Rosa Maria Arquimbau: Quaranta anys perduts (Forty Lost Years)

The latest addition to my website is Rosa Maria Arquimbau‘s Quaranta anys perduts (Forty Lost Years). The novel tells the story of Laura Vidal, a Barcelona woman, from Francesc Macià declaring Catalan independence (14 April 1931) to 1971. She becomes a dressmaker and does reasonably well. However, the vicissitudes of life in Catalonia affect her, … Read more

Thomas Hardy and Athelhampton

We managed to travel further afield than the neighbouring town for the first time for a while this week and headed down to Dorset for a long break. En route we stopped off at Athelhampton, a privately owned house, dating from the fifteen century, though people had built on the site well before that. It … Read more