Our cat remains a popular ‘search topic’ on this blog. So perhaps it’s time for an update.
About 18 months ago our 14-year-old cat collapsed and lay miserably for a few days on a drip in the corner of a cage at the local animal hospital. She was diagnosed with lymphoma and prescribed a year of [...]

Here I am on one of my favourite sofas in the Friends’ Room at the Royal Academy of Arts. Over the years, on this very sofa or the ones next to it, I’ve discussed all manner of things with friends from near and far. We’ve met here partly to look at paintings and partly to have coffee and talk. [...]

‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’
It’s funny how the first flowers of the year – crocuses, daffodils, aconites -seem especially vivid in colour. Are they really brighter than other flowers, or do they just strike us that way because our eyes have gradually adapted to the long drabness of winter? I found these gorgeous things in the [...]

If you would like to read the excerpts from ‘Out of Silence’ in today’s Guardian, click here.

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The Guardian is publishing excerpts from Out of Silence in the Review section on Saturday 20 March. I’ll post the link on Saturday when I know it.
In the meantime, many thanks to everyone who silently toasted my book from several different countries and three continents on Thursday evening at my ‘virtual book launch party’. It was rather [...]