World Book Day

In the UK World Book Day is celebrated on the third Thursday in March. The charity behind it aims to ‘change lives through a love of books and shared reading’. This year children will be able to use their £1 gift vouchers to choose from…

Lost and Found

Last year in July 2020, when we could travel, we visited the RSPB’s Bempton Cliffs nature reserve in North Yorkshire. Every year from March to October the cliffs are host to 200,000 breeding seabirds Gannets, Puffins, Kittiwakes and Guillemots, all nesting on the chalk cliff…

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

This week marks the beginning of the new year in the Chinese calendar. Traditionally the event is celebrated with dragon dances, fire crackers and family gatherings. Sadly this year the celebrations will be more muted, even in Newcastle’s celebrated China Town where the many fabulous…

Erm… what day is it?

How many of us have a 2021 diary which, because of the ongoing restrictions and repeated exhortations to stay home, is still pristine and unused? This third lockdown means our normal routines have been disrupted. I wonder if you too find yourself unable to work…

Book Group

When we read a good book, something magical can happen. Locked down and in our own home we lose ourselves inside a fictional world, created by the imagination of the author but transformed into a virtual reality by our emotional response to the written word….