by Marlene Bumgarner | May 16, 2016 | Cooking and Eating, Travel, Writing
I will be on a writing retreat in Greece for the next two weeks, so my posts will be intermittent and with a Greek background. I hope you enjoy the journey with me. We arrived in Athens yesterday morning, and made our way to the Metro and then to Monistiraki...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Dec 21, 2015 | Christmas in Yorkshire, England, Family
Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Nov 9, 2015 | Community, England, Family, Grandparenting
“Grandma, tell me something sad from when you were a little girl.” Four (“and a half”) year old Bean is sitting behind me in the car, eating her snack and looking at the ocean beside the highway. I made a decision when I began driving her...
by Marlene Bumgarner | May 11, 2015 | Aging, England, Family
One of my earliest memories of early childhood was marching around the kitchen table with my mother along with radio personality Don McNeal and his Breakfast Club. We would march and laugh and duck under the table and laugh, and . . . then we would wash the breakfast...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Dec 29, 2014 | Christmas in Yorkshire
I left Yorkshire yesterday and traveled by train over the Pennines (“the backbone of England”) to Lancashire and members of the other side of my family tree. Before leaving, however, I started writing the story of Libby Clegg, a fictitious little girl...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Dec 21, 2014 | Christmas in Yorkshire
I’ve been in England for eleven days. Between the long list of tasks that come with taking an international trip and a full schedule of visits to friends, relatives, and events since I arrived, all wonderful, I’ve become less and less engaged, and less and...