My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.

So many (too many) books are published every year, and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!

Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else's eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.

He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.

I have consistently loved books that I've read when I've been sick in bed.

As I get older, I use less jewelry - necklace or earrings each morning, not both; my clothes are getting more basic - fewer colours and simpler cuts; and my make-up is stripped back to basics.

We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.