Posts in category Stories of Life


View of Lourmarin Village, Luberon, Vaucluse, Provence, France
Around ProvenceExploreStories of Life

A million miles away

“Life is what happens when you’re busy doing other things.” Words of wisdom I’ve often heard from a dear friend, for indeed sometimes life does throw you off course and you find yourself in unexpected circumstances. Such was our story …

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Spring blossoms in Lourmarin
Around ProvenceBritainLake TahoeStories of Life

Spring in Provence, England and Lake Tahoe, California

I haven’t written a post for a while, feeling unsure during these difficult times about what people might want to read. Springtime in Provence? But then I’m not actually there, and like most people can’t even get there….. Life on …

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Dreaming of Christmas
Stories of Life

Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas yet to come

December is here. Despite the unprecedented challenges of the year the seasons have changed regardless. The skies of California are still cornflower blue, especially in the Tahoe mountains where we’re living for a few months, but winter has arrived. There’s …

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Remembering Alex Manfull~À Table Project to fight PANDAS
LourmarinStories from LourmarinStories of Life

À Table! PANDAS ~remembering Alex

The COVID pandemic has consumed us all. My heart goes out to those that have lost loved ones and the debt owed to our health care workers can never be repaid. Globally the world has been tipped on its axis. …

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Rainbow over Mt Diablo, Danville California
Stories of Life

Unprecedented times, stay safe & well my friends……

These are unprecedented times. As I type those words, I cannot help but think of another unprecedented time when the world faced a different peril. I’ve often wondered if I’d been alive then, would I have had what it takes …

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LondonStories of LifeUzes

Speaking at The Pilsudski Institute about the Poles who cracked Enigma

I’m delighted to have been invited to speak at the Pilsudski Institute, London on May 14th 2019 about my novel  THE SUNFLOWER FIELD Interwoven with a modern day, fictitious wartime mystery, THE SUNFLOWER FIELD  tells the true story of three Polish mathematicians who …

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The Lourmarin clock tower in autumn, Luberon, Provence
DiscoverStories from LourmarinStories of Life

Our house in Lourmarin Part 2~ when all is not so wonderful!

Don’t you ever wonder when you ask your friends how they are and they always say ‘wonderful’? Really, always wonderful, no-one’s life is wonderful all of the time, is it? I know I’m a sharer, I write a blog after …

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View through the shutters of a maison de village in Lourmarin, Provence, France
DiscoverLourmarinStories of Life

Our house in Lourmarin, Provence

Back in March I wrote about the excitement of returning somewhere special, to Lourmarin, quoting from Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” I also mentioned that I had an appointment with a real estate agent…. …

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The Sunflower Field, a World War II novel about the Polish code breakers who first broke the Enigma code
Stories of LifeUzes

The Sunflower Field ~ the story of who first cracked the Enigma Code

‘The Sunflower Field,’ my debut novel, is written to honor the ‘few’, of which there were thousands, who during World War II, in words inspired by Winston Churchill, “gave so much, for so many.” In particular for three of those ‘few’, the …

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Serendipity in a connected world
Stories of Life

Serendipity ~ Michigan to New York to Uzes to San Francisco

My life, as an English girl living in California in love with Provence, spending time in these three special places is made easier by just how interconnected our world has become. Sometimes I feel it’s as if we live in a iridescent spiders web of …

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