: Day Two Hundred and Seventy-Six. Christmas Eve.
Today started off with the most ridiculous levels of loveliness. Snow had come in the night and the sun was shining and I had a special Christmas Eve FaceTime with my dear friends in Wales and New Zealand. One of them was riding through the valleys on her horse (technology really is a miracle) andContinue reading “Lockdown Diary: Day Two Hundred and Seventy-Six. Christmas Eve.”
Tania Kindersley 