Have Broom, Will Travel ... How I learned to love Halloween #ThrowbackThursday


October used to find me wishing I could be a witchy woman. But that flew out the window when I became a mother and the holiday wasn’t all about me anymore.

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Above Ground on the London Underground—Day 18: HELP! I’m nowhere near Abbey Road

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I’m taking a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide and my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings. I'm back on track, following the Piccadilly Line. This is Day 18. Today I ’ m heading out from Boston Manor Station ,  that beautiful example of art deco architecture, taking an inbound stroll along the Piccadilly Line route.  Passing South Ealing my plan is to hit Gunnersby Park in Chiswick, where there’s a lake—do all British parks come with lakes? are there ladies of the lakes too?—a history museum, a ‘small mansion’ and several other ‘historically significant buildings’ including a folly or two.  Follies are those imaginative little structures that don’t do anything except add a magical touch of interest to a garden. From the French for stupidity, a folly suggests some real purpose, but lacks it comp
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My Mother’s Voice

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Alzheimer’s being the conniving thieving bitch that  it is, my mother wasn’t herself in the final years of her life. The  woman I visited in the Alzheimer’s special care unit was a stranger wearing my mother’s skin but not much else, like the invasion of the body snatchers had taken place, month after month beneath the surface, until one day we looked and the woman we knew was gone, replaced by some alien being. An imposter. Intruder alert. Intruder alert. She died on Friday the 13th in 2012. My real mother —not the stranger in a wheel chair, head nodding on her shoulder—Enid Maude Good nee Hayden,  was British-born and had a lovely London lilt to her voice her whole life even though she left England in the mid-1950’s. I suppose at thirty, her vocal patterns were already frozen in place.  Sounding like a cross between Deborah Kerr and Judi Dench, there was something warm and welcoming, layered with a cool crispness, in her voice. She charmed everyone I ever knew when she called
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#11 BEACH MUSIC: A time of tans, blonds and hot pants

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