After all the designing and re-designing and searching for the materials and cussing and working… we have a woodshed. Anyone who thinks it’s too large needs to think that we have to have a roof over it, and a roof high enough off the floor that we don’t have to crouch when we go insideContinue reading “Ready for winter”
Author Archives: juliachalkley
Walking with Llamas
Well. After three cancellations due to Covid and really wet weather, we finally got the chance to walk with llamas at Briery Hill Farm Llamas. It was – surreal. We were taken to the male llamas’ pen and every hairy head turned our way. We were introduced to each llama and their main personality –Continue reading “Walking with Llamas”
Not quite Chicklit
I almost didn’t finish the story for the Globe Soup competition, but I don’t like being defeated by a writing challenge. The request was for a story with the theme “Knowledge is Power”, word limit 2,000 words, and I was put into the group asked to write in the genre Chicklit. I hate the term,Continue reading “Not quite Chicklit”
The Hay Wain, 200 years on
We went to Colchester Castle on Saturday to see a play based around Constable’s painting ‘The Hay Wain’, which is 200 years old this year. The play imagined the lives of the farmworkers who would have been depicted in Constable’s painting as the people sitting on the wain, and as little white dots in theContinue reading “The Hay Wain, 200 years on”
Jelly Roll Julia
Last year, I managed to get 1.5 kilogrammes of fruit from our John Downie crabapple tree, and made one jar of crabapple jelly from it. It looked like molten rubies and tasted sharp and sweet together. I said then that I would make sure of gathering the fruit from that tree earlier next year, ofContinue reading “Jelly Roll Julia”
Putting the tin lid on it
We’ve been spending time over the last year designing and constructing a woodshed for ourselves. We started by looking at other people’s woodsheds, but they didn’t answer what we needed – all were fairly small, designed to keep out of the way against a wall or fence and house a shipment of seasoned wood droppedContinue reading “Putting the tin lid on it”
Dot Dot Dot
The treat we chose for the last day of August was a day at Sudbury Quay theatre for Dot Production’s adaptation of ‘Jane Eyre’. We saw their version of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ in 2019, and we’re still raving about it to friends. With only five actors, we assumed they’d cut the part of Margaret theContinue reading “Dot Dot Dot”
All the way to the end
This year’s Essex Book Festival was partly online, partly on site, and wholly excellent. I was in the Zoom for the first event on June 3rd, and again for the Festival ‘opener’ on June 6th (‘We Need To Talk About Essex Girls’), and today I was at the grand closing event at Cressing Temple Barns.Continue reading “All the way to the end”
A Grand Day Out
Return to Cressing Temple Barns today, taking my husband with me for a more leisurely visit, rather than the guided tour with the Essex Book Festival. It was good to wander around with no group, no purpose, though the guide last time was a real asset. This time, we had a long walk through bothContinue reading “A Grand Day Out”
Rain, at last
Last week, we had a prediction of hot and sunny over the weekend followed by cooler, cloudier weather from Monday. What actually happened was hot and sunny Saturday, really hot Sunday (for Britain, that is – Australians would laugh their socks off at me calling 29 degrees C ‘hot’) and then a hot and clammyContinue reading “Rain, at last”
Julia Chalkley 