Blog
Friday morning with gorillas
If you want to see gorillas you can go to the zoo any time you like. But if you want gorillas to see you, it’s important to pick the right day. You need to go early on a weekday in the middle of winter, when the giraffes have all gone, and the butterfly enclosure is […]
The eternal question
Which is better, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? When I was little, the answer seemed obvious. It was Christmas Day of course. Christmas Day was the prize, the blessed goal, the breaking of a fever that had lasted for weeks. It didn’t make sense to prefer the day before. But now it’s more the Christmas […]
By the river
The best moments come when you least expect them. I was in London last week, visiting my publishers to talk about plans for my new book The Secret Life of Daisy Fitzjohn (Brightwood in the US). It was a lovely meeting. The book had been difficult to write. It had gone through multiple drafts and […]
Happy Birthday RLS
There’s so much I love about the short, adventurous life of Robert Louis Stevenson. I love the romantic figure he cut with his long hair and velvet jackets. His extraordinary passion for travel. The way he didn’t learn to read or write until the age of seven, and had to dictate to his nurse, because […]