Author Archives: Elaine Elkington

Walking up Ludgate Hill from Fleet Street, I was about to cross the road towards St Paul’s Cathedral … when this stopped me in my tracks … and there were more! I don’t know what these sculptures represent and so I’ve just put in my own interpretation of the faces. They are magnificent. ‘Emily Young […]

Sales of soap have rocketed during ‘coronavirus’. A gift of soap has always been welcome – our forced early return from Greece in March, Covid-19 snapping at our heels, had six bars of orange scented olive soap tucked into my luggage, which were happily received by friends. I began to think of the origins of […]

Working from home during ‘coronavirus’ lockdown has meant that toast and marmalade, which we usually only have for breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays has been added to our normal weekday fare of yoghourt with cereal, fruit and nuts. Our best choice is ‘Duchy’, organic thick cut but we’ve had to cast around when that wasn’t […]

The weather in mid-April seemed to range from one extreme to another – damp and cloudy to bright, hot and sunny, still and serene, to windy, gusty and sometimes stormy grey, with raindrops obliterating themselves, almost like machine gun fire, at the window. ‘Coronavirus’ keeps me ‘safe’ at home and I watch these weather patterns, […]

We’re meant to be in Lisbon now, with trips to Sintra and Porto but all is lost, owing to ‘coronavirus’. My first ever visit to Lisbon wasn’t so long ago – so I’m re-engaging virtually. This is a beautiful city on the River Tagus – which is very wide and rolls down into the Atlantic […]

A surprising happening … my spiny cactus suddenly burst out with all these flowers … Shockingly glorious! I love ‘pink’.

I was aged ten when I went to the boarding school of St Mary and St Anne, Abbots Bromley, in 1957. Seven years later, in 1963, I left to explore the world. In July 2019, there was an article in ‘The Times’ about Abbots Bromley closing down. It had changed over the years from a […]

Last September I had been complaining that a ‘real’ holiday, not accompanied by work, had become, more and more, a ‘pipe dream’. ‘Well, just book something and I’ll fit in with it’, said John, as if he was batting away a mosquito. I had just got a brochure from ‘Travel Editions’. One of the trips […]

I don’t know if it’s a case of getting older but I do sometimes re-read books I have loved. These include ‘The Greengage Summer’ by Rumer Godden, ‘The Lady Vanishes’ by Ethel Lina White, ‘The Balkan Trilogy’ by Olivia Manning, ‘Hotel du Lac’ by Anita Brookner, ‘Unreliable Memoirs’ by Clive James (after his recent death), […]

So often, Christmas Day is disappointing weather wise. But in 2019 it was beautiful – no snow, which would also have looked beautiful, but bright sunshine in a blue bowl of sky. On our way across the Common we passed the giant tree, which reminded us of a heartbreaking accident. Iris Goldsmith died, aged fifteen, […]