On New Year’s Eve, my friend Lil and I drove through the torrential rain to Pakiri to see the new year in with sister Damaris (Adie)...

Last Christmas, I had all six of my children with me, as well as most of their children. I worked myself to the bone to create a...

Daughter Frankie, her daughter Olive, and I are going to Blenheim, then Hokitika as her 2-week stay in Auckland and Leigh draws to a...

Frankie and her baby Olive, nearly two, have come to stay with me at my little cottage in Leigh. They live in Blenheim, where Frankie...

It is hard to watch a grown man fail to kick a ball between two posts and thus seal the fate of mighty warriors while the General looks...

I received rather alarming news on my return from Paris, saying my arteries are more calcified than 99 out of 100 women aged between 65...

Montmartre I went to Montmartre and stood in the church on top of the hill, which I had gazed at so many evenings while Maryse blew her...

By loving Maryse, I fell in love with Paris. She was an old enchantress who stalked her prey with charm, played with them for a while,...

My ex-husband, who wasn't my ex then, and my three younger children lived in the small coastal fishing village of Sete in the south of...

I fell in love with Maryse with the kind of love you feel for an innocent creature who loves and seeks love, understanding only that...

There is a newspaper cutting hanging inside a cupboard in Maryse’s kitchen. It has been very carefully cut out and pasted so that when...

I am now sleeping at Maryse’s apartment with 2,000 books. One day, when I return from school, I see Maryse talking to the people who sell...

Maryse likes me, and I am moving from an arrondissement named after Diderot, the editor of The Encyclopédie, and a hamlet called Reuilly,...

Versailles is very different from Josette’s house, but in its opulence, it is just as unfriendly. It is a good example of what infinite...

It is the morning, and I have slept in for the first time. I step out from the metro into a spring day, and I know I should love Paris in...

It is the day of the fête. In the morning, I have to clear out of the house so Josette can prepare for the 15 people coming for lunch,...

On Saturday, before the fete on Sunday, I met my friend Patricia. She is from Sete in the South of France, where Michael, our three boys,...

The week passes in a sort of daze. I am woken by someone in the bathroom at varying times very early every morning. I don’t know if it's...

I wake up at 6 am and go to the bathroom. I'm not sure if anyone is in it, but the light is on. I give a little tap on the door, and a...

This morning, I leave for Paris, and I have not slept a wink as the prospect of getting from Berlin to Paris on my own with a...