TraceyDoxey

Nipping to Cleethorpes is not traveling, in the wider sense but taking a trip out of a land-locked city to the nearest north east coastal town. It’s about taking a chance – on weather, light, emotions, friendships, whether your boots are water proof, if you are hungry – quite possibly anything but the biggest factor is being open to the possibility of feeling free. If all these things come together – the result is pure gold. Cleethorpes now signifies that possibility for one friend and I – it’s a chance of soul-rinsing. You see, you never know what you will find when you get there and – in the fading English Winter light, you can find it all. It’s all there. On the platform at Sheffield station, slipping in with the crowds waiting for the same ... read more

Sunday 24th June 7am Summer rain in the time-borrowed garden. Everything is drenched, rain heavy, dripping - the air, the hedgerows, grass, foxgloves, roofs and pathways are all rain covered. The rain rebounds off the old pigsty roof, dancing up and down. It sings a song around me. The rain-showers become a chorus repeating back and forth in between the verses of quiet. It is 7am and I am in garden of an old house in the Arkwright village of Cromford. It is void of human interaction, no cars, no neighbours, everyone is sleeping inside and I can clearly hear the patterns of the shifting rain. Above the valley, the mist is rising and the clouds sink down. I can just make out the horizon. The gardens overlap, divided by old dry-stone walls, obsolete pig stys, ... read more

I sit below the falling ash.A winter bonfire is crackling to my right being fed by seven behatted fire-feeders with a possible combined age of 490 years They feed the furious flames with branches from these old self-seeded trees that litter the cemetery. Ash falls like snow. This place is a quiet haven, holding some of the great families of Sheffield’s dead. The orchestra assemble to practice in the church, in the warm – away from this sharp frost – I saw only one young among them arrive on his bike with his violin on his back. I can hear the saxophonist practicing in the nave. Ash in my hair. Two trees have grown from the body of Albert Edward Waterfall, dead and buried 147 years ago. Albert senior joined his son 59 years later – ... read more

6.19am, I wake knowing my tall daughter is sleeping next to me. it takes me a while to figure out the day and the reason. 6.20am, I realise I’m 48 years old. She’s always been able to sleep through anything but I still get out of bed without stirring the covers of making a sound. She sleeps on with long arms sticking out of my short clothes. the stairs are different. they creak. walking through the front room, light flooding across the floor, my son sleeps stretched out on the day bed with his back to the window. I pad past him because he is a light sleeper but my saving grace here is that he is almost deaf in one ear. I hope the ear that I can see, cannot hear me. But I only ... read more

As I lie in at the house of my great friend in Chiswick, I can hear the rain falling on the french doors and can see that the blossom in the yard has grown into pompoms. The house is a non stop flow of people staying and coming and going, eating great family dinners, talking around the table and laughing and supporting each other. These are the reasons why your home country can beat extended living abroad - hands down. I still hanker for travel to Tibet, India and Bhutan but sometimes, most times, actually - every time, the company of friends and those bi-annual times when you get your kids in the same place at the same time are priceless. Here live people from Mozambique, New Zealand, Uruguay and around the corner, they bring the ... read more