P. D. Clifton

It’s Lizzie and my daily walk with the dog. We do the same route we always do, over the fields by Bunton, then circling back so we’re walking towards the North Cotswolds – which stretch out slumberingly across the horizon. Peppered across the fields to either side of us, are hundreds of sapling trees protected…

Lizzie walks into the living room and peers at the screen of my laptop. I cover the screen with my hand. ‘Don’t look! You can’t!’ I squeal. ‘What are you writing about? My cancer?’ asks Lizzie, perfectly reasonably. ‘That… and other things. But largely that,’ I reply. I suddenly feel embarrassed. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be…

OK, due to popular demand, below is another picture of our dog Cedric. Clearly I do love him, don’t I? I should stop deluding myself. Whenever we take Cedric for a walk around our village, the other dogs in the place go nuts. Clearly, they can sense that Cedric is a wrong ‘un. Like the…

So… I’m going to give myself precisely one hour (well, one hour and a bit) to write about our dog, Cedric. Sorry to say it, but I’m not sure he deserves any more! Also, it’s late and I’m tired… I’ve just spent three and a quarter hours cooking and doing the family laundry… and I…

[Continued from previous post]. I think back to when my father was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph and lungs – when I was in my twenties. It just didn’t cross my mind that he might die. It didn’t seem to be a possibility. I continued thinking he’d be OK even when his cancer didn’t…

When I ask Lizzie how she’s feeling about everything, as I’ve mentioned before she usually says something along the lines of ‘oh, fuck off’ – which is actually strangely reassuring. Better that she’s feeling feisty, than miserable. Other times, when she’s not swearing at me, she might be a little more philosophical. ‘I can’t just…

I’m writing this… FROM THE FUTURE! Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say… I’m writing this from the present. It’s Sunday February 12th 2023 (the same day this blog entry has been posted). It’s NOW! My now anyway, as I write this. Any of you who read the introduction to this blog will…

This morning, as a ‘memory’ my phone flashes up a picture I’ve taken of a bunny. Lovely! Except it isn’t. This isn’t a nice, happy living bunny. It’s a horribly deformed dead bunny. In fact, I took the picture of the bunny in the summer… when we found it in the middle of the lawn,…

There would have been a time, before we moved to the countryside, when I would have been bothered at the idea of mice – or rats – invading our bathroom (OK, the idea of rats I am still bothered by. Let’s just hope it isn’t rats…). But, when you move to the country, I think…

It’s eleven o’clock at night. Lizzie is asleep in our bedroom and I’m doing a wee in our adjoining bathroom (I’d say ‘en suite’ except the bathroom also has a door onto the main upstairs hallway – like some kind of weird, half-arsed ‘Jack and Jill’ set-up). As I wee, I suddenly hear something… a…