Join me on a new adventure - you don't need to like Marmite

Adventure

Beyond a postcard

David always says that posting on Instagram is similar to sending a postcard, you find a pretty picture, write a few sentences of news, and post it.

But more often than not I want to write more, which won’t fit on a postcard, it would not fit on two postcards, it would perhaps fit on the page of a diary, which got me thinking about diaries.

I have just been reading all of my mother’s. Encouraged by her parents she has meticulously kept one every year since she learnt to write. Some entries overflow with amusing anecdotes, or linger on a moment in time, brilliantly observed, other entries are simply factual, in March 1937 for instance, in her large childish seven-year-old handwriting it says, ‘Tea at Buckingham Palace’. Oh, how I wish there was more, although we have been able to piece together much of those years and times from other diaries.

Substack

When recently Claire, our Top Banana who joined us from England nearly twenty years ago, mentioned that she simply did not read long posts I began to wonder if there was somewhere else that I should be sharing these stretched bits of writing. This led me to Substack, where sharp, witty, unapologetic writers, journalists, and artists are publishing their work to a community who want to read something a little longer than a postcard and without the interruption of ads or the agony of algorithms.

I am an accidental writer, perhaps more of a diarist, documenting my own particular pattern of living with a dash of history and I hope a touch of humor, recording the passage of time along the way.

The photographs above certainly establish that I am old enough to have experienced time passing. The first photograph, taken by David, my father, is of my sister and me on Windermere Island, in the Bahamas. I must be about five years old; wouldn’t you say? I remember the grass skirt; it was itchy and hot, and I am curling my toes in protest. The second photograph was taken by David, my husband, last week, in the same spot, fifty years later, with my own five children.

Join me

Emboldened by the many comments that were left on that recent post (loved ‘Banana Claire may be the boss but keep writing’) I will remain on Instagram with my postcards, but now on Substack, with my diary entries, posting voice notes, podcasts, previews, and perhaps even publishing pages of books to come.

This all feels like the edge of possibility…

Subscription Details

FREE

For new and current friends, you may like to read a few favorite entries from my “official” website shared here and have a listen to a podcast or two to get to know me and more importantly my astonishing Mum.

PAID

Curious friends, joining me on this new journey, thank you, there is an un-alarming monthly or annual subscription which will give you a deeper dive into the archives, longer stories from the past and present, and generally just more of more, without the interruption of ads or the agony of algorithms.

FOUNDING FRIENDS

And for fierce founding friends, work is always in progress to bring some exciting exclusive moments for you — a monthly musing to include confessions and conversations, riveting reveals and a deeper dive into my mother's Muniment room.