Author Archives: Scribe Doll
Adventures with Chicken Soup
My acupuncturist takes a quick look at my tongue. “You’ve got a low blood count,” she says. I smile and roll my eyes, thinking of how my GP had to draw blood and process it for a whole week before … Continue reading
Posted in Odds & Ends, Uncategorized
Tagged acupuncture, chicken soup, humour, katherine gregor, scribe doll, writing
10 Comments
Luxembourg Wine
In Anglo-Viking-Flemish Norwich, a Londoner and a Roman invited a Venetian for dinner at their home. The Venetian had some Austrian, Spanish, and Moroccan blood, the Londoner originally came from a Polish-Jewish family, and the Roman was of Armenian-Welsh-Cornish descent. … Continue reading
Posted in Odds & Ends
Tagged Brexit, Europe, katherine gregor, languages, Luxembourg, musings, scribe doll, writing
6 Comments
Future of the UK or Dystopian Nightmare?
The UK borders have closed. There is no longer free travel in or out of the country and a tourist visa is granted only to travellers able to prove a bank account balance of 1 million pounds minimum. London has … Continue reading
Posted in Odds & Ends, Uncategorized
20 Comments
Just a Bit of Fun at the Expense of One English Social Stereotype*
We went to London last week, and stayed in Fulham, where I lived for several very happy years. For the information of non-Londoners, it’s an area in the South-West of the capital, a twenty-minute Tube ride from the West End … Continue reading
Posted in Half-English Observations
Tagged Fulham, humour, Hurray Henrys, katherine gregor, musings, scribe doll, Sloanes
5 Comments
Books: Challenges, Traumas and Pure Pleasure
I remember a stormy night when I was about eleven. We were living in Nice. I don’t remember what prompted me. I stood on a chair to reach the top shelf of my mother’s bookcase where she kept – along with … Continue reading
Posted in Odds & Ends, Uncategorized
Tagged books, katherine gregor, musings, reading, scribe doll, writing
10 Comments
London Night Sounds
The rumbling of the occasional car, speeding past our house. A murky grey sound. Snippets of human voices. A woman’s giggle. A crimson sound. The arrhythmic clicking of stiletto heels on the pavement. A copper sound. The roar of the … Continue reading
Seven Quirks of British Restaurants
No.1 Is everything O.K.? Have you noticed how waiters wait for the exact moment when you have your mouth full, before they ask you that? I often try and cheat them by staging my forkfuls when they’re not around but, … Continue reading
Posted in Half-English Observations
14 Comments
Voice, Stone, Wood and Air as One
I love Early music. I love its level-headedness, its lack of mood swings. It’s everlasting YES. Part of the reason I listen mostly to Mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque music throughout the day is because, besides its being soothing and immensely … Continue reading
Posted in Odds & Ends, Uncategorized
Tagged early music, Guillaume de Machaut, katherine gregor, Mediaeval music, musings, norwich cathedral, polyphony, scribe doll, writing
13 Comments
A Tree with a Name Beginning with S
“I need a new tree friend,” I say to S. “A tree like my oak Merlin, outside my window in Wimbledon.” My new friend S. is a children’s and young adult fiction writer. She doesn’t find anything odd or unusual … Continue reading
Posted in Odds & Ends, Uncategorized
Tagged cedar of lebanon, katherine gregor, norwich cathedral, scribe doll, trees, writing
14 Comments
Zebras at the Opera House
Last night, I eagerly tuned in to the BBC Radio 3 live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, of Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot. It’s one of my favourite operas. I didn’t listen to it till the very end, though, because … Continue reading
Scribe Doll 