Mistletoe and wine

NATALIE had done it again: spoken without thinking. Honestly, she sometimes thought she consisted of two people. There was the sensible Natalie who recycled her cardboard, and an inner, loose-lipped N

Sylvia was bored to tears. She almost wished she’d gone with the others to the garden centre. But she’d had it with garden centres, and what was the point when the gardens here were looked after by pr

AMELIA arrives home from her half-day at work. She has the week’s shopping and quickly squirrels everything away, leaving just her children’s magazines on the kitchen table. Seeing she only has three-

SIPPING coffee with Paula in their favourite café, Liz correctly guessed her friend’s first question. “Well, how did your mother-in-law’s visit go?” Liz smiled. “Very well. Justine is lovely, funny an

I LIFT my head to the weak sun and give thanks for having survived another winter. It’s good to see the lane is passable, even if there are ruts and puddles. However, I can still see the bones of icy,

EACH year, before the holiday brochures landed, John’s seed catalogue arrived in the post. Ellen waited, knowing its arrival would bring a flood of memories she wasn’t strong enough to deal with. She