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It was my mother’s last Christmas, though we didn’t know it then. She was slower, I recall; less stately, less loquacious, less of her all round. The fierce pince-nez on the end of her nose, yet still, her summer rose blush dusted on sharp cheekbones, a black dress, that diamond brooch of twin f

The snow began as I was driving home from Sunday dinner with Maria and her family. Really Christmas, I thought, and felt comforted. Maria’s family had welcomed me as an honoured guest. Probably, I’d thought, the first foreigner ever to enter their home. Certainly the first welcome foreigner.

Oh blimey, Frank. Give me strength. It sweeps the ceiling, stretches to the walls. Their flat smells dark green, of pine-forest. Their rag-rug that they’d made together, over long dark evenings in the hiss of gaslight smelling of fish-glue, is already piled thick with needles. Oh Frank, be careful

The room was a small box full of colour. As they entered, Mohamed was standing behind the counter cutting cloth. Lalani liked the way he cut without cutting, holding the scissor, and running the cloth against it, so that the pieces of silk fell smoothly to either side. ‘Sari jacket?’ La

The soil crunches against Nell’s teeth as she grinds them together. Clumps of earth and small shards of stone cake her gums. Her tongue feels around for pebbles too big to ingest and brings them out from the very back of her mouth. They have no place here. Once identified, she spits them back onto

Seen from a boat, approaching the island through cold, choppy, white-flecked seas, the island of Staffa looks like a dense grey forest of rock off the western coast of Scotland. Columns of basalt push up and then flower out into a puffy, cloud-like summit on top of which the plantlife of the island

‘Now, Joshy!’ Wee-lad launches Nanny’s boot off the zipline platform. Her second-hand Clarks carves a small rainbow, bark chippings tumbling from it as it flies. No often he does as he’s telt these days, Alistair thinks. Or so’s he keeps hearing. They’ve been playing ‘Chuck Nanny

Kicking the thin sward, he brings up chalk in the roots of knapweed and bladder campion. Eyebright, rockrose, sainfoin. In the morning light, Bee Orchids dance dark and purple against the pale green of marjoram. Sun up. Showtime. Julian is eight and every Saturday his father marches him out of th