WE nearly owned a cat once. He caused something of a neighbourhood dispute, too. My other half advised keeping our heads down because of it, but I really couldn’t do that when pegging out the washing.

DINNER time, Duncan!” I call, setting down a dish of the expensive cat food the vet recommended on the kitchen floor. Duncan trots in, sniffs it suspiciously, gives me one of his disdainful stares and

JILL tries to avoid talking to herself but always allows private laugh-out-loud moments when there’s no one around. This morning, standing alone in her spare bedroom, arms heavily loaded with a huge p

A s I write this, just a week before Christmas, it’s a wonderfully frantic time in the office as we sign off magazines and race to meet deadlines, all in the hope of enjoying a well-deserved rest over

IN years to come, when Sebastian was looking back on this moment, he was for ever reminded of this P.G. Wodehouse quote – “Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing

I WOKE up after a vivid dream of Eleanor. I’d had quite a few recently. Eleanor was my half-sister. She was older than me – the daughter of Dad’s first wife, Dorrie. My mum only found out he had a fir