Tag Archives: Shakespeare

So long as we can breathe or eyes can see

Posted on November 29, 2025 by lesleyjonesberry

Mum’s friend, Joyce, is in hospital and I visited her yesterday.  Mum and Joyce. They met, and served together, in the Second World War and they kept in touch for the rest of their lives. They lived 240 miles apart … Continue reading →

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Turtles all the way down

Posted on October 8, 2025 by lesleyjonesberry

I returned to my therapist last weekend. I feel I can write that in an expectation that you, dear reader, will respond with an ‘oh, yes’ of recognition. But I do want at least to try to check my privilege … Continue reading →

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Apples

Posted on July 21, 2025 by lesleyjonesberry

We spent five days walking with Refugee Tales. It was a rich experience, with the underlying shapes of pilgrimage, of political protest march, of migration and the search for refuge – of the human condition which is forever transient. Here is … Continue reading →

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Failure

Posted on May 2, 2025 by lesleyjonesberry

Yesterday I felt a failure. The feeling is unpleasant, heavy and upsetting. It brought tears and held me immobile and helpless for a while.  I don’t often feel a failure. I realise that I put significant energies into avoiding the feeling. I like … Continue reading →

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Hacked off

Posted on April 9, 2025 by lesleyjonesberry

After a few years of ignoring the flaking paint and a pervasive drop in temperature as one enters our kitchen, we have taken a deep breath, drawn ourselves up to our full height as responsible adults, and are “having the … Continue reading →

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Keeping time

Posted on June 24, 2023 by lesleyjonesberry

I left St Paul’s Cathedral at about ten minutes to 8 after a service of Choral Evensong, followed by a mindfulness session and the opportunity to walk the labyrinth installed under the dome:  the Chartres design printed on heavy canvas … Continue reading →

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Because Twitter is too brief

Posted on April 22, 2023 by lesleyjonesberry

David Bradley tweeted this morning, a reply to someone called Lewis Capaldi about a pop video.  This led me to watch the video – and cry – and feel myself a little connected with the modern world.  I don’t often … Continue reading →

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I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be

Posted on June 5, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

I encountered T.S. Eliot when I was about 17;  Shakespeare I’d known a little longer.   Lines like these – allusions which I could actually catch (and Eliot was hugely allusive, especially in his earlier work) – played a part in the thrill of recognition I felt on first reading him.  I still, vividly,  remember starting to read the Four Quartets for the first time – at home, in the ‘front room’ as we called it (a whole socio-economic digression possible in that term.  I will resist). Continue reading →

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It is time to speak of Julia

Posted on January 30, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

I am re-reading Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. It’s a striking, indulgent, flawed novel, I think. Not entirely successful, but somehow it communicates a – to me, irresistible – sense of beauty, loss and yearning which repeatedly draws me back. … Continue reading →

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The Mad Woman in the Attic

Posted on January 2, 2022 by lesleyjonesberry

Sometimes I dream of being in a familiar house, opening a door and finding a forgotten room. This is a common dream theme, a recurrent trope. The discovery brings with it with a strange small mis-step lurch of emotion: how … Continue reading →

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